James Curd

Played by: FINGERMAN, YAM WHO?, Domshe, SITUATION

Played by: George Kelly, 4T4, ROTCIV, DiskJokke, Gazeebo, Chris Coco, Borgie, Marbeya Sound, Cosmonauts, Drop Out Orchestra, Martin Brodin, Casual Encounters, Booka Shade, The Supermen Lovers, The Legendary 1979 Orchestra, Bufi, La Bella Records

Review: Some would argue that Aeroplane's productions have not been the same since Vito De Luca and Stephen Fasano went their separate ways. While Fasano is rebuilding his career as The Magician, De Luca has been left to carry on producing and DJing as Aeroplane alone. Here he brushes aside criticism of his debut album with a debut mix set. It's actually rather good, offering a typically accessible and synth-heavy mix of groovy contemporary disco (Cosmonauts, Drop out Orchestra, Poolside), unreleased exclusives (his own, auto-tune heavy "Save Me Now") and forgotten gems (Stars On 33) that touches on curious Balearica, Italo and punk-disco. This digi version is available in its intended mixed form, but you can also buy the tracks featured individually!

Played by: Smashed Atoms, Dicky Trisco, Kraak & Smaak, PBR Streetgang, Kisk, Marcel Vogel, Juno Recommends Disco, Tonbe, Neil Diablo, SUNNER SOUL, G-Blaster (Memorie Cluster), JUAN SOTO, LEGO EDIT, 80's Child, Andy Buchan, Ste E, Juno Download

Review: Lumberjacks In Hell draft in a sublime cast of sympathetic operators for a second volume of From Hell With Love, providing you with eight perfectly formed tracks that straddle the divide between cosy, home-friendly house and dancefloor delectation. Laville's moody vocal turn kicks the record off in style on Austin Ato's 'Control', while Waajeed works his broken beat magic on 'What You Know'. Elsewhere Detroit Swindle bring a tougher slant on soul-rooted house music to the table, while PBR Streetgang aim straight for your pleasure centre with the soaring 'Madame Z'. And that's just the half of it...

Played by: FINGERMAN, ROMANTO (YSR / DISCO MACHINE), Juno Recommends Funky House, James Curd, J&M BROTHERS, Todd Terry, Leo Leonardi aka Master Funk, BRENDON P, Matt Brown (SanchoPanza), VIGI, Paper Recordings

Review: Following two collaborative releases (with Marcellus Pittman and Marius Vries respectively), Chicago veteran and sometime Greenskeepers member James Curd goes solo for the third missive on his freshly minted label, Pronto. In its original form (track one), 'I Am One, I Am Many' is an insatiably funky, Chicago boompty-influenced roller that makes great use of booming bass, crunchy Clavinet riffs, excitable disco samples and atmospheric female spoken word vocals. London twosome Make a Dance provide a trio of reworks: a rolling, organ-flecked, '90s US garage-influenced 'Remix', a hazy and effects-laden 'Deep Mix' and an organ bassline-propelled, extra-percussive 'Dub'. Elsewhere across the EP you'll find further reworks from T.U.R.F (big room, warehouse-ready hedonism), Nenor (synth-sporting, dub disco-influenced house stomp) and Adelphi Music Factory (colossal, hands-in-the-air disco-house bounce).

Played by: Dark Circles, Pete Dafeet, Dj N◉va ▶ Rodon FM 95, ROTCIV, Combo (Bangana/Sumo), Juno Recommends Deep House, James Curd, Space Ranger, Moody B

Review: Chicagoan James Curd has a reputation for not taking himself too seriously, a trait that's previously been served by his Greenskeepers outfit. While this solo outing on Lost My Dog isn't quite as deliberately crazy as some of his Greenskeepers work, it is every bit as fun. Critically, it's also every bit as floor-friendly as his best work for Classic. Choose between booty-shaking bompty cut-ups ("Shake Shake"), late night disco-skank ("A Friend"), chunky house meets nu-disco anthems ("I Don't Really Care", featuring an excellent vocal from Devin Byrnes) and DFA-ish retro-futurist piano jams (the Shit Robot-ish "Left The Ground"); all, naturally, are excellent.

