Review: Fresh from delivering some jazz-funk influenced soulful house and broken beat flavours on Z Records, Lee Gomez AKA Wipe The Needle returns to Local Talk, a label he's been loosely associated with since 2019. The experienced producer immediately hits his stride with 'It's My World Ya Heard', a loose-limbed chunk of woozy deep house marked out by swinging beats, jazzy synth-bass and classic-sounding synthesizer chords. 'Would You' is a jaunty, soul-fired slab of samba-house loveliness smothered in futuristic jazz-funk synth sounds, while 'Fist of the North Star' is a sparkling, kaleidoscopic slab of heavily electronic broken beat/jazz-funk fusion full of subtle nods towards Motor City music and the hybrid works of Dego and Kaidi Tatham.
Review: Lee Gomez started producing jungle in the early '90s, but a chance meeting at a recording studio in 2005 was the birthplace of Wipe The Needle. With Mikael Nybom, they released on Slip'n'Slide, Deeply Rooted House and Raw Fusion but since 2013 it has been a solo endeavour by Gomez. He returns to Local Talk, taking up where he left off on the last release with more UK broken beat vibes on "Round Of Applause" featuring Aleysha Lei, which is backed by some off-kilter nu-jazz as heard on "Jack The Nitty" and the late night bounce of "Event Horizon".
Review: Cast your memories back to 2011 and you'll find it was then that Peter Major, aka OPOLOPO made his debut on Local Talk with a presentation of Actual Proof. Having gone on to work with Toolroom Records, If It Ain't Jazz, G.A.M.M. and Vive La Musique since, Major has been invited back for the first time since 2019 to 'tweak' his personal favourites from the Local Talk back cat. This includes some rare numbers from Soulphiction and Jamie 326 next to some straight up remixes of Urban Sound Lab Presents Miss Yankey and Wil Maddams - alongside OPOLOPO & Actual Proof numbers "Silkworms" and dubby broken beat slice "Hubble".
Review: Man of the moment Felipe Gordon is in a rich vein of form right now, which each new week bringing a fresh batch of tracks or remixes. He's in the latter mode on Reworks, Volume 3, the latest volume in his ongoing series for Local Talk. He heads for 4AM heads-down territory on his fine revision of Marcel Vogel AKA EmVee's 'Brotherman Part 1', adding hazy, hypnotic riffs, sampled blues vocals and dazzling early morning synth stabs to a bass-heavy deep house beat. He channels the Colombian sunshine on track two, a colourful, retro-futurist house re-make of Corrado Bucci's 'No One Can Stop Us' that's full to bursting with bright piano riffs, tactile synth bass and sweaty, swinging drums.
Review: Having kick-started his new remix series with inspired re-rubs of tracks by Kyodai and Fish Go Deep, man of the moment Felipe Gordon has now turned his attention to cuts from Crazkazat and Merrick. His revision of the former's 'Silent Sling' is undeniably inspired, with heady Latin percussion, jazzy keys and Motor City techno chords rising above rolling house beats and a heavy, mind-altering bassline. It's basically Latin deep house re-imagined for the 21st century, and that's no bad thing. There's more of a swinging, loose-limbed feel to his version of Merrick's 'The Scene', which the Colombian producer re-imagines as a bumpin', stab-happy affair full of raw analogue bass, dreamy pads and electronic jazz-funk flourishes.
Review: Not content with delivering some of the most inspired original productions of the year (see his EPs on Shall Not Fade for starters), jazz-funk loving deep house star Felipe Gordon has now decided to showcase his talents as a remixer. He begins his first Reworks EP for Local Talk by taking on Kyodai's 'Breaking', delivering a fine revision that adds rubbery bass guitar, tight organ stabs, short vocal snippets and waves of delay-laden jazz piano solos to a rolling deep house groove. Gordon veers deeper into jazz-house territory on the accompanying remix of Fish Go Deep's 'Off Script', making the most of snaking clarinet and sax lines, sparkling synth stabs and a quality broken house beat. In a word: superb.
