Review: Armada Music 20 Years Classics pays homage to dance music's rich history and aims to educate a new generation of fans about the artists who shaped the genre. There's classics galore on this one as you'd expect, with several bangers by label chief Armin Van Burren, in addition to seminal anthems such as Joe Smooth's "Promised Land", Inner City's "Good Life" (remastered), Chez Damier's "Can You Feel It" (New York extended dub) and Olav Basoski's "Waterman" (extended mix), as well as appearances by newer artists like ANOTR, Patrick Topping and Jan Blomquist.
Review: It's that time of year again, when the industry's finest head en masse to one of the biggest events in global dance music - WMC. As always, the Toolroom family will be a known presence throughout the week-long festivities, and here's a sneak preview of the future classics they'll be dropping at this year's parties in The Magic City. Label chief Mark Knight naturally kicks things off (in collaboration with Mason) on the sweltering funky house of "Givin' Up", label stalwart Maxinne teams up with Chicago veteran Gene Farris on the deep tribal workout "Our House", the ascendant Carly Wilford & Anelisa Lamola keep on with the uplifting vocal house energy on "We Rise" while the always impressive GotSome teams up with Kokiri for the Inner City-inspired "Big Time Love" (feat Tasty Lopez) plus the welcome addition of Kittball Records boss Juliet Sikora with Tini Gessler on the high tech minimal of "Tidy Up" among many others. Comes with two continuous mixes to boot.
Review: As usual, Z Records' annual compilation of catalogue tracks doing business over on the White Isle is packed to the rafters with high-grade dancefloor treats. It opens with a sweltering Dave Lee and Harry Romero mix of Z Factor's '90s house classic 'Ride The Rhythm' and ends with Lee's string-laden disco rework of Foreal People's 'Does It Feel Good To You'; in between, you'll find an attractive mixture of bouncy Afro-boogie revivalism (Emmaculate's extended mix of 'Dougswana' by Dave Lee as Doug Willis), reworked Z Records classics (Atjazz giving a classic-but-percussive deep house feel to Jakatta's 'American Dream'), super-soulful house (Wipe The Needle),driving disco-house (Prospect Park) and breezy piano house (Sean McCabe's 'Italo Piano' mix of Soul Dhamma). As the old clich? goes, this is genuinely "all killer, no filler".
Review: As the title suggests, this fantastic - and let's face it, pleasingly epic - compilation showcases some of the many disco-centric cuts in the Z Records vaults, throwing in a few exclusives (see Dave Lee's fantastic, hybrid disco-boogie rework of Firefly's 'Love is Gonna Be on Your Side') for good measure. Such is the high-quality threshold that picking stand outs is tough, but our picks of a very strong bunch include the slick, boogie-funk brilliance of Crackazat's 'Sensationalized', Larry Levan's vintage, delay-heavy synth dub of Johnny Dynell's 'Rhythm of Love', the stomping disco-house release of 'Gotta Thing (2021 Remaster)' by Foreal People, Taana Gardner and Dave Lee, and John Morales' epic rework of Sean McCabe's 'Love For Life'. As the old saying goes, this is all killer and no filler.
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