Review: Here's another must-check missive of lesser-known and hard-to-find material from DJ Kaos's Jolly Jams label, curated with love by the man himself. Over the course of 12 tidy tracks, we're treated to ambient lusciousness (Superpitcher remixing Kaos's own 'World Turning'), deliciously dubbed-out proto-house (the 'Warehousin' Mix' of Split Secs' 'I'm Not Losing'), mind-mangling psychedelic electronic disco-meets-acid house (Red Axes' 'Promo Only'), dub disco (Slaves of Love and Tavish, whose 'Raw Seduction' is genuinely superb), soaring disco edit action (Spring Break Edit), Sylvester pitched-down and blissed out (Balearic Skip), Kenny Hawkes-ish disco-not-disco eccentricity (Luke Solomon remixing Richard From Milwaukee) and ragging acid tracks (Danny Russell & Timothy Alexander).
Review: It may be an 'odds and ends' release, featuring as it does a mixture of originals, remixes and edits, but DJ Kaos's latest offering is packed to the rafters with high-grade gear. Kaos first offers up his disco sample-heavy edit of Dangerous Dan and Nicky Night Time's 'Mystery' before we're treated to Solomun's hypnotic-but-loose-limbed early morning revision of Kaos's 'I Want To Be There'. His tweak of Daniel Wang and Erland Oye hook-up 'Lessons' is a hybrid deep house meets drowsy nu-disc affair, while 'Only Dead Men Are Free' is a fine fusion of Patrick Cowley style Hi-NRG grooves and elements of country classic 'Jolene'. To round things off, we get two top remixes: the Glimmers' throbbing, wide-eyed sprint through 'Spiral Jetty', and extended Dr Dunks disco-meets-acid house revision of 'Horny Morning Loop'.
Review: DJ Kaos's latest offering combines reworks (many previously unheard) of tracks from his catalogue, with a variety of reworks and original productions from many of his buddies in the scene. It's an eclectic and wide-ranging selection, with highlights coming thick and fast throughout. The set begins with the chunky cosmic house throb of Softwar's 'Afterhours' and ends with a wonky, stripped-back, after-party friendly Solomun rework of Kaos's 'I Want To Be There'. Sandwiched in between you'll find such must-check gems as Luke Solomon's nine-minute 'raw mix' of Richard From Milwaukee's glassy-eyed turn-of-the-90s breakbeat house gem 'Clear Water', the Italo-goes-proto-house throb of Red Axes' 'Promo Only', and the heavily dubbed-out, effects-laden disco headiness of Napoleon's 'Love Spell'.
Review: 11 years ago, Berlin scene veteran DJ Kaos founded his first surfer/skater influenced label Jolly Jams and now he presents the first installment in Jolly Jams Promo Only. "A Promo Only" is a classic lo-slung disco heater, while "B Promo Only" has a powerful strings section in classic Salsoul style which will be a sure shot in the club, and finally the hypnotic "C Promo Only" ends things on a truly psychedelic trip. Stay tuned for several more volumes, encompassing up to 17 edits.
Review: Some of you may remember DJ Kaos's 'Kosmicher Ruckenwind', a hard-to-pigeonhole 2009 single on Clone's Loft Supreme series that joined the dots between saucer-eyed cosmic disco, Tangerine Dream, and sun-soaked Balearic soundscapes. Here the timeless track returns in remastered form, accompanied by remixes old and new. That means there's another chance to savour Quiet Village's trippy, trance-inducing, 23-minute revision (a heartfelt tribute to 'kosmiche' epics of the 70s, with added hallucinatory dancefloor potential) and Elitechnique's bubbly cosmic disco tweak (both released 13 years ago), but also three previous unheard reworks. There's a gorgeous, dub disco-tinged Balearic re-wire courtesy of Lexx, a Prins Thomas style re-imagining from Swoop and a 1970s Tangerine Dream-with-added-TB-303s tweak from DJ Kaos.
