Review: Audaz returns with this week's installment in their impressive Lolita series, taking the razor to the tape and presenting some respectful edits for maximum dancefloor impact. Munich-based Alkalino & Co. are up to number 30 in the series now, and it's jam packed full of disco goodies. Go deep into the outerzone (with bells on) with "291", then you'll definitely feel alright on the sexy vocal classic "293", or, you can get seriously cosmic (like a love machine) on "295". Elsewhere, feel the native love on the euphoric "297", or get low slung towards the end - with some good ol fashioned soul classics on "299" and "300" respectively.
Review: Headed up by Munich machine Alkalino, Audaz returns to bring the heat with another scorcher under the Lolita alias. Hot off last week's volume, '29' brings more respectful edits to the table, which are all expertly engineered for DJ use by the ever reliable label chief and his many associates. Go deep down into the cosmic hole on "281" which is sure to get your hands jiving, get down (and sporty) to the low slung funk of "283", enjoy the long hot sexy nights of summer from as far and wide as the Bavarian capital all the way to the 'Windy City' on "285", while elsewhere the timeless classic disco vibe of "287" will get you on the right track. But if that doesn't, the words of wisdom from a right music legend certainly will on "289"
Review: It's not for us to second-guess the motivations of others, but more recent installments in the Lolita series do seem to have eschewed the "anything goes" approach of earlier volumes in favour of curating more focused, stylistically cohesive collections. So '31' follows on nicely from last week's disco-oriented '30', as the Lolitas mine obscure early 80s boogie, Eurodisco, Italo and electrofunk nuggets including The Jammers' 'Be Mine Tonight' from 1982 ('274'), One Two Three's 'Runaway' (a 1983 Bobby O production that now gets reworked as '275'), Clive Davis & Brainchild's 'Mystery Man' from 1984 ('280') and more.
Review: Some of the Lolita EPs have covered a wide range of musical ground, others have focused more on a particular sound. We're in the latter camp here, with '27' sticking to disco and boogie territory, and thankfully eschewing more obvious jams. Sources we can identify include The Equals' 'Funky Like A Train' from 1976 (now reworked as '267'), The Duncan Sisters' 'Boys Will Be Boys' from 1979 ('263') and Modern Rocketry's 1983 Eurodisco take on Raiders/Monkees/Pistols classic '(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone' ('264'). Those we can't include the Moroder-esque throb that underpins '261', and the jazz-funk Rhodes workout that's become '269', but it's all good...
Review: Another ten more vintage nuggets get reworked by Audaz's ever-prolific Lolita. Source material this time out includes Mystic Merlin's 'Just Can't Give You Up' from 1980 ('252'), North End ft Michelle Wallace's 'Happy Days' from 1981 ('253'), Hypnotic Samba's 'Hypnotic Samba' from 1984 ('254'), Fat Larry's Band's 'Act Like You Know' from 1982 ('257') and Gazebo's 'Midnight Cocktail' from 1983 ('258', a particular standout thanks to its Rah Band-like vocal). The rest have us beat but are generally in keeping with the same early 80s Italo/disco/synth-pop theme, with a solitary excursion into Indian/psychedelic sounds on the tabla-heavy, raga-like '259'.
Review: If you've been following Audaz's "Lolita" edit series - thought, but not confirmed, to be the work of main man Alkalino - then you'll already know that you get a lot of bang for your buck, as well as some inspired reworks of unlikely, overlooked and lesser-celebrated tracks from across the musical spectrum. Volume 25 continues in a similar vein, with highlights including the rushing 130 BPM disco hedonism of "241", the colossal percussive builds and heavy dub-disco bass of "243" (a stripped-back, all-action revision of a leftfield NYC disco classic), the tactile wonder that is the loved-up disco niceness of "246" and the wild electric piano solos of "248", a largely instrumental revision of a breathy, sought-after disco classic that's been stripped of its' wide-eyed female lead vocal.
