Review: Four excellent new funk/soul/disco bombs from the Whiskey Disco label, with some surprising covers and peerless edits for your aural delectation. Anthony Mansfield sets about deconstructing a fresh cover of "Hercules" by Aaron Neville, while fans of Philly/Al Green-esque slow '70s funk will love Cosmic Boogie's soft-touch edit of "How Can You Say Goodbye". Rayko ups the tempo a little with his mix of the boogie wonder "S&M (Sexy Music), while WD label-head Sleazy McQueen has a lot of fun with Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do", looping up instrumental sections just right for a new perspective on this classic Stevie joint.
Review: A fine four-track V/A sampler here from Sleazy McQueen's Lovedancing label. Felipe Gordon and Vagabundo Social Club's 'Basilio' opens proceedings on a deep Afro-tip, pairing garage-y organs with tribal beats, chants and a spoken vocal about colonialism, before Eddie's Stomp Mix gives the track a shot of dancefloor energy, complete with space disco stabs, jazz-funk synths and a new "I got it!" vocal. Sleazy & VSC's 'Chips Y Salsoul' is 70s barrio funk given a 21st Century house makeover, and then finally 'Be There' sits right on the deep house/nu-disco cusp with its soaring strings and vaguely Latin-sounding backbeat.
Review: Whiskey Disco head honcho Sleazy drops out of the edit game for a second to serve up a shimmering nu-disco original. With far-away rushy vocals, slinky bassline and raw positivity dripping off the synths, this has potential to waterproof the summer in its groove juice. The remixes are pretty remarkable, too; Chris Massey gets heavy on the bass in a house-bound UKG way, Anthony Mansfield darkens things up with heady doses of psychedelia and acid in a way that's not dissimilar to a certain Andrew Weatherall. St Petersburg Disco Spin Club end the party with a series of classic house motifs processed with heaps of reverb and slinky breakbeats.
Review: When it first appeared on wax earlier in the year, this marked the first appearance on Whiskey Disco's "Small Batch" offshoot by the DJ/producer behind the label, sleazy McQueen. It's a compilation style affair featuring, in turn, a previously unheard McQueen remix of Snax's "Turn It" (a rich, rolling cut that sits somewhere between vintage U.S house, nu-disco and more cosmic flavours), a long forgotten - but killer - 2008 B-Team remix of Sleazy side project Tres Guero (heavy dub disco/disco-house fusion), and a sultry, string-drenched new disco edit (the starry-eyed dancefloor bliss of "Pretty Baby"). Naturally, all three cuts are of the highest quality.
Review: For the latest edition of Let's Play House's occasional LPH White series, serial re-editor Sleazy McQueen drops a delicious chunk of Balearic-minded, saucer-eyed disco. It's arguably one of his finest original productions for some time, and builds from a baggy, groovy start into a spiraling chunk of dancefloor positivity. There's more of a live disco-funk feel to bonus cut "Galway Jam", with rich bass, jammed-out keys and decidedly cosmic electronics. The EP also boasts a couple of tasty remixes of title track "Huit Etoiles". There's a slamming, delay-laden disco-rock interpretation from Kenji Takimi, and a luscious, new age influenced Balearic house rub by Gerd Janson.
Review: Following his recent appearance on Smokecloud, Sleazy returns to his Whiskey Disco home to celebrate its 25th release. As you'd expect from McQueen, it's an instant disco funk showdown laced with all manner of well dug sources and sounds. From the tight loop and lolloping bass of "Teeny Lovin'" to the more upfront glitter-sprinkled funk of "In The Year 2014" via an extended, head-turning cover of "Dancing In The Streets", each one of these cuts sparkles with Sleazy's skills and reminds us that Whiskey Disco is still very much on-point with every single release.
Review: Ponytail-sporting Floridian Sleazy McQueen is usually a reliable source of botton-heavy edits and reworks. Here he casually unfurls another digital-only selection of floor-burning tweaks for similarly minded disco deviants. As usual, there's a heavy dub disco feel to proceedings, with previously straihght-laced disco, AOR and electrofunk cuts being turned into heavyweight reverb-laden jams. As ever, there's little filler and plenty of killers, from the delay-laden horns of "I Like Girls" and poodle perm silliness of "Like The Wind" to the twisted swamp funk of "Through The Jungle" and E'd-up soul of "Can't Say Goodbye".
