Started a while back now, this is a continuation of the series of mixes from Irish djs I think are doing great things on the ones and twos at the moment. Unlike the last few I featured, Phil is also moving into the world of producing/releasing, under the name Slowburn with Dave Hargadon. Their first release is on the upcoming compilation 12″ on the Uzuri label which will also feature ISM faves Chicago Skyway and Juju and Jordash. There are samples up on the Juno website; here. The whole Ep sounds pretty darn good to these ears.

Phil’s mix is on a deep tip, much like his excellent club sets. T/l and link below. Enjoy!

1. Cloudmaster Weed- Come on (and join us)
2. Lowtec-Unknown [OTL]
3. Glen Underground-Ninja
4. Gemini-Snow Drop
5.Theo Parrish- That Day
6. Brawther- Asteroids and Stardust (burst mix)
7. Marvin Dash-Small’s paradice
8. Restoration 10
9. JorGec-Mas musica
10. Terrence Dixion- Room 310 (upperground rework)
11. M. Pittmann-Raz 09
12. Kerri Chandler-shelter

Grab it here

Having moved away from Ireland’s southern capital, Cork, a few years ago, I’m making one of my most anticipated (for me that is) returns to the city since then. There be a-plenty going on down there this coming weekend, and I’m lucky enough to be stuck in the middle of it, playing some records – and buying some! I’ll start at the end and work my way backwards…

2 good friends of mine, Barry Walsh and John Hennessy have been running the Sunday Times party for just over a year – check out their site here -, a day/night that has gone from strength to strength with each passing party, climaxing in it’s first birthday earlier in the summer.

After taking a break for a month it returns again this Sunday (29th) in their usual home of Realt Dearg on Barrack St and they’ve very kindly asked me to come down and play the latest edition. And as of yesterday they’ll also have a special guest flying down (well, getting the train with me) in the shape of ISM’s favourite Italian, Lerosa!

They run the party from 4 in the afternoon until Midnight or so, and going on reports a fun and eclectic musical atmosphere is what they get off on, so I’ll be packing my bag with plenty of stuff that I mightn’t normally get to play in a club atmosphere along with some disco/italo/boogie/house bizness. I’ve not played down in Cork in nearly 3 years – the place where I started playing out properly – so I’m really, really looking forward to it.

The day before is, to be fair, a much more important day for Cork’s music scene. At the end of last year my favourite record shop in the country, Plugd Records, closed it’s doors. I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention it on here as reading about another closed record store is something we didn’t need. But, one re-opening is, in these times, something to shout about from the roof tops.

Moved to a new location temporarily – the Substation venue – before it settles into the renovated Triskel Arts Centre next year, this Saturday the shop will again become a hub for all things musical in the city, kicking off immediately on it’s (re)opening day with bands playing throughout the day in the new shop. Later on that evening – with no doubt some hot new wax in my bag – things move up to the Realt Dearg where a bunch of us will be djing small sets throughout the night, with myself and Lerosa playing along with some locals including Kim Keating and Jack Buckley; who run the Workshop and Moons night respectively (Jack’s night has seen Cork debuts for the likes of Fred P, Kassem Mosse and Jus Ed), all to celebrate the return of a shop that for many years helped shape my musical collection. All in all it should hopefully be a fantastic way to end the summer -and no cover charge or anything for either party. I dunno if any Cork folk read us here much, but if you do be nice to see yis out and about, say hello and then throw things at Lerosa. Or maybe vice-versa. Tis up to you.

If you’re anywhere in the area of New York City (and let’s face it, I know there’s about 20 million people so a decent number of you must be ISM readers ), you want to be checking us out tonight at Bistrouge! Frank Glazer aka Count Zer0 and myself will be representing this here blog, while Bernardo will be representing his own Delicious Records blog; all three of us will be representing beautiful deep dance music all night long. All info is available on the Facebook event page here, we hope to see many ISM readers out tonight!

I’m back on the internets radio waves this evening, joining Mike and Eoin who do the weekly Delicious Mix Sessions on Power Fm, here in Dublin. It was sometime around the beginning of the year that I last did the show with the guys, so I’m looking forward to doing it again. If you got nothing else to do between 6-8pm tonight (Irish time) you can listen to the stream here. Last time I was on in the middle for an hour, so probably the same again. Tune in and leave some abuse on the site

My esteemed colleague Andrew Burger (AKA H.I.M. DJ Mr. Monkey MD), owner of the Harmony Society label that dropped its debut 7″ from Pittsburgh producer BusCrates last summer, has done up a new mix for us to celebrate the release of HSOC-02 by the funky Pittsburgh group Smooth Tutors!

Mr. Burger has been a long-time supporter of underground music of many styles, especially on vinyl. In addition to the label, he has put on shows, been a radio deejay and music director at 88.3 WRCT, and created countless flyers for underground shows and club nights of various types (including the vast majority of events I have done for the past few years!); now he is beginning to put his rather impressive record collection on display in deejay sets around Pittsburgh wherever he can get away with playing the diverse musics he loves.