Review: German scene veteran Dennis Kaun AKA DJ Kaos returns to Jolly Jams with a neat little two-tracker featuring mixes from Solomun and Danny Russell. Truth be told, the two mixes aren't hugely different from one another - in either case, 'I Want To Be There' is a midtempo throbber whose gently rolling beats and pulsating bassline are paired with a plinky-plonk synth riff and a vaguely 80s-tinged male vocal, it's just that Solomun's rub is a tiny bit "busier", sonically, than Russell's. But either one should keep 'em grooving along nicely on the floor, making this one to check.
Review: As far as we can make out this is the debut release from Heart N' Target, who has/have seemingly no online/social media presence at all. So we can't tell you a lot about who's behind this one, but we can tell you that 'Area Code 949' in its Cruising The Coast, Sniffing Some Lace & Downing The Brews Mix form is a throbbing, pulsing number topped with a (possibly Japanese?) kiddy chant-like vocal, and that it comes accompanied by a People On 'ludes Should Not Drive Mix that's very different indeed and takes us into floaty, downtempo, post-club territory.
Review: As usual, Jolly Jams has not released details of the re-editor/reworker behind this trio of must-check revisions, though all indications point to imprint big cheese DJ Kaos. Whoeever is behind it, there's much to enjoy. Check first the loose-limbed, horn-heavy, fast-slow-fast tropical funk of 'Guilty Pleasures', which sounds to us like a wah-wah guitar-laden revision of an obscure tropical funk tune from Thailand or Indonesia, before admiring the sleazy, mind-altering, arpeggiated synth-bass, sustained Hammond chords, wonky synth-stabs and eyes-closed soul vocals of thrillingly sleazy EP opener 'Love Me'. Closing cut 'Balearic Softcore', a drowsy, sunrise-ready revision of a hypnotic, American minimalism-goes-new age ambient soundcsape, is also well worth a listen.
Review: Buyers of a certain age may experience an odd kind of deja vu on hearing this new compilation from DJ Kaos's Jolly Jams label - a kind of "this is where we came in" sensation, because with its fusion of angular, electronic disco and raw, jackin' house, the album ends up sounding like nothing so much as a bulletin from the more forward-looking dancefloors of Chicago and Detroit some time around the mid 1980s. That's not a criticism, though: there is wisdom in not fixing things that ain't broken, and acid squelchers "Hopper's Rant" and "This Is My House" are pretty much worth the price of admission on their own.
Review: Well this couldn't really be more timely, could it? Who exactly Winter Olympics are isn't clear, but here he/she/they serve up four suitably glacial-sounding electro/Italo-inspired cuts on DJ Kaos's Jolly Jams label. 'Luge Luge' fuses influences from Italo and early house, 'Power Session' gives Winter Olympics the chance to show off their library of vintage drum machine and synth sounds, the vaguely Yello-esque 'The Triumph' drops the tempo by several notches, while finally 'Ready, Set, Go' pretends at first to be "the obligatory downtempo closer" but then breaks out into a jerky, angular slab of Germanic-sounding 80s pop.
Review: More mysterious fodder from DJ Kaos' Jolly Jams imprint, which specialises in oddball, off-kilter and saucer-eyed re-edits, reworks and bootleg remixes. 'Promo Only (Original)' is in many ways typical of the imprint's skewed but inspired output, with dreamy, elongated chords, lo-fi electronic melodies, pots-and-pans percussion and (presumably sampled) eyes-closed guitar solos riding a raw TB-303 bassline and machine drums. 'Promo Only (Remix A)' layers the same lilting Steve Hillage-esque guitars over a hypnotic groove and druggy synthesizer arpeggio lines, while 'Promo Only (Remix B)' re-imagines the track as a bright, sun-kissed post-Italo number that's as tactile and touchy-feely as they come. Cracking cosmic disco goodness all told.