Played by: FINGERMAN, Fab Mayday, Nine Lives

Review: Shir Kahn's electro-house label proves that they're still kicking ass with another dancefloor-blistering (actually, is that even possible?) release, and this time it's courtesy of Chicago's James Curd. First up, we get a collaboration between Curd and Luke Million of The Swiss. "Yellow Magic" a slick, heavily compressed electro-disco-boogie monster, but let's mention the elephant in the room here, its more than a vague relation to Daft Punk's Voyager, "Don't Know How" is hypnotic looped and filtered house, while the poppy title track, featuring new wave vocals from Annabel Weston, has more in common with punk funk and reggae.

Played by: FINGERMAN, YAM WHO?, Juno Recommends Funky House, Ladies On Mars

Review: If you're after a near faultless selection of peak-time ready house and disco jams, this special Amsterdam Dance Event compilation from Yam Who's Black Riot could just be the ticket. There's a good mixture of fresh floor-fillers - see the sample-heavy, boompty style Chicago house pulse of The Phantom Revenge's "Workout Music", Phonik D's piano-laden disco-house romp "Talking Vintage" and the smooth, life-affirming deep house warmth of Thatmanmonkz's hazy revision of Amp Fiddler's "Your Love Is All I Need" - and recent revisions of classic cuts. In this category you've find a superb Hi-Fi Sean revision of Psychotropic's rave-era anthem "Hypnotic", a sparkling Kiko Navarro re-make of Kenny "Jammin" Jason's "Can U Dance 2015" and a wonderful, filter-sporting disco-house take on CN Williams "Mr Bump Man" by Yam Who and Jaegerossa.

Played by: Oliver Heldens

Played by: Goshawk/Rhythm Plate, Tonbe, Evil Smarty

Review: Throughout his 16-year production career, former Greens Keepers member James Curd has gleefully stuck two fingers up at po-faced dance music purists, delivering a string of singles that put dancefloor fun above chin-stroking moodiness. He's at it again here, cutting up the woozy vocals of Likasto on the glassy-eyed electrofunk/deep house fusion of "I Get Up". It would be fair to say his tongue remains firmly in cheek on the celebratory shuffle of "Disco Fool", where Chic style guitars, rubbery live bass and jammed-out keys ride a dubwise deep house groove. Man of the moment Red Rack'em delivers his first remix in a while, offering a deeper, heavier, tech-tinged interpretation of "I Get Up" that's suitably wonky.

Played by: YAM WHO?, Trotter, BRUNO FROM IBIZA, 80's Child

Review: Confirmed party-starter James Curd (he of Greenskeepers fame) has released music on all manner of hyped labels - DFA, Classic, Exploited and Drop Music included - since making his debut at the dawn of the millennium. Here he pitches up on Midnight Riot with a trio of fun-time jams that should delight disco freaks and house heads alike. Certainly, both should enjoy the disco/nu-disco/house fusion of closer "Free Yourself", a tooled-up re-edit that that will have all but the most miserable dancers strutting their stuff. We're also big fans of bumpin' opener "A Lazy Boy Get Down", a Greenskeepers-esque frolic through quirky disco-house pastures blessed with some killer sax lines and rousing horns. Dub disco/punk funk bubbler "Lava Rocks" completes another fine EP from the Adelaide-based Chicagoan.

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House

Review: James Curd is a deep house nomad, jumping from label to label and from bomb to bomb. The thing about his own personal strain of house is, however, that he likes to add a little Chicago flair and wizardry to his tunes. Although "Checking Out NYC" refers to the other big US house town, the track is very much rooted in the sort of fire that peeps like Ron Trent used to make - sexy piano keys, subtle waves of acid and swampy vocal samples all wrapped up in a tight groove. "Vertigo" is darker and heavier on the 303 licks, while "Dance&Dash" is a super nice tropical touch to end this sublime EP that comes very heavily recommended and tipped from us.

