Review: Melbourne, Australia-based DJ/producer Ken Walker - the possessor of perhaps THE best artist moniker in the game - follows up last summer's debut full-length 'Discopolis' with a second volume that's every bit as essential. Rocking an overall vibe somewhere between contemporary (rather than 'nu') disco and disco-house, the album opens with 'What In The World', which nods to The Police's 'When The World Is Running Down', and closes with 'Saxophonica', which marries the risque spoken vocal from Jimmy Z feat Dr Dre's 'Funky Flute' (which also appears on 'Blow It') to the sax line from Men At Work's 80s hit 'Who Can It Be Now?'. It's fair to say our Ken isn't averse to dropping the odd familiar sample, then: in fact, the 15 cuts here blur the lines between sampling and re-editing. But trust us, the dancefloor's going to be far too busy dancing to worry about that.
Review: Fledgling disco label Steppin' Out - est. 2023, and not to be confused with Polydor's 1970s disco imprint of the same name - bring us their first compilation, which rounds up the best of their singles output thus far and features some well-known names like Ken@Work, Save The Robots and Stephane Deschezeaux. The provenance of some of the album's 11 tracks is a little hazy: some sound like straight-up re-edits, others like sample-heavy homages, but either way, most if not all draw extensively on dance music's past, and if you're revisiting classics like Patrice Rushen's 'Forget Me Nots' (now 'Want You To Remember'), Ce Ce Peniston's 'Finally' ('The Way I Feel'), Surface's 'Happy' ('Hypnotized') or Chemise's 'She Can't Love You' ('Can't Love You', obviously) it's unlikely the dancefloor's gonna worry about it too much.
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