Review: Germany's Dennis Kaun AKA DJ Kaos brings us a 12-track best-of compilation from his own Jolly Jams label (est 2010) and - perhaps partly reflecting the fact that some of these tracks were made 10 years apart - there's a wide array of sounds and styles to choose from, ranging from the lively piano house of opener 'Breakthrough' to the 303 squelch of 'Acid Milk', and from the new wave-tinged Italo strut of 'The Horse Running' to the dreamy Balearicisms of 'Swoop', the warm, dubby house of 'Promo Only 1', the 80s Euro vibes of 'Natural Flavor' and beyond...
Review: The Jolly Jams imprint has long been one of the more interesting sources of "disco adjustments", with owner DJ Kaos favouring unusual, ear-catching revisions and quirky cuts. You'll find plenty of material that fits both categories on this assortment of re-fixes. Balearic Skip kicks things off with a gloriously loved-up, pitched-down version of a Sylvester classic ('Mighty'), before going further into slo-mo territory on the moody and trippy 'Chung'. On his contributions. Spring Break Edit flits between sparkling disco-funk ('Sold My Sylver') and head-nodding, low-slung instrumental soul ('Piano Scarf'), before Kaos takes over. He supplies two peak-time ready tweaks: a fine re-wire of a squelchy disco-funk cover of Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall' ('Tapping The Source') and an acid-flecked, saucer-eyed slab of proto-house bliss ('Promo Only 4').
Review: DJ Kaos (real name Dennis Kaun) and Free Association cover an incredibly wide range of musical ground on this 14-track long-player for Kaun's own Jolly Jams. The album opens with 'Tablets Of Love', a reworking of The Eagles' sleazoid 1979 funk-rock jam 'Those Shoes', but by the time it's finished we've been through everything from string-drenched disco ('Love Affair') to heavy psych-funk ('Purple Mics'), and from summery Afro grooves ('Bayete') to jazz fusion ('Feel Alright'), not to mention a startling reggae-funk-pop cover of Pink Floyd's 'Money' (now renamed 'Goodie Goodie'). A varied and very enjoyable listen that's best served end-to-end.
Review: To our ears, the re-edits, reworks and 'disco adjustments' released by DJ Kaos's Jolly Jams label are some of the most impressive around, in part because there's little in the way of cheap 21st century studio tricks and the imrpint's source material always tends towards the eccentric, interesting and obscure. Predictably, the label's latest eight-track collection is full of corkers, from DJ Kaos's own mini album-opening early house style revision of AOR disco classic 'Long Train Running' (here renamed 'Proton Edit 1') and the surging, Clavinet-heavy disco-funk sleaziness of Conor's 'Proton Edit 3', to the flash-friend, Talking Heads-go-Latino no-wave funk of Pete Herbert's 'Candy 8', and the 10-minute swamp funk brilliance of Spring Break Edit's 'Candy Edit 2'.
Review: Germany's DJ Kaos, AKA Dennis Kaun, returns to Jolly Jams with a nu-disco cut that's likely to divide crowds right down the middle. 'Unofficial', you see, is a cover of Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' rendered in the style of 'I Feel Love' - and for many on the more chinstroke-y side of the contemporary disco scene, that's gonna be several steps towards the cheese counter too far, for sure. But you know what they say about horses and courses, and if you're someone who mostly plays to commercial crowds, this could probably be quite a useful one to have on standby. Comes accompanied by a more downtempo/reprise-style remix.
Review: We're not sure who Balearic Skip is, or are, but we do know that the artist was responsible for one of Jolly Jams' best moments of recent years - a chugging, pitched-down, saucer-eyed revision of Syvester's 'Mighty Real' that first appeared two years ago. Hopes are therefore high for the Tribes EP, which marks the shadowy artist's return to Jolly Jams. Opener 'Chung' is simply superb, with tactile, occasionally grandiose, mid-80s Simple Minds style synths, attractive electronic melodies and slowed-down vocals riding a throbbing, arpeggio-driven groove. 'Theme From Judas' is a sweeping, flash-friend disco instrumental that offers subtle winks towards the theme from 'Shaft', while closing cut 'Tribes' is a radically slowed-down, chug-tempo take on a familiar Frankie Goes to Hollywood favourite. Tidy!