Review: Orlando-based disco lothario Sleazy McQueen hands his most recent single over to a bunch of pals for remixing, with largely pleasing results. Fellow American Cole Medina turns in the most impressive version, turning the original into a bubbling chunk of spaced-out electrofunk with just enough weight to please the househeads. Liverpudlian Facebook miserablist Cosmic Boogie treads a similar path, combining analogue bass, dubby house and disco cowbells to excellent effect. There's a solid Ooft remix, too, for those who like their deep house a touch darker and chunkier.
Review: Those with long memories may remember soul singer Maysa Leak's cover of Gil Scott-Heron classic "The Bottle"; the Incognito-produced cut was something of an underground club favourite when it first surfaced back in 1999. This first digital download edition boasts all of the mixes featured on the now in-demand vinyl edition, though it's the original full length version - a sunshine-friendly mixture of rich, jazz-funk informed musicality, slick house beats and spine-tingling vocals - that still shines brightest. Of the alternative versions, we're particularly enjoying the fuzzy, nu-disco style rub from DJ Shaft, though Venom and Ski Oakenful's "Black Widow" mix - a crunchy, West London style broken beat outing full of moody chords and bustling bass - is especially potent.
Review: The latest volume in Let's Play House's LPH White series offers up an EP of tracks jointly produced by Whiskey Disco big cheese Sleazy McQueen and sometime Bedrock, Large Records and Little Creatures regular Terry Grant. It's a pleasingly diverse selection too, with the pair giddily flitting between thickset, arpeggio-driven goodtime grooves (the electric piano solos, subtle disco samples and fireside warmth of "Daikaya"), throbbing peak-time nu-disco ("Floating On Air", with its druggy, non-stop bass, vocoder vocals and undulating lead lines) and Stardust-esque French Touch revivalism ("Love Ripple"). Arguably best of all though are the accompanying remixes of "Daikaya" by Chateau Flight's Gilb'R, who first re-imagines the track as a deep space analogue house jam (his "Main Mix") before going all dubbed-out, hypnotic and percussive (the similarly good "Stripped Mix").
Review: Whiskey Disco continues with its juicy 2018 with something of a sweaty beast, with a quartet of producers stepping up to deliver some sticky dancefloor heat. Label chief Sleazy McQueen joins forces with Vagabundo Social Club with edit "Boh!", a slamming rework of a Bohannon-esque disco-funk jam rich in hard guitar riffs and crunchy Clavinet lines. The Rejected takes a different approach, serving up a rolling, delay-laden tweak of celebratory, soccer-themed Brazilian club jam "O Craque De Futbol". Sunny, funky and low-slung, it's accompanied by the gently housed-up swamp funk of Pontchartrain's "Have a Little Taste". Given the quality of the EP, we're more than happy to follow that instruction.
Review: Having rightly made a name for themselves as purveyors of high-grade goodness, House of Disco continues to churn out the hits. Following hot on the heels of their collaborative compilation with Dikso Records comes another hook-up, this time with Kolour Recordings. Given the similarity of both labels' output, it's little surprise that House of Kolour is a bit of a winner. Musically, it's jam-packed with warm, groove-laden cuts that straddle the line where deep house, disco and re-edits meet. Highlights are, naturally, plentiful, from the shimmering beauty of Debonair's Fantastic Man rework and the funtime bounce of Hystereo's "Choral Twist", to the loopy-but-swinging soul of Sleazy McQueen's "Pretty Baby", and the hustling deep house goodness of Medlar's previously unheard rework of Noodleman's ace "Starlight".
Review: There's been plenty of online chatter about this collection of slo-mo groovers, pitched-down disco edits and soft-focus midtempo deep house from Yam Who's ISM label. It's not hard to see why. It pretty much features all of the artists making their name on the slo-mo scene - Matthew Kyle, Rayko, 78 Edits, Sleazy McQueen, Heion etc - alongside familiar names pitching it down a notch or two (Yam Who, Trujillo, Ajello etc). There are some great slow house contributions, from the touchy-feely goodness of Martin Ruez' "Golden Sugar" and the low-slung stoner funk of Mr Chicago's "Bad Dub", to the snugly 80s soul/AOR flex of Magnetic Soul's "Head Over".