Review: Another week, another 10-tracker from Audaz's ever-prolific re-edit crew. The instant recognition factor is provided by '232' and '239', which rework Paul Hardcastle's '19' and Parliament's 'Chocolate City' - to devastating effect in the latter case, if perhaps slightly unnecessarily in the case of the former. The rest of the EP draws on more obscure sources, but largely coming from somewhere on the funk-disco continuum (in contrast to previous volumes that have looked to mainstream pop/rock or world music) - '237', for instance, bites Cela's 'I'm In Love' from 1979,while Modern Romance's rap-vocalled 'Can You Move' from 1981 provides the basis for '234'.
Review: These re-edit EPs from Audaz usually feature a mix of the familiar and the obscure, with forgotten disco nuggets or hidden Afro treasures nestling alongside reworkings of massive pop and rock hits. There have been volumes that kept things more resolutely underground, though, and so it is here, on a 10-track EP that seems to draw largely on late 70s/early 80s Eurodisco for inspiration. The precise source material has our disco detectives beat this time around - though the familiar-sounding jaunty piano riff that backbones '222' has been driving us mad all week - but disco- and boogie-loving floors will find much to enjoy here.
Review: With the Lolita re-edit series reaching its 22nd installment, you should be familiar with the general vibe/ethos/MO by now, so we'll dive straight in. For '212', read Skatt Brothers' 'Walk The Night' from 1979, while '214' bites L'Ectrique's 'Struck By Boogie Lightning' from the same year. '215' reworks Space's classic 'Magic Fly', '217' revisits Bionic Boogie's 'Risky Changes' (1977) while Shakatak's 'Easier Said Than Done' (1981) is reinvented on '219'. The rest of the EP draws on unidentified Eurodisco/Italo/coldwave sources, with the obligatory curveball coming in the form of '220' - Bob Dylan's 'Lay Lady Lay' as you've never heard it before.
Review: The prolific Lolita crew return with yet another 10-track remix EP. Where some volumes in the series have leaned heavily towards a particular sound (be it disco, African music or 80s rock/pop) in terms of source material, 'Vol 21' sees them casting their net far and wide, reworking cuts as diverse as CJ & Co's 1977 disco strutter 'We Got Our Own Thing' (now reinvented as '201'), Vanilla Ice's 1990 novelty rap hit 'Ice Ice Baby' ('206') and Jona Lewie's 1980 new wave/synth-pop nugget 'You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties' ('210'), as well as an assortment of unidentified Italo, Eurodisco and coldwave obscurities.
Review: Audaz's re-edit series reaches its 20th installment, which is remarkable when you consider that they only kicked things off in October! This latest outing finds the mysterious Lolita digging deeper than ever, so much so that we can only identify the source material of three cuts here: '191' reworks Change's Jocelyn Brown-vocalled 'Angel In My Pocket' and '199' revisits Astrud Gilberto's 1972 Brazilian fave 'Take It Easy My Brother Charlie', while '200' is based on The Stranglers' 1986 hit 'Always The Sun'. Most of the rest of the EP appears to draw on African and Latin music for inspiration, but we venture back into disco territory on '194' and the excellent '198'.
Review: No 19 in the series and Audaz's team of hard-working re-edit elves show no signs of slacking off just yet! This latest instalment is very much the proverbial game of two halves, with the first four tracks looking to 80s synth-pop and Italo sources for inspiration: Visage's 'Move Up' provides the basis for '181' and '183' is all Moroder throb and vocodered vocal, while '184' throws us a Dire Straits-shaped curveball that leads nicely into a second half drawing on some very eclectic source material, including Johnny Cash ('189'), Roisin Murphy ('190') and Cheri's 1982 disco/boogie hit 'Murphy's Law'.