Review: Given that DJ Kaos's Jolly Jams imprint has consistently delivered some of the most unsusual and inspired re-edits and reworks around, you'd expect this label compilation to be nigh-on essential. It is, of course, with the eccentric, long-serving producer serving up a mixture of languid, sunset-ready synth-scapes ('Tangerine Stream' by Galling & Gruzis), electro-disco chuggers (Mark E Quark's "Slo-Mo Edit" of 'Doin' It Right'), fiery disco-funk (Bastedos' 'Nobody' and Dany B's 'Gotta Get It'), oddball disco ('Tapping The Source' by DJ Kaos), late-night acid sleaziness (Ivo Del Plado and Tavish's spaced-out 'Raw Seduction'), and glassy-eyed Balearica (Cole Medina). The package also contains a superb, slowed down re-imagining of Sylvester's 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' by Balearic Skip that's simply stunning.
Review: Presumably DJ Kaos spent much of lockdown crafting fresh re-edits of trippy little-known tunes, because his latest four-track selection of heady reworks is arguably his strongest release for some time. We're particularly enjoying the urgent, vocoder-loving disco-funk madness of 'Tapping The Source', a wild and wonderful rearrangement of a thoroughly obscure cover version of Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick In The Wall', though the more cosmic, hypnotic headiness of piano-sporting Italo-disco number 'Crystal Voyager' is similarly addictive. Elsewhere, 'Spiral Jetty' is an extra-druggy, Italo-disco style re-make of a familiar nu-disco classic, while 'Region Centrale' is a delay-laden take on what sounds like an early Chicago house jam (with added 'Buffalo Gals' acapella snippets).
Review: It's a while since the world heard from Mark Hanson AKA Mark E. Quark, a DJ/producer best-known for his early 2000s work with house hero Joshua (Michaels) as Silent Partners. Here he returns to action via a trio of floor-focused re-edits on DJ Kaos's long-running Jolly Jams imprint. Two of these are interpretations of the same low slung, post-punk-era pop track ("Up All Nite"), with the slightly longer "Cornbuckle Gurnfest Edit" offering a little more vocal and a few less trippy drum edits and delay-laden effects. Both are deliciously skewed celebrations of all-night dancing that should work in a number of different dancefloor situations. Arguably even better is "Doin' It Right (SLo-Mo Edit)", a bubbly and colourful trip through surging synth-disco hedonism featuring some sunset-ready lyrics.
Review: Stringed, guitar disco funk ("Rubadischi"), low fidelity power dance ballads ("Hold Me On") and New York boogie with touches of Gil Scott Heron ("Liberation") served up by Roman Truth! Harking back to a sound of '70s disco and funk, this EP brings that original vibe and voice of a generation back to the dancefloors and disco appreciators of a modern day.
Review: Having made his debut for the label way back in 2012, Milwaukee-based DJ/producer Richard Galling is one of Jolly Jams' longest serving artists. His sixth EP for DJ Kaos's imprint is a powerful affair, with Galling offering up a trio of sleazy late night machine jams that sit somewhere between early '80s proto-techno, muscular EBM and jackin' Chicago house. Our pick of the bunch is opener "High Life", a throbbing workout whose peak-time power is the result of a mix of thrusting synth-bass, restless drum machine cowbells and a heavy low-register acid line. The similarly inclined "Night Shift" is, if anything, even heavier and more powerful, while "Mercy" sees Galling wrap mangled TB-303 lines around a suitably weighty beat.
Review: Italian legend and The Dub main man Claudio Coccoluto is up next on Berlin imprint Jolly Jams - run by hometown hero DJ Kaos. Given the man from Cassino's experience with two decades in the business, you're certainly in good hands. He serves up some Afro-inflected disco funk on the electrifying "The Pink Door", followed by the low-slung slo mo disco of "Sound Couture" and the deep down and dirty Italo shenanigans of "The Running Horse". For the uninitiated, be sure to check out Coccoluto's prior work as World Famous Martinez Orchestra and The Heartists.