Review: Something of an enigmatic legend within the Swedish soul digging scene, Envee - aka Maciej Golinski (aka Ukokos) - gets the rework on Local Talk via a set of Trev remixes. Featuring fine house vocalist Nick Sinckler, Trev throws down two mixes with a dub vibe that perfectly settles the vocals in a B-side track reminiscent of Jacques Renault on fire back in the day. Full of misty, rainbow-kissed themes and sweet delay effects, you can tip your hat toward Trev's broken beat, future deep house style. Giving the original a slightly techier makeover in the lead remix, Trev works the soul angle this time around while pushing the track's peak time, US garage accessibility to the front. Gotta work.
Review: Mad Mats & Tooli's ever reliable Local Talk imprint out of Sweden returns this week with a new one by Brighton's Luke Fono, who last appeared on our radar a while back with his terrific track "Telephone" with Buddha Kid. His offering here is the ultra deep mood music of "4Real" featuring an evocative vocal by BB James. With its breezy neon-lit chords and swung garage rhythms, it is the perfect backdrop to James' vocals and will appeal to fans of Kaidi Tatham or 4hero. There's also a handy dub and edit featured for all the DJs out there.
Review: Having released a debut album in 2017 via the GAMM label, Riddim Research Lab reveals itself again as some kind of enigmatic dub tribe with a curveball release finding its way to Swedish label Local Talk. This we can assume comes through Berlin duo Kyodai - who have collaborated with the likes of Basic Soul Unit, Mule Musiq, Freerange and Local Talk before. Together the pair deliver a largely instrumental number, strummed and dubbed out by warmer reggae vibes, a touch of disco and that tropicana flavour oozing from those sweet splashes of space echo and guitar. Get yer dubs, Local Talk.
Review: L'Aroye is Thomas Arroyo, a DJ and producer from Paris who is now living in Brighton. He's had some releases previously for the likes of Visions Inc., Tiff's Joints and Magic Black. He is back for another appearance on Mad Mats & Tooli's ever reliable Local Talk imprint with this one titled "Keep On" featuring two tracks that go down separate paths. The deep, evocative and altogether spiritual energy of the title track captures the very best elements of legends such as Kerri Chandler or Ron Trent, while the 6 A.M dub mix is a worthy addition too. On this version he streamline the groove for DJ use in fine fashion.
Review: Local Talk's packed release schedule means that keeping up with the label's releases can be tough. Happily, founders Mad Mats and Tooli found a solution long ago: the best-of style Talking House compilation series, which here notches up its 11th instalment. Packed to the rafters with high-quality deep, dusty, jazzy and soul-fired house, the collection's highlights are plentiful. Our picks include the hazy gospel-house hustle of Soulphiction's 'Niederbeat Gospel Dub', the jazzy Afro-house warmth of 'One Less (Main Send)' by Urban Sound Lab presents Miss Yankey, the extra-percussive, organic deep house positivity of Vick Lavender's spacey 'Shifting Gears', the bruk-up breeze that is Anthony Nicholson and Mark De Clive-Lowe's 'Another Story', and the sunset-ready, bossa-house breeze of Shaka's'New Relationship'.
Review: Over the years, Local Talk bosses Mad Mats and Tooli have proved to be shrewd operators when it comes to commissioning remixes. As a result, the label's vaults are full of killer re-rubs, as this fourth collection of reworked highlights proves. Beginning with an inspired Ron Trent jazz-dance revision of Kyoto Jazz Sextet's 'Rising', the set smoothly moves between life-affirming, musically rich Latin house (Anthony Nicholson reworking DASCO), jazz-funk flavoured 4/4 smoothness (Kaidi Tatham tweaking Coflo), soul-fired organic house jazziness (Waajeed remixing Crackazat), analogue-rich late might hypnotism (a show-stopping Jamie 3:26 re-wire of Soulphiction) and sunset-ready tropical house (TRinidadiandeep's inspired re-frame of DASCO's 'African Power').
