Earlier in the year, Good Vibrations music founder Sean McCabe offered up his interpretations of tracks from Blak Beatniks main man Harold Matthews Jr's excellent debut album, 'Peripheral Visions'. For this second selection of 'Re-visions', McCabe has assembled a crack team of remixers. Rising star Piers Kirwan steps up first to rework 'Into You', placing the spoken and sung vocals above a dreamy and sun-soaked fusion of deep house and broken beat. Wipe The Needle fuse bruk and jazz-funk sounds on their excitable take on 'Love And Hate', before Haze City delivers a genuinely atmospheric and ultra-deep interpretation of 'Deep Into My Sleep'. To round things off, we're treated to an instrumental version of Kirwan's superb, EP-opening 'Into You' remix.
The Allergies have been, without a doubt, one of the most consistent outfits within the funk and breaks crossover space, with this new thirteen-track collection being a fabulous testament to both their consistency and creativity over the past few years. From the rave-ready horn toots of 'Mash Up The Sound' to the old school sampling flavour of 'Sometimes I Wonder', we see The Allergies unleash a full spectrum of what they can offer, alongside a host of collaborative guests including: Andy Cooper, Bootie Brown, Marietta Smith and more. Our highlights for this full project include the vibrant horn displays and steady drum builds of 'Hypnotise', along with the slow rolling bass swings of 'Treat You Right'. Lovely stuff!
Based in Berlin, Voodoocuts describes his music as "his own vision of modern club grooves, fusing funk, jazzy cuts and tropical rhythms". In this instance, that means serving up five Latin/tropical-infused numbers built for happy times in sunny climes. The title tells us these are reworkings of vintage cuts but we'll have to give the sample-spotting a miss: suffice to say there's some fine funk bass and boogaloo Hammond action on 'La Culebra' and 'Linda Negra' has a mojito-drenched sexy sway, while the frantic 'Que Rico' is the one to reach for when you want to give the dancers a seriously sweaty workout.
While Nicola Laporchio has received plenty of plaudits for his work as Cosmic Garden and NLXLB, he's released far more records of note - and over a longer period - as Nico Lahs. He recently delivered two terrific EPs under the alias on Omena, and here makes his debut on Roy Davis Jr and Odell Braziel's Underground Therapy Muzik stable. The Bari-based producer hits the ground running on pleasingly percussive opener 'Bossa Rhythm' - a gorgeous bossa-house affair featuring some lovely Fender Rhodes solos - before opting for a more 'pots and pans' jazz-house sound on 'Holy Day'. 'Moonlight' is a fine slab of woozy, sub-heavy deep house haziness, while 'Sunday Morning' is a loopy, jammed-out, sample-heavy deep house shuffler.
Kirk Degiorgio has long been one of the deep house lover's favourite techno artists, infusing his productions with a jazzy, soulful musicality that 20 million 'warehouse bangers' could only dream of. Seldom has that been more the case, though, than on this new 16-track offering, which finds him in straight-up jazz mode. With most of the tracks coming in under the two-minute mark, it's really a collection of sketches rather than an album proper: the idea, we're told, was to pay tribute to European 'library music' (tracks made as soundbeds for film and TV) of the 1970s, and in that task he's succeeded admirably. Still, we would't mind hearing some extended versions, because what's here is absolutely glorious
Coming up next from the Freshly Squeezed machine, we explore the future of disco as Yabloko Moloko arrives in style, unloading a spicy seven track collection, rammed full of original swing energy. Opening up with the sweetened bass grooves of 'One Step Beyond' and the 50's-inspired jazz insteps of 'Take That', we know we are in for a treat from the jump, as the tasteful piano riffs of 'Caramelo' and potent glitchy melodies of 'Rumble Disco Machine' then follow swiftly. From here, bulbous bass displays and distant brassy badness arrives on 'Blue Velvet', with the horn driven sweeps of 'Grace's Secret' and sizzling high end horn runs of 'Infinite Jazz' then giving us a powerful pair of closers. Lovely work!