Review: The latest in Audaz's prolific re-edit series is very much the proverbial game of two halves. The first four cuts all draw on early-mid 80s dancefloor sources, including P-Funk All Stars' 'Hydraulic Pump' ('162') and the Ronnie Laws version of 'Always There' ('164'), but the rest of the EP looks to classic rock and pop for inspiration, presenting us with Lolita'd up takes on The Byrds' 'Time Of The Season' ('165'), David Bowie's 'Starman' ('166'), Nik Kershaw's 'I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me' ('167'), The Cure's 'The Walk' ('168') and The Stranglers' 'Always The Sun' ('169'). If you play multi-genre DJ sets, there's some useful ammunition here!
Review: Hidden away below the streets of Munich is a top secret workshop where dozens of Ableton-trained monkeys beaver away 24/7 producing re-edits for the 'Lolita' series - there has to be, because nothing else could explain the rate at which these ten-track EPs have been landing! Classic cuts getting the treatment this time out include MJ's 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' ('151'), The Trammps' 'Rubber Band' from 1975 ('152'), Strafe's 1984 electro-disco nugget 'Set It Off' ('155') and Brit-funkers Central Line's 'Walking Into Sunshine' from 1981 ('158'), while if anyone cares to ID the infuriatingly familiar "come back lover come back" vocal on '156' they just might stop one Juno reviewer from going round the twist...
Review: This is Volume 15 in Audaz's 'Lolita' series, so you should have some idea what to expect by now! But for newbies, the 'Lolita' EPs are made up re-edits of classic disco, funk and pop cuts, largely from the 70s and 80s, with this latest outing including the Lolita take on tracks such as First Choice's 'Dr Love' (now known as '144'), Gene Chandler's 'When You're #1' ('148') and Tommy Tate's 'For The Dollar Bill' (or '149'). And yes, okay, those are the only three whose original source we can name off the top of our heads... but with earlier installments having leaned perhaps a little too heavily on the well-known and familiar, that's a good thing.
Review: The juggernaut that Audaz's 'Lolita' series of re-edit EPs has become lurches on remorselessly, with two more 10-track collections landing in stores this week alone. With the series now comprising a whopping 150 tracks, it's not suprising that this latest installment sees 'Lolita' digging deeper than ever for source material: '137' reworks Syreeta's 'Can't Shake Your Love' from 1981 (a Larry Levan classic) while '139' loops up Lowrell's 1979 soul jam 'Mellow Mellow (Right On)' to devastating effet, but that's about as much as we can tell you! Still, if its party-starting disco, boogie and 80s pop flavas you're after, you'll find them in abundance here.
Review: One of the most attractive aspects of Audaz's mysterious "Lolita" re-edit series is the consistently surprising choice of source material. This 13th ten-track collection is a great example. While other editors often focus on sprawling New York disco and well-known anthems, this 13th Lolita collection giddily skips between versions of obscure Italo-disco jams, all-instrumental revisions of skewed synth-pop cuts, sweaty tweaks of muscular high-NRG tracks and throbbing John Carpenter horror fare (see "126", which plays around with the "disco version" of "End" from "Assault on Precinct 13"). It's refreshing stylistically, but it's the tightness and consistently on-point nature of the re-edits that hits home hardest. Well worth a listen.
Review: This latest installment in Audaz's re-edit series gets off to a flying start, with '101' reworking King's 1984 pop smash 'Love And Pride' into a Brit-funk workout that'd be worthy of contemporaneous acts like Cymande or Central Line. Buy the EP for that track alone and you'll be getting your money's worth, because it really is a killer - in which case the other nine high-quality reimaginings of Gwen McCrae's 'Funky Sensation' ('117'), The Escorts' 1981 boogie jam 'Make Me Over' ('115') and assorted unidentified boogie, funk and Afro cuts are merely a bonus!