This mix features many artists that Andrew has gotten me hip to over the years, like Carlos Niño (of Build an Ark), Georgia Anne Muldrow, and Paulinho da Costa, and contains a mix of older and newer cuts that share a similar mood. One standout tune is the B-side cut from the aforementioned Smooth Tutors 7″ on Harmony Society, which features BusCrates on keys. I’ve been playing this one a ton in my sets recently as well! Very high quality from some new Pittsburgh musicians whose sound is influenced by math-rock like Tortoise as well as jazz-funk like CTI Records! Absolutely essential, in my not-unbiased opinion!

Tracklist:

Junior Homrich – River Paradise
Paulinho da Costa – Berimbeau Variation
Dorothy Ashby – Essence Of Sapphire
Bill Walker – Harpanova
Recloose – Paepulsariki (Feat. Jonathan Crayford)
Richard “Groove” Holmes – Song For My Father
Paul Desmond – El Condor Pasa
Build An Ark – World Peace Now
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson – Fantastic (Georgia Anne Muldrow Remix)
Dragons – Sunset Scenery
Smooth Tutors – Untitled Side B
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Flipside
Lojack Jahil – Crack It (Unmixed)
Blondes – You Mean So Much To Me
Bobby Hutcherson – N.T.U.
Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus & Max Roach – Fleurette Africaine

Download the mix here.

In other Pittsburgh news, my man DJ Nice Rec has done up a sequel to his Boogieman mix that we featured on here a few months ago. He has been on a record buying binge that is actually exceeded by his recent spate of insanely dope productions! Seriously, this cat sends me so much good music it makes my head spin. I know I said it last time, and I’ve been dragging ass though not for much longer, but his music will see the light of day on wax on Love What You Feel by the end of the year.

In the meantime, you’re definitely gonna want to check out this mix that features many of my favorite boogie jams! Also, we are trying to get a night together where we can play all of our favorite boogie, electro-funk, roller disco, and 80s R&B jams so keep your eyes on this space for more info on that!

Tracklist:

1.) Marjorie Barnes- Point Blank
2.) First Love- Party Lights
3.) Cliff Dawson- I Can Love You Better
4.) Superior Movement- Wideshot
5.) Chemise- She Can’t Love You
6.) Armenta- I Wanna Be With You
7.) The Jones Girls- Nights Over Egypt
8.) Change- Miracles
9.) Odyssey- Inside Out
10.) Halo- Let Me Do It
11.) Vernon Burch- Playing Hard To Get
12.) Bernard Wright- Just Chillin Out
13.) Charlie Singleton and Stargasm- I Wanna Boogie With You
14.) Charisma ft. Brenda Watts- Love Treatment
15.) Sunfire- Shake Your Body
16.) Komiko- Feel Alright
17.) Goldie Alexander- Show You My Love
18.) The Players Association- We’re Almost There
19.) Finis Henderson- Skip To My Lou
20.) Master Jam- Dancin All Night

Download the mix here.

There have been a couple of other films based around records, the aptly named Vinyl which more focused on the nuttier end of obsessive record collectors (if anything it will make you feel less abnormal about your dedication to collecting vinyl; you will seem positively sane) and the wonderfully shot short film about Pittsburgh’s Paul Mawhinney who pertains to have the largest collection of vinyl in the world. Mawhinney also features in the new film but this one looks like it should be better than either, as hopefully it will actually focus somewhat on music and the cultural impact of vinyl and why after all these years it still generates such love and dedication from music lovers world wide. Chuck D, Danny Krivit, Mr Scruff and ?uestlove all feature which means it’s not just about oddball collectors but interesting and/or quality djs and artists who’s musical lives have all been massively impacted by vinyl.

ISM troops are invading New York City next Friday, August 20th! At the invitation of our ally Bernardo over at Delicious Records, elite warriors Frank Glazer aka DJ Count Zer0 and Thomas Cox will touch down armed with heavy vinyl explosives. Expect all kinds of deep detonations sure to get that ass moving.

You can RSVP for the action on the Facebook event page here. Keep an eye on this space before the event for any additional info! I know we have a big NYC crew, I hope to see you all out there!

If you’re one of our stateside readers you’ll probably agree that it has been ridiculously hot lately, both in terms of weather and music. If you don’t concur, well, you’re either lucky to live somewhere pleasant but have been missing out on crazy great tunes, or like me you’re already batcrap insane from the heat. I did a mix a few weeks ago when the daily temperatures were hitting the low 100s which is pretty out of the ordinary even for a New York City summer. The mix starts off kind of cool and laid back but the heat builds from there, until all hell breaks loose and the flames of Hades rise to bust thermometers and raise fevers. Fall can’t come soon enough, but for now keep your heat up with this mix.

