Review: Chris Robinson AKA Ruff Diamond has an impressive musical CV, with official remixes under his belt for the likes of Beyonce, Estelle and Teedra Moses, and session work as a guitarist for The Shapeshifters and Maxi Priest. Now back in his native Manchester after many years in Los Angeles and London, here he serves up a brace of disco-housers from the more commercial side: 'Disco Freakin' has competing layered vocals, big dramatic synth-strings and an overall Hed Kandi-esque feel, while the accompanying 'Disco Trippin' aims at slightly more discerning floors with its live-sounding congas and space disco stabs.
Review: Seamus Haaji has gathered together a suitably impressive cast of producers for this fourth volume in his Re-Loved label's "All Stars" series of EPs. Conan Liquid kicks things off with a heavily compressed chunk of Clavinet-sporting, delay-laden disco house (the fittingly titled "Hot"), before Frank Virgilio flexes his muscles (and squelchy synths) on the down-low P-funk/disco-funk fusion of "Bite My Groove". Chewy Rubs steals this show with an even more tooled up version of what sounds like a Motown style 1960s soul stomper (the bounce-along heaviness of "Good People"), while Danny "80s Child" Worrall serves up a breezy, colourful and cheery rearrangement of a percussively stuttering '80s soul gem.
Review: Two tracks of eminently dancefloor-friendly disco here coming from Motte, an Austrian producer whose work has previously appeared on Midnight Riot and Purple Tracks, among others. 'Humpty Dance' has nothing to do with Digital Underground's 90s hip-hop classic of the same name, being instead a late 90s-sounding disco-houser with a presumably sampled, dusty-sounding female vocal, while 'Juicy' itself dwells in the nebulous zone between disco-house and 'new old' funk, with hefty 4/4s, wah-tastic geetar and looped (and indecipherable) female vocal snips. There's nothing especially groundbreaking going on, but both will do the damage out on the floor for sure.
Review: Chewy Rubs' output has been rather impressive of late, so it's no surprise to find that the producer's fifth EP for Re-Loved is another essential outing. He begins with the rolling disco-funk bounce of cheeky Chic rework "Dance, Clap & Move Everybody (Chewy Rubs Future Dub)", where headline-grabbing chorus vocals rise above incessant guitar and vibraphone loops and a suitably heavyweight groove. "Live For-Ever (Chewy Rubs Irene's After-Party Dub)" is a wild, acid-flecked, Tiger & Woods style loop jam destined to ignite early morning dancefloors, while "Airs Groove (Chewy Rubs Rollin' Dub)" is a percussion-laden breakbeat disco smasher straight from the top drawer. If that's not enough to set the pulse racing, insatiably funky closing cut "Feel Good (Chewy Rubs Rub)" should give you serious heart palpitations.
Review: A four-track V/A offering here from Seamus Haji's re-edit label Re-Loved. Ruff Diamond gets the ball rolling with the low-slung west coast funker 'Drop N Shake', which comes complete with rap vocal snips and some Zapp-esque talkbox action, before Probably Shouldn't take us into uptempo disco territory with 'Don't You'. The source of those first two is unknown, but we're on more familiar territory with South Beach Recycling's 'Good Love In', an authentically 70s-sounding soul/funk cut based on MFSB's 'Plenty Good Lovin', while Dennis Edwards classic 'Don't Look Any Further' gets a soulful house-inspired makeover courtesy of Ian Ossia.
Review: 2018 was a big year for the fast-rising Chuggin Edits crew. Over 12 hectic months the mysterious rework merchants released eight EPs, flitting between such solid labels as Midnight Riot, Alpaca Edits, Masterworks Music, Hot Digits and Slightly Transformed. In contrast, this three-track outing on Re-Loved is, somewhat surprisingly, their first outing of 2019. Up first is the sparkling, filter-heavy, French Touch style disco-house of "My Life Will Never Be The Same Again", a celebratory outing that makes merry with choice loops from a glassy-eyed 1980s workout. "With You" is a driving revision of a soaring disco workout rich in puncy horns and delay-laden group vocals, while "Tell Me" is a low-down disco-funk throb-job laden with fuzz-tone guitar riffs, squally horns and urgent vocals.
Review: Following hot-to-trot outings on Midnight Riot, Big Love and Purple Disco Records, former Soundcloud edit king Motte pops up on Re-Loved with a seriously good two-track missive. First up is "Hallelujah", a warm, groovy and celebratory chunk of peak-time house rich in eyes-closed electric piano solos, rubbery disco bass, sampled preacher-man spoken word vocals, bongo breaks and life-affirming cowbells. It's ace, all told, as is the baggier disco-house cut "Boogaloo". This, too, is pleasingly percussive, with sweaty additional drum hits and sweaty backing vocals rising above jaunty synth riffs, dreamy chords, jangling piano riffs and sampled disco orchestration. It sits somewhere between a remix and a re-edit; more importantly, it's something of a bouncy, all-action treat.
Review: There's a fine line between the re-edit and the sample track, and it's a line that gets notably blurred on this latest Chewy Rubs EP from Re-Loved, though the latter tag probably fits slightly better. 'Everybody' is a stuttery nu-disco/disco-house jam topped with familiar diva vocal snippets, the rolling, bass-y Seamus Haji Remix of 'It's Not Over' impressively breathes new life into the well-worn First Choice vocal, 'Too Much, You Know' operates at the jazzier end of the contemporary funk spectrum and will likely prove the connoisseurs' choice, while 'Doing It' is straight-up Euro dancefloor exuberance, late 70s-style.
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