Review: This latest installment in Audaz's 'Lolita' re-edit series opens with the Soul II Soul-biting '101', and also reworks cuts from reggae legend Little Roy (his take on Nirvana's 'Come As You Are' provides the basis for '107'), electro pioneers Freestyle (1985's 'Don't Stop The Rock' becomes '108') and 70s soul outfit The Moments ('110' revisits 1974 jam 'Girls'). The source material for most of the rest of the EP has us beat, but this time out it's mostly actual soul, funk and disco tracks that have come in for re-editing (rather than rock or pop classics), which means that while that fuzzy warm feeling that comes with the familiar may be in short supply, dancefloor appeal certainly isn't!
Review: We have a grudging admiration for Audaz's Lolita series, which offers up untitled, numbered re-edits with little fanfare or fuss. While track titles wouldn't go amiss, there's no denying the high quality of the cut-jobs on show. Predictably, volume 10 in the ongoing series boasts another swathe of must-have edits. These include a gently sped up and tooled-up take on Cymande classic "The Message" ("091"), a shirtless skip through one of the Pet Shop Boys' most Italo-disco influenced early cuts ("092", which bites 1986 single "Love Comes Quickly"), an electric piano-solo-laden Euro-disco bounce-along ("094) and a disco-house revision of what sounds like a classic disco cut ("096"). In a word: superb.
Review: It's a good time to be fan of Audaz's Lolita edits series, with volumes eight and nine dropping in a single week! Sources for this latest installment identified by our disco detectives include Sylvester's 'Over And Over' ('081'), Dynasty's 'I Don't Want To Be A Freak' ('085), La She Ba's 'Hunching All Night' ('087'), George Benson's 'Turn Your Love Around' ('088') and Eunice Collins' 'At The Hotel' ('089'), while special mention must be made of '083', which reworks Sequence's classic 1979 Sugarhill jam 'Funk You Up' (often cited as the first ever female rap record) to devastating effect.
Review: Ten more re-edits from Audaz's mysterious Lolita here. No idea what the source for opener '071' was but it's ended up as bluesy, organ- and harmonica-driven house stomper in the vein of Lemon Interrupt's classic 'Big Mouth', and sets the tone nicely for an EP that packs some killer dancefloor grooves, including a sterling re-edit of Geraldine Hunt's 1980 disco gem 'Can't Fake The Feeling' ('076'), a throbbing, Balearic take on 'Another Brick In The Wall' ('073'), the white-socked boogie of '077' and the driftaway space-lounge loveliness of '078' - though a beefed-up take on 'Oh What A Night' ('075') is probably one for the wedding jocks...
Review: Shady scalpel field Lolita clearly has a vast archive of edits just waiting to be unleashed, as this bumper collection of tried-and-tested reworks follows hot on the heels from several other seemingly expansive volumes. So what you we expect this time round? It begins with a warm, drowsy and sun-kissed slab of soft focus soul ("051") and ends with a decidedly Balearic shuffler full of glistening, delay-laden guitars ("060"); in between, you'll find a mix of re-tooled classics (the piano-heavy disco stomp of "059", the slap-bass propelled brilliance of peak-time workout "056" and the party-starting goodness of "055") and rearranged obscurities (the Italo-disco/new wave throb of "057" and the deep disco bliss of "053"). From start to finish, it's an excellent collection of tasty, floor-focused revisions.
Review: There's something impressively "matter of fact" about Audaz's "Lolita" series, which offers up numbered, untitled re-edits with no information about their origin or the producer behind them (it's most likely label boss Alkalino, but that's not been confirmed). This fifth selection brings offers up another 10 slabs of dancefloor heat that ranges from sneaky revisions of well-known party anthems (see Prince re-rub "042" and the vaguely familiar 80s soul goodness of the D-Train style synth warmth that is "043"), to strong rearrangements of lesser known boogie, Italo-disco and AOR disco workouts. Highlights include the breezy disco-funk of "044", the end-of-night haziness of "046" and the snaking sax lines and Latin rhythms of "047".
