Review: It has been about 15 years since the arrival of Trevor Jackson's ambitious disco funk project Playgroup. Shortly after a series of terrific remixes surfaced, featuring alumni of his seminal Output imprint, in addition to some other emerging nu-disco talents of the time - presented here. These digital reissues still hold up and are are a zeitgeist of an exciting time in the early noughties: which laid the foundations for some exciting developments in underground music that followed shortly after. From Blackstrobe's exhilarating remix of "Number One" (one Ivan Smagghe and Arnaud Rebotini's finest moments), Chicken Lips' wicked disco dub re-rub of the same track was a worthy addition also. Whatever happened to the terrific Japanese producer Zongamin or Flesh Records' Midnight Mike is anyone's guess - but their lo-slung electro-pop perspectives of "Make It Happen" still sound as good today as they did back then.
Review: Last summer, veteran house producer Demarkus Lewis pitched up on Lisztomania with a rock-solid EP packed to the rafters with retro-futurist, U.S style deep house and chunky, French Touch-esque disco-house. Here, all three tracks from that EP are given the remix treatment. Eric Smith steps up first and delivers a heavily filtered, effects-laden disco-house rework of 'Try Ur Luck', before Phasen reaches for squelchy analogue bass, unfussy machine drums, hypnotic stabs and dreamy pads on a pleasingly deep rework of 'Be Sincere'. We're then treated to two takes on 'A Man's Treasure': a piano-sporting classic house version (the wonderfully nostalgic We Are Neurotic remix) and a deep, bouncy and subtly dubbed-out revision courtesy of Kellit.
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