Review: Shall Not Fade has reached the ripe old age of eight, a cause for celebration in these troubled times for artists and labels. To mark the occasion, the Bristol-based imprint has offered up this vast, 34-track compilation featuring new and unheard cuts from its ever-expanding family of artists. Naturally, it not only reflects Shall Not Fade's output, but also that of its various offshoots and series. So, there's plenty of high-grade deep house and immersive, breakbeat-driven deepness, but also surging, high-tempo rave-era nostalgia (see the tracks by TESTPRESS and Sheffield sorts Adelphi Music Factory), bassline (ABSOLUTE & HRSN), futurist techno (Marc Brauner), deep electro (Halo), hip-hop revivalism (Lydia Eisenbatter), progressive house and trance-influenced loveliness (MNL), and much more besides.
Review: For the uninitiated, 4evergreen is Apparel Music's "back catalogue" series, with each multi-artist EP sporting cuts from the Milan-based imprint's bulging archives. To kick things off, we're taken back to the birth of the hush-hush, vinyl-focused Apparel Wax series and 2017 debut offering '001A1', a jazzy, sun-splashed slice of sample-heavy deep house goodness, before we're given another chance to savour Hurlee's brilliant 2018 cut 'In The Sunshine', a sing-along slab of summery deep house warmth tailor-made for festivals and al-fresco parties. Next the Italian imprint mines Modulearth's 2015 set 'Blue Note' to rescue Moony Me's sensationally sub-heavy, sunrise-ready rework of 'Broken Memories', before rounding things off with 'For Gil and New York' by Francesco Zani - a killer 2013 peak-time house workout with jazzy flourishes that makes great use of Gil Scott-Heron samples.
Review: Two predictably high-quality slices of contemporary funk/disco from scene stalwart Hurlee. The title track 'Le Disque Tropical' is an unhurried, chuggy affair that tops a lolloping funk beat and a heavyweight bassline with parping, Brass Construction-esque horns, with mucho use of the filters and the saxophone getting something approaching a solo around the five-minute mark. 'Juicy Jazzy', meanwhile, is another filter-heavy cut, but this time with a more overtly tropical/lounge-y kind of feel. The title track's the one for peaktime play, but the latter will serve you well for warm-up sets and those longer mixes.
Review: Who doesn't love a sunset? Hurlee certainly does, as he's outed himself as an enthusiastic supporter of watching the sun go down on his latest two-track single, which also marks his first appearance on Poetry In Motion. Title track "The Sunset Lover" is every bit as warm, summery and drowsy as you'd expect, with pitched-up soul vocal snippets, filtered loops and jazzy disco samples - think bass, guitar etc - shuffling away atop a rolling, loose-limbed deep house beat. The Spanish producer strolls further towards cut-up disco-house territory on the similarly warm and hazy "My Sweet Lady", a track whose bassline is as rubbery as its beats are bouncy.
Review: If you're in the mood for some sun-kissed sounds tailor-made for sun-kissed pool parties and lazy afternoons on the beach, Future Disco's latest compilation could be just the ticket. You get 18 unmixed tracks for your DJ sets, plus a non-stop mix to help while away the hours while your skin turns a lovely shade of red. Musically, it's a mixture of baggy Balearic disco-pop (Luxxury, Stavanger Hunt and Future Disco's "Another Lifetime", dub disco influenced grooves (Soulwax remixing Tendts, the low slung strut of Lowheads' "Seven Afro Mood"), dreamy deep house sexiness (Henrik Vilard, Moon Boots) and evocative nu-disco haziness (the Italo-influenced thrust of 16BL's ace "You Are High"). More importantly, the quality threshold remains high throughout.
Review: There's seemingly no stopping Hurlee, a producer whose cheerful, floor-friendly music has appeared on countless well-regarded labels (think Apparel Music, Exploited, Large Music, Papa and Plastik People, for starters) over the last few years. Here he debuts on Masterworks Music with a quartet of shamelessly feel-good cuts that effortlessly wrap disco and boogie samples around chunky grooves for maximum peak-time pleasure. We're particularly enjoying the filtered vocals, horns and disco strings of "All Night Long" and locked-in afternoon disco-house positivity of "Tonight", thought both the brilliantly chopped-and-looped heavy-disco house of "Tell Me" and more laidback bounce of "Real Disco" also sound like genuine dancefloor winners.
Review: By now, we should know exactly what to expect from the Shir Khan curated Black Jukebox series, namely party-starting house cuts aimed squarely at peak-time dancefloors. This particular edition - the 23rd in total - naturally sticks to the formula, presenting two tracks apiece from Freiboitar and Hurlee. It's the former who steps up first, serving up the bold, mind-altering bass, jazzy keys and bumping beats of "Blue My Mind" before laying down the filter-heavy jazz-house/disco house fusion of "What's Up". Hurlee reaches for the winding sax solos on the deliciously warm and loved-up roll of "On The Floor", before brilliantly cutting up and beefing up an old Patrice Rushen classic on the heady and intoxicating goodness that is final track "Disco Love".
Review: Inako Hurtado Diaz may not be the hardest-working producer around, but he's certainly building a strong case to take the title. Since 2013, the Palma de Mallorca native has released an impressively high number of quality EPs on a similarly epic list of labels. His latest three-tracker for Apparel Music is, somewhat predictably, pleasingly strong. He begins with the lolloping, piano solo-laden disco-house breeziness of "Beating For You" - all filtered vocal samples, sunshine grooves and swirling effects - before brilliantly turning a slick '80s soul bomb into a cheery chunk of peak-time positivity on "In The Sunshine". To finish, he sticks a rocket under a horn-heavy early soul gem on the similarly smile-inducing goodness of "Love Song".
Review: Poetry in Motion is a label based out of Gijon in Spain: a concept and way of life created by Tete de la Course, Paul Rudder, Oui & Hurlee. It is the latter who serves up some fine deep disco joints on the 'Look At Me' EP. Real name Inaki Hurtado Diaz, the Palma de Mallorca native became interested in electronic music at a young age, being influenced by the sounds of deep house. He began DJing at popular clubs in the city, sharing the decks with best locals in town. He has had other releases thus far on labels like: Large Music, Nervous Records, King street and many more. He offers up the lo-slung, slo-mo joint that is the title track, in all its uplifting and neon-lit glory. "La Notte" seriously brings the funk and emotion with its familiar vocal refrain and steady swingin' shuffle beneath, but it's all about the Ziggy Phunk LOVE remix up next which really gets the party started.
Review: Over the past 28 months, Hurlee has showcased his wares on a variety of well-regarded labels, including Papa, Mood Funk and Frigo Vide. On this latest three-track missive, he's pitched up on Dikso in order to demonstrate his grasp of summery disco-house dynamics. The warm, tactile and bouncy "New Life" is our pick of the bunch. It not only boasts chunky drums and some suitably warm and melodious filtered loops, but also some suitably rush-inducing female vocal samples (taken not from a disco record, but what appears to be a superior '80s pop record). Freiboitar's slightly beefier and loopier remix is decent, too, but lacks the spine-tingling vocal breakdowns that mark out Hurlee's original version. The EP is completed by the cheery, horn-heavy disco-house bump of "Old Friend".
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services.