Review: First released via a trilogy of EPs, Sickla is Peter 'Opolopo' Major's first album in five years. As befitting an artist famed for the soulfulness, aural colour and expansive musicality of his productions, the set's X tracks are piled high with infectious rhythms, organic instrumentation, vibrant synth sounds and electric piano solos so jazzy they could have been the work of Herbie Hancock. Musically, the album is rooted in deep house, jazz-funk, boogie and dancefloor soul, bult also includes nods towards broken beat, Latin house and head-nodding downtempo beats. It's a stunning, sparkling set all told, and easily Major's most accomplished and enjoyable work to date.
Review: Local Talk's latest recruit Shaka (real name Kurt Spichiger) is something of an unsung hero - a Swiss house producer who has periodically served up deep and seductive slabs of musical goodness since the mid 1990s. His first EP for Mad Mats and Tooli naturally has a classic feel, with title track 'Theme From Riverwalk' layering luscious electric piano motifs and spacey chords atop a bouncy groove rich in tough drums, jazzy synth-bass and hazy, US garage style organ stabs. He opts for a far jazzier and more uplifting sound on 'New Relationship', where fluid piano solos and sparkling, Herbie Hancock style jazz-funk synths rise above a jaunty Latin-house groove. Both tracks come accompanied by solid, club-focused Dub mixes.
Review: There's something of a stylistic shift from Opolopo here, as he tones down his usual broken beat/nu-jazz/Afro leanings and instead serves up four cuts that can best be described as late 70s/early 80s jazz-funk viewed through a deep/disco house filter. There are floors out there where these will make great warm-up material, and others where they'll create memorable peaktime 'moments', but either way there's no doubting the quality of the production. The meandering Rhodes on 'Crab Sticks' make it the standout for this reviewer, but it's a close-run thing because there's not a duff cut in sight!
Review: Given that Peter Major AKA Opolopo has a proven track record of making inspired, hard-to-pigeonhole dance music awash with colour and soul, Local Talk's recent announcement that they're releasing a series of EPs from him is very good news indeed. There's naturally much to get the blood pumping and the juices flowing on this second (of three) EPs, from the carnival-ready Latin percussion, Roy Ayers-esque jazz-funk instrumentation and sparkling synthesizer melodies of opener "Silkworms", to the Rhodes-heavy, organic jazz-house lusciousness of closing cut "The Sluggard". Sandwiched in between you'll find the oddly swung but undeniably brilliant jazz-funk jam "Triplet Limp". In a word: essential!
Review: Four cuts from Opolopo here that plough exactly the kind of deep, soulful, jazzy furrow we've come to expect. 'Loose Limbs' gets the ball rolling and has something of a late 70s/early 80s jazz-funk feel - if you know who Mike Mandel or Wilbert Longmire are, you'll dig this one for sure! Take the same recipe, stir in a little Afro-house flava in the drums department and you'll end up with 'Chocolate Liquorice', while 'Moonwalk' comes on like Dave Lee in his most dreamy, spaced-out moments and 'You Can Make It' takes us closer to straight-up soul territory.
Review: Last year Local Talk offered up Soulphiction's latest album (his first for almost ten years), a superb, soul-fired set of bluesy, sample-rich deep house treats. Here they complete the package via a "VIP Edition" single featuring a brand new cut and a previously unheard revision of album highlight "Feelin' Good". The simply titled "Version" mix of that (track two on this digital edition) is delicious, with the Philpot founder layering expansive piano motifs and dizzying solos over skippy, U.S garage-influenced beats and a warm, toasty bassline. Arguably even better though is the fresh cut, "Niederbeat Gospel (Dub)". Living up to its title, the track is a thickset chunk of bluesy gospel house dustiness built around swinging beats, beefy bass and layered vocal samples from a crackly old gospel recording.
