Review: Earlier in the year, U.S disco and house legend Danny Krivit took his scalpel to Emilie Nana's super single "I Rise", a warm and woozy fusion of shuffling beats, visions of Shiva chords, blissful electronic melodies and stylish spoken word vocals. Now Compost has turned the track over to another bona fide U.S legend, Wave Music man and former Prelude remixer Francois Kevorkian. Predictably, he does a superb job, re-casting Nana's original as a constantly building cosmic house epic on his superb, near 12-minute "Journey Vocal" version. His subtle percussive changes and ear for atmosphere come to the fore on the suitably trippy and head-in-the-clouds dancefloor Dub, while the "Bonus Beats" take sees him layering up the drums and effects with incredibly impressive results.
Review: Hearty congratulations to Michael Reinboth, whose Compost Records' imprint recently celebrated its 25th birthday. As a way of marking this momentous occasion, the label has conjured up this expansive compilation, which offers up a blend of fresh remixes of label classics, overlooked revisions, bonus cuts and the odd hard-to-find classic (see Move D's superb "Hurt Me", which first appeared on the imprint in the mid-90s). Highlights are plentiful from start to finish, with Roman Flugel's throbbing rework of Beanfield's "Human Patterns", I:Cube's LFO-influenced re-make of A Forest Mighty Black's "Fresh In My Mind", Joakim's funk-fuelled acid take on Marbert Rocel's "Dance Slow" and Die Orangen's wonderfully druggy interpretation of Marsmobil's "Sometimes I Don't Regret" all catching the ear.
Review: Scene veteran Sean Brosnan is the selector behind Future Disco's latest all-action collection of nu-disco and disco-inspired house cuts, which is here presented in DJ-friendly, unmixed form. As usual, you'll find a clutch of recent peak-time club hits - see Louie Vega's fantastic rework of Sylvester's "Dance", the brilliant E-Live Remix of Saucy Lady's boogie-powered "Together" and Danny Krvit's simultaneously stomping and spacey Extended Vocal Dub Edit of Emilie Nana's "I Rise" - alongside previously unheard Future Disco edits and lesser-celebrated gems (see Amp Fiddler's "Steppin", Kraak and Smaak's collaboration with Luxxury, and Greg Wilson's exclusive tweak of Sweet Tooth T's cover of Chemise's boogie classic "She Can't Love You").
Review: For the second volume in the "Compost Disco Selection" series, label founder Michael Reinboth has rounded up some of the German imprint's most magical disco-house moments (though, we should add, it's not all disco-house in the traditional sense of the term). There's naturally plenty to set the pulse racing throughout, from the angular electronic disco-funk of Indoor Life's "Voodoo (Chocolate Garage Production Mix)" and the throbbing loop-house cheeriness of Tiger and Woods' classic remix of Pitchben's "Stand Up", to the spiraling peak-time disco-with-house-drums of John Gazoo's "Midnight Runner (Vintage Mix)" and the kaleidoscopic boogie-house fun of Purple Disco Machine's remix of Lorenz Rhode's boogie-flavoured "Back". As you'd expect, Reinboth's accompanying DJ mix is tons of fun, too.