Played by: DJ Mau Mau

Played by: Jakobin & Domino

Played by: Superbreak, KS French

Review: A move Down Under to his new home of Adelaide, Australia hasn't at all cramped the style of Windy City deep house legend James Curd - who many of you old-schoolers may remember as half of renowned duo Greenskeepers. In recent times, his quirky lo-slung grooves have appeared on the likes of King Street, Play It Down and Classic but his new one is for Berlin's Exploited - and it features some equally awesome remixes. Featuring the cheeky vocals of Likasto, "Get Low" follows that same MPC based back-to basics approach as heard on last year's "I Wanna Freak" that allowed him to get back to his Chicago roots. Aussie superstar DJ Sonny Fodera provides a suitably stadium sized tech house rendition (that sure packs some bounce!) while Italy's Black Loops go for that classic '90s NYC style vibe.

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House, Philippa

Review: Something of an all-star affair here, as long-serving Chicago exile James Curd (Greenskeepers, Tone Brigade) joins forces with Detroit legend (and sometime 3 Chairs and Rotating Assembly member) Marcellus Pittman for a collaborative two-track outing. Predictably, the vastly experienced duo hit the ground running with lead cut 'Shafty Riptide', where a killer TB-303 acid style bassline, quirky noises and spaced-out organ sounds ride a smooth, rolling house groove. On 'Corners', the pair explore the jazzier side of their sounds, alternating between sax and TB-303 sounds over a sparse, electro-influenced house beat and simply stunning chords. As good as we expected it to be... and then some!

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House

Played by: Roberto Rodriguez (Manolo), Juno Recommends Deep House

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House, Juno Recommends Funky House, CheapEdits, BRENDON P, Gledd, Offshore and Coen

Review: There are peaktime-orientated tracks that get all up in your face, grab you by the unmentionables and shout "listen to me!" - and then there are the kind of tracks that are carefully crafted to be set-builders, that won't scream for attention on the radio but will sound just perfect when served to a 4am floor that's already deep in the zone. This team-up between scene stalwarts Osunlade and James 'Greenskeepers' Curd is firmly in the latter camp, a dense, shuffling affair with a bubbling, burbling backdrop topped with a blues-y female vocal that comes with an even more eyes-down refix from FNX Omar.

Played by: FINGERMAN, Shaka Loves You, BRENDON P

Review: Perhaps best known to the world at large as Greenskeepers, under which alias he released a string of EPs on the mighty Classic in the noughties, James Curd made his debut on the Chi-town house scene at the tender age of 15 and he's never looked back. This latest outing on his own Pronto label has a similarly jazzy, funked-up feel to those early Greenskeepers releases and the Original mix would fit into deep house or funk sets equally well, while the Vocal Mix adds a party-hearty rap vocal and two further rubs from Art Of Tones and Boston Bun push the track into straight-up house territory.

Played by: FINGERMAN, Juno Recommends Deep House

Played by: Kraak & Smaak

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House

Review: Long-serving Chicagoan James Curd established the Pronto label earlier this year as a vehicle for his entertaining, party-starting house productions. He's already served up collaborations with Marcellus Pittman and Marius de Vries, and here drops a killer solo workout. 'Psychedelic Freak' draws influence from a mixture of classic NYC nu-disco and star-gazing deep house, with Curd layering cut-up vocal samples and spacey synth sounds atop unfussy beats and a bassline reminiscent of Metro Area classic 'Muira'. The accompanying remix package is predictably strong, with Tour-Maurbourg's jazzy boompty-goes-breakbeat house, Drop Out Orchestra's Morgan Geist style revision and Ten Fingerz' deep disco-house flip being our picks of a very strong bunch.

Played by: Girls Of The Internet, Muteng

Review: Fresh from a rock solid outing on Midnight Riot, Australia-based American James Curd returns to longtime home Classic. This time round, he has Shaun J Wright in tow, whose effortlessly soulful vocals - frequently chopped up and manipulated by boompty survivor Curd - rise above stretched-out pads, bubbly synthesizer melodies and energetic-but-unfussy drums on the duo's brilliant original version. Curd's loved-up synthesizer motifs and the bouncy groove are naturally given greater prominence on the accompanying Dubstramental version, which also includes even more cut-up snippets of Wright's brilliant vocal. While Curd rarely disappoints, "Now I Believe" is undoubtedly his strongest single for some time.

