Review: UK duo Tom Lonsborough and Col Hamilton are 2 Billion Beats and present their third release for esteemed UK house imprint Paper Recordings. "Revolutions" is a dark and melodic journey track in the vein of the Life & Death sound; this one will really burn up the dancefloor! Second offering "Warm Feeling" is more on the deep house tip, featuring subtle and looped vocals, a humming dark sub bass and razor sharp synth leads: all working together to perfection. Full Pupp's Magnus International steps up to deliver an even darker rendition of "Revolutions" which delves down the twisted tech house route.
Review: Seven months on from the release of their fine debut album, Be Nice To Each Other (a title that seems more apt with every passing day), Paper Recordings stalwarts 2 Billion Beats are given the remix treatment. Richard Seaborne ropes in pal GizMo to lend a hand on his rework of "Papa", a thrillingly driving, low-slung affair built around live disco bass, glistening organ stabs and rolling percussion, while Brighton's Leon Sweet casually joins the dots between rolling nu-disco and melodious deep house on his interpretation of "Slow Down". Arguably best of all, though, is Magnus International's rework of 2011 single "To Andromeda", which sees the Oslo producer pepper a loose limbed jazz breakbeat with typically woozy, Scandolearic chords and tasty analogue synthesizer melodies.
Review: Tom Lonsborough and Col Hamilton, better known to most as 2 Billion Beats, return to their regular home of Paper Recordings with three tracks of synth-y contemporary disco. 'Down The Docks' has echoes of 80s synth-pop and centres around a fat squelchy bassline that's married to a jaunty, nagging keys riff. 'Empty Boulevard' (the pick for this writer) is a smoother ride that would slide nicely into deep or progressive house sets, while finally 'Beats Of No Nation' is a quirkier cut with multiple competing vocal samples and synths that get more and more acidic as the track progresses.
Review: The Paper Recordings household keeps coming up with the goods; each new month brings a whole heap of quality house material, and this time they've grouped together a truly special crew of producers. Futureboogie and 20:20 Vision causual, Crazy P, kicks things off by delivering a magnetic slice of slo-mo, funk house in "Last Knockers", a true gem for the boogie heads, and just a great dance tune all-round. Paper Recordings associate, Flash Atkins, goes into more progressive mood on his "Rivers Of Jordan", a house nugget with a fine layer of arpeggios for maximum club damage, and Steve Cobby's "Boule De Suif" ties this stunning little three-tracker off with some gentle, balearic house waves that push the dust into the beat - check those vintage video game sonics, too!
Review: Amazingly, it's been some 12 years since the release of Give It Up, arguably Crazy P's first major dancefloor hit (certainly their most accessible and radio-friendly single of the period). Here, the original 2002 remixes single - featuring versions from LAID, Faze Action and Reset - gets re-mastered and reissued. Interestingly, the throbbing deep house-disco take from LAID is featured here in its vocal form (the original 12" boasted just the instrumental). The standout is arguably Faze Action's revivalist disco interpretation, which boasts a seriously heavy synth bassline and dubbed-out drum machine handclaps in addition to Crazy P's original instrumentation. The Reset version, meanwhile, has a surprisingly warm and organic feel that makes it particularly attractive.
Give It U (2014 dub remasters - LAID dub remix) - (7:13) 122 BPM
Give It Up (2014 dub remasters - Faze Action's instrumental mix) - (7:41) 122 BPM
Give It Up (2014 dub remasters - Reset dub mix) - (6:27) 126 BPM
Give It Up (2014 dub remasters - Faze Action's bonus beats mix) - (4:11) 122 BPM
Review: Amazingly, it's been some 12 years since the release of Give It Up, arguably Crazy P's first major dancefloor hit (certainly their most accessible and radio-friendly single of the period). Here, the original 2002 remixes single - featuring versions from LAID, Faze Action and Reset - gets re-mastered and reissued in instrumental form. The original instrumental 12" version from LAID is here, though the standout is arguably Faze Action's revivalist disco interpretation, which boasts a seriously heavy synth bassline and dubbed-out drum machine handclaps in addition to Crazy P's original instrumentation. The Reset version, meanwhile, has a surprisingly warm and organic feel that makes it particularly attractive. As an added bonus, Faze Action's "bonus beats mix" makes an appearance too, stripping things right back to drum tool form.
Review: Following an extended hiatus, Daco returns to Paper Recordings with an EP stuffed full of high-grade dancefloor moments. Opener "The Uprise" is particularly potent, featuring as it does a killer combination of "I Feel Love" style arpeggio bass, Kraftwerkian computer vocals, driving beats, spacey chords and some superbly manipulated spoken word samples ("the money, the drugs, the oil, the guns, the war, the uprising!"). It's followed by a proto-house and Italo-disco influenced alternative version that is arguably even closer in tone to vintage Giorgio Moroder, while bonus cut "Faith" is a deep, woozy and dreamy chunk of Balearic house laden with melancholic strings and a superb vocal by Mikey Raphael.
Review: Following a string of EP and single releases on labels such as Paper, Black Riot and Trunkfunk over the past five years or so, the Oslo duo of Ravi Brunsvik and Marius Sommerfeldt return to the former with their debut long-player, which for lovers of left-of-centre deep house grooves is something of a must-check. Opener 'Skumring' starts us off in a Balearic/midtempo mood, 'Sunshine' takes us into soulful house territory, 'Dragsug' is a chuggy nu-disco groover, 'Monokrom' comes on like Chromeo or Amp Fiddler playing with acid sounds, 'Gimme Sum Dim Sum' is a lounge-y deep houser with wigged-out Hammonds, and so it goes on...
Review: Paper Recordings has long been renowned for unearthing quirky deep house from Norway. Oslo-based twosome De Fantastiske To are the latest in a long line of Norwegian Paper merchants, and here return to the imprint for their first outing of 2017. "When I Want To", featuring the stylish vocals of Della, sits somewhere between eccentric deep house, Afro-driven tropical Balearica, and shuffling, sun-kissed nu-disco. Arguably even more ear catching is slo-mo B-side "Skumring", a leisurely audio stroll through enveloping chords, gently fluctuating electronics, subtle melodies and shuffling percussion. It sounds like the sort of thing that would work well as after hours listening, in those moments when getting horizontal is your highest priority.
