Review: Jamie Jones' Hot Creations label is, of course, a hotbed for some very well-known talent within the Ibizan house circles but, over the years, there has been plenty of new talent to surface from this magnetic discography. All four of these artists featuring on Hot Jams are on their way up, still fresh-minded and open to new methods of working when it comes to house and tech. Lee Walker's opening "That Little Ditty" has plenty of swing, and an electrifying cascade of harmonies sitting amid its dance-centric beats, which are followed neatly by Pete Dorling's more pumping tech-house monster "Manyama". "Peil Narkes" by Neil Parks is a little more minimalistic in tone, while Greeko's "Magma" drops a heavy-ass load of echoing bass bumps for added big room effect. Delicious and tooled-out for the DJs.
Review: Riva Starr & Co. return with some more dirty house shenanigans on the third installment in their In House series, featuring half a dozen stars of the global house/tech-house scene. Milan's Stefano Kosa (Deeperfect/Fusion) serves up the funky "Last Call", it's a jazzy and boompty kinda something on London based Ramin Rezaie's "Werkin'", Italy's Greeko serves up the most uplifting chord progression you'll hear this year on the emotive "Boreal" and Parisian Kashovski (Total Freedom/Witty Tunes) gets deep down and dirty on the bass heavy raindance of "Shafin".
Knowhat - "The Magician" (original mix) - (8:13) 125 BPM
Review: Riva Starr's Snatch! celebrate 10 years in the game in 2020, and this collection rounds up the best of their output over the latter half of that first decade. Tuff, chuggy tech-house is, unsurprisingly, the dominant sound here, but it's by no means all that's on offer - Rogue D flirts with 80s boogie on 'Take It Easy', for instance, while Soul Speech loops up Heatwave's 'Boogie Nights' on 'Soul Speech'. With tracks from the heavy-hitting likes of Max Chapman, Darius Syrossian, Steve Bug, Groove Armada, Wade and Denis Cruz, and cheeky reworks of classics like 'My Beat' and 'Pride (A Deeper Love)', there's useful ammunition here for house jocks of many different micro-persuasions.