Review: Colombian producer Felipe Gordon's profile has risen considerably over the last 18 months, with rock solid releases on Quintessentials, Toy Tonics, Razor 'N' Tape Reserve and Exploited Ghetto only enhancing his credentials. Now some of his tracks have been snaffled up by another highly regarded imprint, the bastion of quality house that is Local Talk. Title track "For A Bright & Acid Future" hits the spot from the word go, with Gordon wrapping twisted, rough-neck acid lines around a bustling backing track rich in fuzzy synth stabs, jazzy bass guitar and crunchy beats. Kear lends a hand on the sun-kissed, soft focus brilliance of jazz-funk/Jazz/deep Latin house fusion of "Son Esquivias", before Gordon goes solo via the woozy, summery and squelchy deep house lusciousness of "icking Fuzzed Personality".
Review: Local Talk's periodic round-up of classic cuts from the label's bulging back catalogue returns for an eighth time, with imprint founders Mad Mats and Tooli gathering together a predictably fine selection of tracks. Most bases are covered - house-wise, at least - from trumpet-laden Afro-house brilliance (Dasco's "African Power"), and ultra-soulful, Atjazz-esque broken house deepness (Wipe The Needle's super-smooth "Enchanted"), to "French Kiss"-inspired house hypnotism (Soulphiction's "Believe"), 21st century jazz-funk/deep house fusion (Crackazat's fine rework of Art of Tones' "The Rainbow Song") and ultra-deep, Nina Simone-sampling dancefloor bliss (Emvee's "Brotherman"). In a word: essential.
Review: Given his roots in San Francisco's Bay Area, it's perhaps unsurprising that COFLO makes warm, gently breezy and sun-kissed music that joins the dots between the hippyish, dub-flecked deep house of Dubtribe Soundsystem and jazz-funk fired broken beat. His latest single, "Lux", is a particularly good example of his tactile and wavy fusion of styles, particularly in the EP-opening "Extended Mix" form (which also includes some tidy Latin percussion). The Latin, deep house and jazz-funk influences also come to the fore on "Coflo's Mix", while the rock solid vocal and dub revisions by Kaidi Tatham are more house-flavoured than you may expect, even if they do boast the kind of colourful jazz-funk synthesizer flourishes we've come to expect from the 2000 Black artist.
Review: Vick Lavender in the house and it smells good! Shifting up the gears is Local Talk, the Swedish label celebrating its second record of the year with two epic, jazzy and melodic throw downs of undeniable house instrumentation. Deep and soulful, penetrating tribal dance drums hold down the rhythm track in Rick Lavender's "Here In Spirit Sid" that sees all matter of keys, strings, horns and bells light up its 11-minute count. Equal to that is Lavender's bassline driven hoochimama "Shifting Gears". Exotic cocktail tropicana seduction to turn you loose!
Review: If you like your deep house on the soulful, jazzy and dreamy side then you're in for a treat with this two-track EP, which sees Prescription veteran Nicholson teaming up with in-demand keyboardist de Clive-Lowe. 'Yeah Yeah' sadly isn't a Georgie Fame/Matt Bianco cover but instead a freeform excursion that uses filtered piano chords as the foundation for an ultra-jazzy workout with shufflin' drums and a wigged-out (Farfisa?) organ line, while 'Another Story', with its squelchy bassline and gently tinkling ivories, is perhaps more one for late-night play than the dancefloor, but equally impressive. A fine team-up from two very respected players.
Review: We were rather astonished to discover that "24/7 Love Affair" is Michael Baumann's first album as Soulphiction for 11 years. We were a little less surprised to find that it's superb. In fact, we'd go as far as to say that it could be considered a "best practice" example of the kind of loose, sample-heavy, soul-fired deep house that is all the rage right now. Yet the album's epic length - it comprises no less than 17 tracks - also allows Baumann to mix it up a little too, with a swathe of ocean-deep club jams being joined by search diversions as the morning-fresh broken beat loveliness of "Jus Listen", the stomping disco-funk of "The Mood", the bustling breakbeats of "A Freak" and the blazed instrumental hip-hop of "Good Night Ema".
