Review: Slightly Transformed bring us a five-tracker from Paul Older, an Italian producer whose work has also appeared on Hot Digits, Masterworks, Furious Mandrill, Tropical Disco and other labels. The man from Padova's dug admirably deep, so while all five tracks are re-edits we won't concern ourselves too much as regards source material: suffice to say that if your floor moves to original 70s-style disco (as opposed to its contemporary, more electronic variants) then any of the five tracks here will do the job nicely, with special mention going to 'Hot Deb' - AKA Debbie Jacobs' 1979 nugget 'Hot Hot' - which has pyeow-pyeow-pyeow! stabs to die for.
Review: Paul Older (aka Paolo Vecchiato) is a northern Italian DJ with almost 20 years of experience behind the decks. Older is constantly looking for new music and ideas as he assembles and orchestrates a mixture of sounds to shake up the dancefloor. After releases on Daje Funk and Ocean Trax, he now gets groomed for the big time on his latest for the mighty Masterworks Music. The Boogie Explosion EP features the groovy dancefloor shakedown of the title track, the familiar '70s New York City disco feels of "Dream" and the low slung late night action of "Sit & Dance" closing out this piping-hot offering from a name you're going to be hearing more of in 2020.
Review: Since he last featured on Furious Mandrill back in December 2019, Paul Older has taken his particular brand of humid dancefloor funk to the Discoweey and Tropical Disco labels. His return to Furious Mandrill tops the lot, with the now-established re-editor and remixer offering up chunky, floor-friendly revisions of hot-to-trot disco, funk and jazz-funk jams from both Africa and South America. Their most infectious and weighty of the four tracks is undoubtedly the inspired Afro-disco workout "Akisakisana", where positive chords and chanted vocals raise the temperature after an extra-percussive start, though the horn-heavy Brazilian disco-funk vibes of "Mais" are also deliciously addictive. Elsewhere, "Los Carmelos" is a cheery skip through sun-kissed samba-disco territory and "Monkey Funky" sees Older successfully beef up a wild, Hammond-heavy disco-funk jam.
Review: Italy's Paolo Vecchiato serves up four authentic-sounding slices of retro funk. 'Street Pocket' itself is up first, a sax-tastic, laidback jazz-funker reminiscent of The Crusaders or (dare we say it) Shakatak, particularly when the girly chorus arrives halfway through. 'Never' is in a similar vein but has more of a sultry, late-night feel, while 'Funky Doo' takes us into more stomping, silver-jumpsuit-clad Ohio Players/Commodores territory and barrio funker 'Nao Poche' plays us out on a Latin-tinged note. An EP that could easily have been made some time around 1981 - and in this case that's a compliment, not a complaint!
Review: Thunder Jam's latest release offers us a chance to casually wander around the "Edit Mind" of debutant producer Paul Older. It's an attractive place where loopy, filtered and delay-heavy disco-house revisions of obscure turn-of-the-80s cuts ("I Need Your Love") rub shoulders with Clavinet-sporting slabs of disco-funk/AOR disco fusion in an echo chamber filled with bell-bottom flares, hoary haircuts and flash-fried DJ effects ("Jump"). The corridors of Older's cranium also boast doors to P-funk-fired dancefloor shufflers ("The Magic") and bouncy, house style cut-ups of glassy-eyed Philly Soul numbers (EP highlight "You Are Perfect").
Review: With 23 tracks to choose from, there's no faulting the value for money offered by this summer compilation from London's Slightly Transformed label. Such an extensive tracklist also offers plenty of scope for stylistic variety, with tracks ranging from laidback, groovesome boogie/soul jams like opener 'What Are We Gonna Do' to the mellow Balearic haze of 'Summer In The City', via the strident 80s attitude of 'Edgy', the looping filter disco of 'Something About Love', the authentic-sounding Blaxploitation funk of 'Mac And Carly Go Uptown', the Zapp/Cameo-isms of 'Firebabe' and even a bossa nova cover of Bill Withers. Serve poolside, accompanied by several mojitos, for maximum impact!
Review: Having recently notched up a sixth year in business, Fingerman's Hot Digits imprint is in a celebratory mood - hence this all-action round-up of recent delights and unheard treats from the disco-loving label. Encompassing no less than 30 tunes, the collection giddily skips between warming beatdown disco (P-Sol's "Walter"), Mark E style slo-mo loop jams (Vigi's "I'll Be There") and glassy-eyed Balearic nu-disco (Picklejam's "Untitled Love"), before raising its hands skywards as the peak-time party-starters begin to appear thick and fast. Highights in this category include the vibrant jazz-house flex of Dexter Jones' "Swing Thing", the bustling boogie re-edit business of Monsieur Von Pratt's "Let's Dance" and the hearty disco-funk heaviness of Chewy Rubs' "Funky Bee Bop".
Review: With the sun finally making its presence felt in the UK, it seems a fitting time for Slightly Transformed to unleash this epic compilation of "Summer Numbers" - cheery, disco-fired chunks of positivity tailor made for al-fresco sets and celebratory shindigs. Featuring a mixture of tried-and-tested re-edits and sample-heavy original compositions, the 19-track set boasts a pleasingly high number of highlights. These include - but are no way limited to - the talkbox-sporting '80s disco/jazz-funk fusion of Shit Hot Soundsystem's "Be With You", the warm and woozy, synth-laden bliss of Chuggin Edits' "Floating", the slow and steady head-nod of Old Chaps wonderfully soulful "Flight With Love" and the fizzing disco rush of Limpdisco's "Gimme Mo". Get To Know's "Music" - a chunky revision of a jazz-funk era dancefloor destroyer by Dayton - is also excellent.