Review: Man or woman of mystery More Lotion has been in fine form of late, following up a great debut on Midnight Riot with a similarly inspired EP on Masterworks Music. This outing on Jolly Jams is arguably even better. It boasts a trio of reworks that dig deeper for inspiration with predictably impressive results. Check, for example, the spacey synths, glassy-eyed female vocals and turn-of-the-80s disco bass of "The Look of Love" and the similarly synth-laden peak-time chug of "Love Lite", where raw disco-funk guitars, sweeping strings and Italo-disco style electronics rise above an unfussy but punchy groove. Equally as impressive is "Rojo, Sangre Y Fuego", a hard-wired slab of driving Latin disco-funk that's sure to set pulses racing out on the dancefloor.
Review: The latest release on Dennis Kaun aka Kaos' label is also one of Jolly Jams' most unusual Eps to date. The truly notable track here is "Mighty", a chugging nu-disco affair that features a druggy take on the vocal from Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Elsewhere, Balearic Skip present a guitar strewn workout in the shape of "Etta", its murky, slow-motion groove also populated by diva vocals. For sheer dance floor efficacy though, the clear winner is "Love Freddy". Centred on a high-paced electronic groove, it sees Balearic Skip pulsate their way to disco nirvana.
Review: Three tracks of fine contemporary (as opposed to 'nu') disco from mystery producer Dany B on the Jolly Jams label here. 'I'm Yours' is a lazy, looping chugger with a rasping female vocal (think Macy Gray, Kim Carnes), squalling rock geetars and some gloriously tinny piano, 'I Can't Help It' is pacier, funkier and squelchier with a near-falsetto male vocal, while finally 'Gotta Get It' itself is a rolling affair with a Barry White-esque male voice intoning the title, wukka-wukking geetar and soaring Philly strings. The 1970s force is definitely strong in this one.
Review: For the label's latest chunk of underground, party-starting fun, Jolly Jams chief DJ Kaos has turned to Matteo Zarcone, an Italian drummer turned house producer. "No Man" is something of a bombastic treat, with Zarcone delivering a muscular, tooled-up chunk of retro-futurist Italian house built around tough drums, restless and crashing cymbals, vintage riffs, gargantuan bass and the kind of breathy, manipulated female vocal samples that were once a hallmark of early '90s Italo-house anthems. It's perhaps fitting, then, that the accompanying remix comes from '90s Italian house survivor Alex Neri. His revision is similarly percussive and bustling, but also makes greater use of Zarcone's classic-sounding bassline, crunchier machine drums and some surprisingly creepy chords.
Review: After a two-year hiatus, Wonderful Times founder Napoleon returns to action with a sizzling two-track missive on Jolly Jams. The Costa Rica-based disco emperor is in fine form throughout, first brilliantly using filter trickery to tease in a delayed-laden, dubbed out take on a soaring, tops-off Afro-disco smasher (virtual A-side "Disco Ashes"). Sleazy and otherworldly but celebratory enough to get even sober dancers reaching for the strobes, it's a superb re-edit. The same formula - filters, dub delays and copious amounts of reverb - also works its magic on "Love Spell", a slightly more spacey disco workout that nevertheless sounds like a hedonistic peak-time anthem in waiting.
Review: It was March 2017 when Richard Galling (AKA Richard From Milwaukee) teamed up with Gruzis for a first collaborative EP on Jolly Jams. Here, that EP is reissued under a new title with the addition of a swathe of remixes and bonus cuts. As the title suggests, all the material is in some way informed by the cosmic world of 1970s krautrock. This is particularly evident of Felix Dickinson's epic "Long Journey Remix" of "Further Past The Break", which layers the duo's original tumbling guitar solos and Tangerine dream electronics over a hybrid Balearic dub disco/krautrock groove, though can also be heard on Mind Fair's fantastically dubbed-out, 1980s Adrian Sherwood style revision of "Soft Dream" (which, incidentally, is given a more traditional kosmiche twist on the brilliant Baffopizza Remix).
