Review: Fledgling disco label Steppin' Out - est. 2023, and not to be confused with Polydor's 1970s disco imprint of the same name - bring us their first compilation, which rounds up the best of their singles output thus far and features some well-known names like Ken@Work, Save The Robots and Stephane Deschezeaux. The provenance of some of the album's 11 tracks is a little hazy: some sound like straight-up re-edits, others like sample-heavy homages, but either way, most if not all draw extensively on dance music's past, and if you're revisiting classics like Patrice Rushen's 'Forget Me Nots' (now 'Want You To Remember'), Ce Ce Peniston's 'Finally' ('The Way I Feel'), Surface's 'Happy' ('Hypnotized') or Chemise's 'She Can't Love You' ('Can't Love You', obviously) it's unlikely the dancefloor's gonna worry about it too much.
Review: What in fresh hell is going on at Tru Funk Towers? Barely six weeks have passed since they gave us the 10-track strong Volume 1 and already we're looking down the barrel of eight more serious funk nuggets! Featuring some of the label's favourite faces we see the likes of mainstay Chudy rub shoulders with DJ Kid Stretch with party-starting glee. The former causes spine-tingle meltdown with his Aeroplane level of synth lushness on "See You Soon" while the latter gets jiggy with a classic Deborah Cox vocal and some full strength bass riffage. That's just two of eight; do you need any more convincing?
Review: Featurecast flexes hard into the crates right here: digging deep over 20 years of party breaks, he's put together the definitive journey of funk with the refreshing devil may care attitude we've come to expect. His selection excavations are here for all the benefit from... The Wiseguys's lesser-spotted jam "One For The Ladies", Lack Of Afro's horn-melting "The Outsider", Max Sedgley's sugar-sweet "Happy", Flevans' Afrofunk shake-up "12 Apostles" and Featurecast and Aldo Vanucci's 2008 hoe-down stomper "Blue Grassed Devil" are just some are just some of the floor-matured classics amid the 25 cuts on offer here. And that's before we even get to awesome mix. Don't dillydally on this one.
Review: Go-go has always been one of American dance music's most overlooked genres. Given its roots lie in Washington DC, rather than music metropolises such as New York, Detroit or Chicago, that's perhaps unsurprising. This collection from Joey Negro offers a good starting point for those unfamiliar with the style, showcasing the work of scene stalwarts like Chuck Brown and a string of lesser-known names. It also impressively tracks the development of the sound, from a regional variant of funk to a an electro and hip-hop inspired crossover style in the early 1980s. Even if you've got a passing interest in go-go, it's worth a gander; as usual, Lee has unearthed some brilliant unheralded gems.
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