Played by: Claptone

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House, Fred Everything, Mike Nasty

Review: Second time round for James Curd and Osunlade's surprise 2023 collaboration, 'Chocolate Puddin', which here returns in remixed form. First to tackle the pair's gospel-tinged, spiritually enriching Afro-house gem is Kai Alce, who delivers superb vocal and instrumental takes built around crispy, bouncy, Afro-deep drums, smooth bass, echoing organ stabs and the most warming and toasty of electric piano chords. Just as potent is Osunlade's own Yoruba Soul mix, a heavily electronic, tech-tinged deep house excursion rich in righteous keyboard stabs, bubbly TB-303 motifs and eyes-closed vocal snippets. The pair's joyous, uplifting and undeniably hypnotic instrumental mix completes a fine package.

Played by: Chris Massey

Played by: Juno Recommends Minimal Tech

Played by: Juno Recommends Broken Beat Nu Jazz

Played by: James Curd

Played by: Juno Recommends Deep House

Played by: Dj XS (FVUK), YAM WHO?, Trotter, Ladies On Mars, 80's Child

Review: Perhaps best known as the founding (and since 2008 only) member of Classic faves Greenskeepers, James Curd knows a thing or two about crafting a quality house groove after 20 years in the game, and this latest EP for Yam Who?'s Midnight Riot label is no exception! The bouncy 'You Give Me Pleasure' opens the EP with crisp beats, a lolloping b-line, spoken male vox with a female chorus and a touch of acid. 'Love Motion' itself follows, a heads-down, 131bpm roller with a sparkling two-note piano riff and head-fried synths galore, before a Radio Edit of 'You Give Me Pleasure' completes the package.

Played by: Nick Warren

Review: Ten years of tech house powerhouse Exploited's exploits - pardon the pun! A born and bred Berliner, Shir Khan started the label in his home city in 2007. The imprint now plays host to a who's who in the current tech-house climate - including Adana Twins, Doctor Dru, Claptone, Joyce Muniz, Urulu and Cocolores to name a few. Its artists have been receiving full support from tastemakers such as Pete Tong, Soul Clap, Wolf & Lamb and Kraak & Smaak. All the usual suspects appear here: many golden oldies and even some newbie surprises too - perfect for the Christmas season and to forecast trends moving forward into 2018. To prove their relevance, they've served up a whopper of a compilation: over five dozen tracks showcasing their illustrious discography. We are certain that these are timeless grooves and will prove to be just as relevant another decade.

Some of these go as far back as 2009! Take for instance Malente & Dex feat. Analogik's "Gipsy Kings" which homed in that whole loopy latin house trend - popularised by similar tunes like "We No Speak Americano". Swedish electro house dons Zoo Brazil appear as well, with their 2012 dancefloor hit "Rock The House", then get deep and slinky with Moodymanc's 2013 sleeper hit "Joy" (Ralph Lawson Dub). They were even doing jazzy/dusty deep house as far back as 2011, like on Homework's "Whipped Cream". Remember Serge Santiago's remix of Murphy Jax's "Let's Get To It" featuring the inimitable Mike Dunn? It's here!

But when best describing the label's success thus far, we'd have to give honorable mentions to the true staples of the label. The legendary Chicagoan James Curd (formerly one half of the Greenskeepers) has kept on going from his new home of Adelaide, Australia and served up some of his best work in years. The emotive and bittersweet "Forever My Friend" is just one example. Likewise, Belgium's Compuphonic appears several times also - his recent hit from earlier this year "Metropolis" appears in all its soulful and evocative glory. Here's to another 10 guys, cheers!

Played by: Juno Recommends Funky House

Review: Chicago veteran James Curd continues to use his Pronto label as a vehicle for his own productions, which are uniformly floor-friendly and more often than not pleasingly quirky. That's certainly the case with 'Sublime Mind', a bouncy slab of peak-time house funkiness in which jazzy electric piano motifs, crunchy Clavinet riffs and sampled spoken word vocals rise above a restless disco-funk bassline and sweat-soaked drums. The five-strong remix package is full of treats, too, from the thumping, organ-fuelled sweatiness of Friend Within's peak-time ready take and the gorgeous deep house warmth of Byron The Aquarius's superb version, to the tech-tinged dub house hypnotism of Manuel Sahagun's version and the 'French Touch'-esque loop-house heaviness of Jonasclean's interpretation.