Review: There's naturally plenty of high-grade material to be found on Jolly Jams' latest round up of previously "promo only" material from their regular vinyl missives. It's a thrill-a-minute ride through illicit underground dancefloor pastures that touches on a variety of styles, from the "Buffalo Gals"-sampling early Chicago House flex of Promo Only's "Promo Only" (track 9) and the pitched-down jazz-funk/disco-funk re-edit brilliance of Conor's "Sure Thing", to the Ron Hardy style grooves and dub delays of new wave/proto-house rework "Sake of Nothing" by Slaves of Love, via DJ Kaos's sought-after dancefloor tweak of an infamous Italo disco-era cover of Eric Clapton's "After Midnight" (here re-titled "Midnight Patrol"). The latter, now near impossible to find on vinyl, is simply essential.
Review: Groove king Medina is fighting fit and back with an absolute odyssey. "Heart Of Kyushu" is an all-out trip of tranquillity. Weighing in at 13+ minutes, it's for the deepest and most tender of moments and real statement on where Cole is at right now. "Target Woman" follows suit with a little more cosmic welly. Shiny sultry vocals, mystic synth whirlwinds and more immersivity than a VR village, Cole's not messing around with these.
Review: While he's called his new EP Save The World From Bad Music, we could argue that DJ Kaos has been on that mission for the best part of two decades. Happily, his latest chunk of cheekiness on Jolly Jams contains another quartet of party-starting treats. He begins with the wide-eyed, cut-and-paste brilliance of "S", which somehow joins the dots between squidgy late '80s Euro-house, "Long Train Running" and Italian house pianos, before getting busy with an obscure proto-house jam on "A". "V" is a killer rework of an early '80s tune that sits somewhere between AOR disco and proto-house, while brilliant closer "E" sticks a rocket under an obscure, psychedelic-era funk-rock gem.
Review: Unsurprisingly, Richard Galling, does indeed hail from Milwaukee, having released nu-disco inspired jams since about 2012. With his stuff getting plays on the likes of Beats In Space, he got his name out early. His latest offering is this single that features two original tracks and some remixes too. "303" features the eponymous bass machine all over this deep, arpeggio-heavy tech-disco jam, "Organ" swaps the 303 for a classic Robin S-style house organ, and "Prophet" adds some big room bass. Also included is a Prophet version of "Clear Water", a real late 80s, Shep Pettibone-style, Latin house joint.
Review: Operating in the shadowy no-man's-land between re-edits, remixes and original productions, DJ Kaos's Jolly Jams imprint rarely puts a foot wrong. Predictably, the label's latest missive - a two-track trip into dub disco/mid-tempo house territory from the combined talents of Danny Russell and Timothy Alexander - is quietly impressive. Opener "Let's Go (House Track Slower)" is particularly potent, offering a dubby, Idjut Boys style re-edit/remix fusion full of sleazy disco samples, looped spoken word snippets, crunchy clavinet lines and rubbery dub disco bass. The duo flips the script entirely on "Hoppers Rant (Acid Track)", pressing the button marked "dancefloor madness" via clattering drum machine percussion and wild TB-303 acid lines.
Review: DJ Kaos has gone for a minimalist approach on this latest "Promo Only" release, not bothering with track names or, it seems, any kind of promotion. Whether edits, sneaky remixes of sample-heavy cuts, both tracks are nothing less than superb. "Promo Only (A)" builds magnificently throughout, with glistening, occasionally delay-laden guitar lines and Balearic electronics becoming increasingly prevalent as the throbbing, Italo-disco goes-Balearic track progresses. It sounds like the kind of thing you'd expect to hear on Scandolearic imprints such as Full Pupp, and that's no bad thing. "Promo Only (B)" is looser, groovier and, if anything, even more saucer-eyed, with the addition of jaunty pianos, eyes-wide-shut synths and delay-laden trumpet lines perfectly complimenting the dub disco groove.
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