Night People NYC is a label that’s been raising roofs in the Big Apple since 2014 with its sleek deep house and disco selections, rich with melody, funk and soul. Led by one of New York’s favourite house and disco evangelists Eli Escobar, Night People has spun out countless releases from Escobar himself, as well as originals and remixes from: Purple Disco Machine, Ricardo Baez, The Carry Nation and IPF.
Review: No single-track salvo from Eli Escobar this time round, but rather a two-track missive packed to the rafters with peak-time potential. Leading the charge is 'Just Work', a stomping but hypnotic affair in which sampled handclaps and blues vocal snippets work (sorry) together with looped stabs, cymbal-heavy machine drums and twinkling piano solos to create a heady late-night mood. 'Typical Sax Song' is a touch more laid-back but still energetic enough to get people going on the dancefloor, with Escobar adding woozy synths and hazy sax solos to a loose-limbed house beat and rubbery, delay-laden electronic bassline.
Review: Breaking through in 2017 thanks to a stream of records and long players for Derrick Carter and Luke Solomon's Classic label, the New York Eli Escobar artist scratches up his first release of 2021 with a follow up LP to last year's Last Summer album. Lullabies For A Sleeping City, then, brings with it a radiophonic, sample heavy and funk fusion influence of lo-fi field recordings, dusty hip hop drums, woozy synth lines, rhodes and pads to slow mo grooves and broken beat drums that strapped and packaged with the vibe of a balmy night's setting sun. Don't sleep.
Review: Eli Escobar has always tended towards the prolific, but during the ongoing global pandemic he seems to have upped his work rate even further. In the last four months alone he's released a full-length excursion, There Are Ghosts Everywhere in New York City, a mini-album, Night Class, and now this two-track single. Interestingly, he's on a more atmospheric, tactile and downtempo tip this time round, with opener 'LuvISalright' wrapping eyes-closed '80s soul vocal samples, dreamy chords and twinkling lead lines around a gentle, hip-hop tempo groove. It's utterly delicious and hugely attractive. 'LifeGoesOn', which is the kind of glassy-eyed chunk of huggable dreaminess that should be sound-tracking long, languid sunrise, is similarly deep, loopy and sumptuous.
Review: Last autumn, Eli Escobar delivered a swathe of rather good single-track salvos. It's these that have been gathered together on Night Class, a five-track mini-album that showcases the increasing musical diversity of his dancefloor-focused sound. That much is proved by the first two tracks, where the bold, beautiful, vintage-sounding synths and throbbing bottom-end of 'Blue Magic' is followed by the glassy-eyed, nu disco-tinged piano house bliss of 'Give Love'. Escobar's increasing use of late 1970s and early '80s synth sounds continues on 'Night Class', while 'This Is Not Going To Be An Ambient Track' sits somewhere between revivalist Chicago jack and slow-burn deep house warmth. As for closing cut 'What You Said', it's pleasingly crunchy, foreboding and sweaty.
Review: US house cronie Eli Escobar keeps the musical coffers full of tunes over at Night People NYC with some quickfire freshness. Still hot from his Last Summer LP, this New York city proud release is peppered with soundbites from the big apple, be they interviews from the studio or sound bites from the street which are weaved between sensual electro-soul numbers like "Treatemright" or the '80s inspired neo-R&B of "Dreams". There's poetry and gospel to be found in "GetThruit" next to some dusty instrumental hip hop vibes in "Zombieland" or the crackled out, melancholic urbana beats of "Crimepayz". Find a splash of ambient house in "Streetwalker" and "Problemchild" with good time vibes and atmospheres in "Kids" to some old school hip house sentiments and breakbeats in "Beatz2tharime". A record inspired by jazz, new york city, and its people.
Review: Manhattan veteran Eli Escobar can usually be relied upon to deliver the goods, so we were naturally not that surprised to find that his latest single once again hits the spot. Lead cut "Body Muzik" sees him pay tribute to the electronic body music era of the 1980s, New York style. That means a thrusting, mind-altering mixture of Nitzer Ebb style bass, sweaty beats, spiralling electronic noises and short stabs that sound like they were inspired by NYC freestyle. "Tonight (Club Mix)" takes a different approach, with Escobar mixing up jazzy breaks, stomping house beats, jacking drum machine fills, restless New Jersey organ riffs, crystalline chords and savagely cut-up old school vocal samples. It's as ear-pleasing as it is effective.
Review: Keeping it simple is the name of the game on this latest from New York house wunderkind Escobar. It's a single-track affair, for starters - so none of those pesky remixes to worry about - while the track itself is a looping affair centred around a female "the rhythm, addicted to the rhythm" vocal that plays almost constantly, underpinned by a nagging synth riff that nods to classic-style Detroit techno. Various other vocal snips and ever-shifting drum patterns help to maintain the interest, but this is nevertheless an eyes-down, locked-in-the-groove kinda cut built to keep warmed-up floors moving through those peaktime hours.
Review: Shawn Reed's Night People label is an outpost of quirkiness (they release tunes on retro formats like cassettes) out in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Responsible for bringing us all styles underground dancefloor action, they now give us a two tracker heavy hitter of a single from International PowerliftingFederation. "Only God Can Save Me' is a deeply intense slice of stark, jackin', no-nonsense electro. The second jam on here, "Love Is One The Brain", is a much calmer affair - with all the silky smooth warmth of a late 80s warehouse rave at sunrise
Review: Some two years on from the album's original release, Night People serve up a fresh set of remixes of cuts from Eli Escobar's debut set, Up All Night. There's much to admire, with hyped disco/house fusionists Purple Disco Machine, in particular, impressing with their version of "Visions". A rolling deep house/disco fusion full of springy live bass, crispy beats and jammed-out organ riffs, it's just the thing to keep the party going when dancers are flagging. Escobar's own tweak of "Tension" - featuring vocal samples from a mid '80s Boyd Jarvis and Timmy Regisford production - is a late night, Italo throbber, while Whatever/Whatever join the dots between a myriad of classic NYC dance music styles on their acid-flecked, early morning rub of "NY So Hi".
Review: As Eli Escobar let's it be known in "The Formula" that he's 'got something for you' as the sweet chorale chimes. There's a subtle Osunlade vibe to this album, the American's first, and Rhodes be flaying on "Visions" as they vamp to a climax like a Bootsy Collins solo. It's all stripped back business of "NY So Hi" - get down to this! And for some quality, sustained loops check out "Thank You Les". "Up All Night" is a dubbed-out, cool-as, disco-tinged burner and there's a whole load to discover here in a debut album rich with the type of soul you can only get from the streets of the big apple.