Review: The way Audaz has been churning out these Lolita collections lately, you'd think "possession of an unreleased re-edit" had just been made a crime under German law! But the quality standard shows no sign of slipping, so that's hardly cause for complaint. Standouts of this fourth volume include '038', which revisits Kim And Rasa's obscure 1982 Ghanaian funk/rap jam 'Love Me For Real', '035' with its fusion of country rock guitar and sweet female disco vox, and '037', which reworks Brass Construction's 'Changin' from 1975. Dead Or Alive get the Lolita treament, too, on '032'.
Review: Audaz certainly seem keen to get these 'Lolita' re-edits out there: this third installment follows hot on the heels of Vol 2, which only landed last week! Once again there are 10 tracks to choose from, with the source material once again ranging from vintage funk, soul and disco to 80s pop and beyond. '021' is based on an unknown cover of the Timmy Thomas/Sade classic 'Why Can't We Live Together' and '022' reworks The Floaters' mellow soul classic 'Float On', while '026' (source familiar-sounding but unidentified!) has an EBM/Italo kinda feel and '025' loops up The Detroit Emeralds' 1972 funk/soul gem 'Baby Let Me Take You (In My Arms)'.
Review: Audaz serve up a second set of re-edits by the mysterious Lolita. Whether label boss Alkalino or an anonymous backroom boffin are to thank we couldn't say, but whoever it is they take on an impressive range of source material, from Gene Pitney ('020') to 80s synth-poppers Alphaville ('013') via Talking Heads ('019'), Stargard ('016'), Laura Branigan ('014') and even a cover of Hank Williams' country classic 'Kaw-Liga' by new wave weirdos The Residents ('017') - all of which are given a druggy, chuggy makeover for today's nu-disco floors, with '015' (a take on 1979's 'Marathon Runner' by August Darnell and Bob Blank's Aural Exciters project) a particular standout.
Review: While he's not confirmed it either way, we're pretty sure that Lolita is a new re-edit alias of Audaz boss Alkalino - a producer who has been offering up tidy, scalpel style reworks since we were in short trousers. There's much to admire amongst the numbered, untitled tracks, from the gently housed-up soul bounce of "001" and the delightfully over-the-top disco pomposity of "003", to the throbbing disco-house cheeriness of "005", the deep house/soul fusion of "006" and the heavily percussive world music-meets-disco goodness of "009". Best of all, though, is the gritty disco-funk stomp of "008", a superb revision of a reggae disco-tinged cover of Donna Summer classic "I Feel Love".
Review: Via his Vintage Music imprint, Sunner Soul man Alexandr Chebankov keeps serving up the hits. Here he gathers together another bumper selection of seductive sunshine slow jams and dancefloor-ready goodtime grooves to soundtrack your summer. Naturally, there are plenty of his warm, sample-heavy productions and re-edits present (our favourites include the jazzy disco rush of "Summertime", his gentle and groovy rework of much-loved Letta Mbulu Balearic fave "Normalizo" and the bumpin', bass-heavy disco house bustle of "Disco Orchestra"), alongside similarly impressive outings from Kid Goodman (the sublime '80s house revision "Nice and Slow"), Lolita Knox (a tooled-up flip of a Cheryl Lynn anthem) and the Sunshine Disco Club (the Balearic dancefloor breeze of "Morning Exercise").
Review: Saint Petersburg scene stalwart Sunner Soul once again opens up the vaults of his Vintage Music imprint and serves up a selection of solid summery grooves, soul-flecked grooves, disco-charged jams and intoxicating, floor-friendly re-rubs. The bulk of the material comes from the man himself, with highlights including the breezy, horn-toting sunshine funk warmth of "Rescue of Time", the starry jazz-funk synths and rubbery house grooves of "Swindle Mode" and the loopy, synth-laden boogie-house bump of "Music Freak". Elsewhere, Lolita Kox's "I Think I Love You" is a deliciously beefed-up and celebratory rework of a stone cold disco classic and Scruscru's "Burevestnik" is a deliciously swinging, full-throttle take on a jazzy disco-funk obscurity.
