Review: Forget the therapist, "GLBDOM Therapy 2" is the prescription you need for a sonic escape. This compilation on the GLBDOM label boasts eleven diverse tracks, each crafted by a different artist, yet united by a common thread of soulful house music. It's an odyssey through sound, weaving together 90s-inspired pumping beats with the deeper, introspective vibes of the early 2000s. Imagine driving rhythms, fueled by infectious 4/4 beats, playing alongside cleverly programmed synth riffs. Dreamy pads and meandering strings add a touch of ethereal beauty, while skillfully applied vocal lines weave through the soundscape, adding a layer of human emotion. It's a vintage-tinged journey that avoids cliches, showcasing each artist's unique approach to modern house music. The diverse soundscapes guarantee something for everyone, from the energetic dancefloor anthems to the introspective, late-night grooves.
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: Fresh from typically impressive outings from GLBDOM and Esuoh, Hurlee inaugurates a new label, Letters To Nina, via a rock-solid four-track EP. The Spanish producer begins in ominous form via 'I Need You', a deep but bustling, lightly disco-tinged deep house bumper, before drawing influence from mid-to-late-90s garage on the swirling, groove-heavy excellence of 'Glory'. The Spaniard's love of deep, dusty and soulful downtempo grooves is given a rare airing on 'All The Same', a deliciously dreamy and sunset-ready head-nodder that seems to make use of selected snippets from a modern soul number, while 'Destiny' is a crunchy, dancefloor-centric instrumental hip-hop number blessed with jazzy electric piano solos, warm bass and eyes-closed vocal samples.
Review: To begin his 2023 release campaign, Hurlee returns to Alex Caro and Sote De Lino's Esuoh imprint after a two-year absence. His previous outing for the label, the 'Never Love EP', was a beauty, and this belated sequel is equally as impressive. There's plenty of high-class goodness to enjoy across the EP, from the squelchy synth bass, warming chords and loose-limbed 90s New Jersey deep house flex of 'Shake It Up' and the glassy-eyed warmth of 'More Than This' - another nostalgic affair where classic house organ sounds catch the ear - to the hazy chunkiness of 'A Question of Time' and the starry, loved-up shuffle of 'Just One Night'.
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: The pleasingly assured GLBDOM label recently celebrated three years in business via a fine collection of cuts contributed by its extended family of artists. Hurlee was one of those contributors, offering a teaser for About Her, the Irish producer's first solo EP for the label. There's naturally plenty to set the pulse racing across the six tracks on show, from the celebratory, sun-soaked piano house bounce of opener 'About Her' and the classic-sounding, peak-time deep house rush of 'In Bloom', to the swinging, New Jersey-influenced, locked-in deepness of 'The Power of Kalimba' and the subtly Ron Trent and Larry Heard influenced brilliance of 'Shake Hands'. 'Piano Haven', a retro-futurist delight that adds a bit of contemporary weight to the classic Italian house sound, is also superb.
Review: Spanish producer Hurlee has a decent track record of delivering the kind of heavy-but-tasteful deep house tracks that sound just as good at home on headphones as they do surging from club sound systems. He's at it again on Lonely Days, his first solo EP on Shall Not Fade. He hits the ground running with the title track, a tough and hypnotic number full of hazy, late-night stabs, dreamy pads and chunky bass, before opting for a more melodically expansive, synth-heavy sound on the swinging, peak-time bump of 'Discover Nights'. He continues in a similar vein on closing cut 'Tiny Bell', where woozy, sun-kissed pads, star-lit electronics and jazzy bass wrap around crunchy deep house drums.
Review: The first release from Belarussian producer Iner's Dobro label contained a wealth of high-class deep house treats from an expansive cast of international artists. This sequel follows on along similar lines, with Iner choosing to showcase six sizzling tracks from a variety of rising stars and established. Spanish producer Hurlee kicks things off via the atmospheric and musically detailed deep house jazziness of 'Pel Meu Per Tu', before Igor Gonya wraps jazzy old soul snippets around a bustling beat on 'Mess In The Head'. Sun-kissed, electric piano-laden carnival house flavours are the order of the day on Cosmocomics' 'Surf and Smoothie', while MuteNoise and Jeff The Fool both make merry with samples lifted from classic disco-funk jams. Will Sonic successfully rounds things off with a classic-sounding deep house pumper with bags of energy ('Musica Melodica').
Review: Having spent 2020 bouncing between Tropical Disco, Suol and Ondule Recordings, Hurlee confidently strides into 2021 and the loving arms of Esuoh. Those who appreciate his chunky, energy-packed take on deep house will find much to enjoy throughout, from the bumpin' beats, warm bass, dreamy chords, smile-inducing organ stabs and hazy horns of 'Never Love', to the tough but spacey, kick-drum-driven deep house funk of closing cut 'Chicago'. Sandwiched in between you'll find the smooth and groovy late-night headiness of 'Crystallic Sunshine', and the rolling chunkiness of 'Sweet Keys', where glassy-eyed female vocal samples catch the ear. Tried-and-tested tastiness from a master craftsman.
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: Given the respective impressive records of both Hurlee and Ondule Recordings, you'd rightly expect the Spanish producer's first outing for the French imprint to be rather good. It is of course, with opener "Confiture Du Jour" offering a pitch-perfect blend of lolloping, bass-heavy deep house grooves, jazzy guitar riffs, cut-up vocal snippets and hazy chords. The producer's love of sharp edits, tight loops and hip-hop style production tricks is explored further on the deep, drowsy and dreamy downtempo head-nodder "Revolution", while "Heal Me" is an extra-percussive bounce though chunky, late night deep house haziness that's every bit as alluring as you'd expect.
Review: A recognised name amongst the catalogues of labels like SUOL, Tilly Jam and Future Disco, house music connoisseur Hurlee turns up for the Exploited Ghetto label with two slabs of classic, pumping house music. With strands of guitar funk, disco and legendary vocal samples spicing things up in "Feel So High" it's the undeniable Norm Tally vibe of "The Journey" that holds this jam down! For the deeper club inspired stuff, best served with cremant, "Looking To My Eyes" splashes about some New York vogue.
Review: Storied Spanish producer Hurlee made his first appearance on Tilly Jam earlier in the year with an EP that we described as having a "cocktail hour vibe". The Mallorca-based artist's second salvo on the label is an altogether more up-tempo affair, though the ear pleasing musicality, sunny warmth and inherent cheeriness remains centre stage throughout. He begins in fine fashion with "Breakfast With Eliza", a colourful chunk of tactile disco/deep house fusion laden with melodic positivity and killer bass guitar lines, before joining the dots between boogie, 80s soul and morning-fresh deep house and EP standout "Gimme Some Groove". To round things off, he successfully cuts up a classic underground disco track and re-tools it for house dancefloors ("Dance Together").
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: Three very fine nu-disco slices here from Mallorca's Hurlee, who's previously appeared on Gents & Dandy's, Plastik People, Papa Records and Nurvous, among others. 'Tropicana' itself is up first and has a lounge-y, cocktail hour kinda feel, particularly in the second half where a wonky sax loop takes centre stage. 'Tonite' is similar in style but with a delicately tinkling piano line and looped snatches of sampled, spoken/shouted vocal leading the charge. And then finally there's 'What's Your Problem?', which rolls along at a house tempo and sports 80s boogie vox which, again, are chopped 'n' looped throughout.
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