Review: To celebrate notching up 50 releases, Uncanny Valley offered up a septet of colour-coded EPs featuring never-heard-before cuts from its growing roster of artists. With that campaign finished, they've now collected together all of those tracks on one suitably epic compilation, All Colors Are Beautiful. It's a pleasingly positive, life-affirming and kaleidoscopic collection all told, with the likes of Lauer, Jules Etienne, Johannes Albert, Cuthead and Basic Soul Unit taking it in turns to deliver cheery, synth-heavy cuts that variously join the dots between deep house, nu-disco, synth-pop, proto-house, jacking acid, crunchy electro, Motor City techno, ghetto-tech and glassy-eyed late-night sleaze. The results are uniformly excellent, making this one of the most essential compilations of 2020.
Review: While he's been keeping himself in the spotlight via some suitably glassy-eyed and loved-up remixes and collaborations, Phillip Lauer has not released much solo music in 2018. Now we know why: he was putting the finishing touches to "Power", his latest full-length for Gerd Janson's consistent Running Back label. As you might expect, all nine tracks ripple with giddy audio references to vintage dance styles of the '80s and '90s, from the synth-heavy Italo-disco revivalism of "Phaser7" and "Mirrors", to the rush-inducing electro positivity of "Direction" and the almost overwhelmingly sun-kissed pulse of Balearic-minded ambient opener "Blissos". While his inspirations are overwhelmingly old-fashioned, the resultant tracks are rarely less than brilliant, with the instrumental synth-pop rush of "Realistic" and muscular, Bobby Orlando-esque sing-along "Power" amongst the many sparkling highlights.
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.