Download: Count Zer0 – The Mercury Incident

tracklist behind the cut…

01 Shinsuke Matsumoto – Orbit – Millions Of Moments
02 STL – In My Dreams – Something 11
03 Florin Buechel – Stargazer – Mathematics
04 Anthony Shakir – Random Hustle – Dust Science
05 Marcello Napoletano – WGOD – Quintessentials
06 DJ Yoav B – Higher Love – Delsin
07 Stephanie Mills – The Medicine Song – Cascablanca
08 Jack Frost – Clap Me – Vendetta Records
09 Alex O. Smith – Mid 90s – FXHE
10 Jef & Chris – Morning – Silver Network
11 Karizma/Monique Bingham – Good Morning – Strictly Rhythm
12 Nebraska – Time Has Come Pt. 1 – Rush Hour
13 DJ John Collins – Yeah – Underground Resistance
14 Party Crashers – Come And Get It – Acacia Records
15 Robert Hood – Alpha – M-Plant
16 Malvoeaux – Targets – Long Island Electrical Systems
17 Ken Ishii – Overlap (Mark Broom Remix) – R&S Records

The tracklist should also appear in the “Lyrics” tag if you load the mp3 in iTunes.

Those of you paying attention may have noticed both tom and myself hyping releases on this label over the past couple of years. For those who don’t know, PPU is a Washington DC based label run by Andrew Morgan, specialising in rereleasing obscure private press and unreleased 80s funk jams. I think their first release to really grab my attention was Danger Zone by Midnight Express, a ridiculously dope 80′s synth funk jam rescued from the archives and given a wider exposure than it ever would have had when it was originally released on an obscure private press back in the day, I heard it played out quite a few times in Dublin which certainly illustrates that point.

Danger Zone had me checking everything PPU-related and I ended up putting in an order for about 5 or 6 records direct from the label. Andrew Morgan personally took the order and thanked me for my support which is always a nice touch, shipping to Europe was reasonable too so if you’re thinking of catching up I’d recommend just ordering direct. And, of course, I now check every latest PPU release, perhaps some of the stuff is more incredibly obscure than incredibly good, but the gems far outweigh any such criticisms. My personal favourites so far include; George Franklin Smallwood & Marshmellow’s “Mr. Sunshine”, a super slick funky soul jazz tune, Sir Bentley’s “Street Shuffle”, Tom Noble’s Africa Bump Edit (anyone know the og for that one?), 4 Reel’s “One Life To Live” and the District Maryland Virginia EP compilation, many of which I’ve featured in my mixes, and there’s plenty more too.

They also released some modern electro-funk from Dam-Funk (as Wavelength) on a limited 7″.

As the label has gained momentum and increased support, they’ve even started putting out DVDs featuring rare live footage of PPU artists, 80s funk parties, original videos and more. Andrew Morgan has set up his own youtube channel as madmosaic to showcase all that stuff, so you should definitely check that shit out. Here’s the trailer for the PPU Party DVD…

Here’s an interview with Andrew Morgan.

PPU stuffs on youtube

So I had intended to do a post-DEMF records post, but that never materialized. Then I got a ton of good stuff here in Pittsburgh, but that post never happened either. Last week, I made a quick but fruitful stop through NYC and picked up some good records, and now I will finally try to sum all this awesome music I’ve picked up over the past two months into one post. I’m gonna round up groups of records that go together before getting into individual joints, but everything in here is hot as hell, so read all the way through!

Pictured at the top of this post are the three 12″s from Theo Parrish’s “Sketches” LP as well as the “Somethin/Invocations” 12″, all of which were available in very limited numbers (supposedly 150 total of each) over DEMF weekend and then online last month for a hot second before they sold out. As Theo pointed out in his interview with Little White Earbuds, “Sketches” consists of incomplete tracks that he wanted to get a feel for. What makes this remarkable is how good these sketches are! From wildly distorted acidy jams to the sweet soulful vocal cut I featured at the end of my recent mix, this is all very strong material. Even more special, though, is the “Something/Invocations” record. “Somethin” is the track that Theo was working on in his video for Adidas a few years back, and it is absolutely essential. The flip is a similarly jazzy cut with spoken-word poetry about the history of Detroit music from Motown and jazz through to the techno originators. Both of these seem more polished than the Sketches, even though Theo refers to them all as part of the album in the LWE interview. Strange matrix numbers will increase the confusion (“Somethin” is on SS037, Sketches 1 is SS034 which was the catalog number of the Omar-S release but this one is sides C and D and doesn’t sound like Omar-S was involved at all, while Sketches 2 and 3 are SS039 and SS040 respectively), but this music is too good to be cooped up on collectors’ shelves. Hopefully a good number of those 150 copies found their way into the hands of deejays who are gonna bang them out!

Rick Wilhite’s Vibes compilation has been slowly accumulating more and more quality house cuts across a number of 12″s. Part Two which features jazzy cuts from Theo Parrish and Ricardo Miranda is my favorite of the bunch so far, with Miranda’s “Urbanism” being a real highlight with a simple sample loop that gets pitched up and down to great hypnotic effect. One of Rick’s tracks is finally featured on Part Three, with his dope “Analog Love” which samples First Choice’s version of “Love and Happiness”. Kyle Hall’s “After Fall” is nothing but a disco loop and some echo, though it doesn’t really gel together very well. Thankfully it is just a short interlude. Kyle and Rick team up on “Microburst” which is a cool, minimal house track, but “Analog Love” is definitely the winner here. Urban Tribe have recently busted back onto the scene, and they make up Part Four in the series with a Godson remix of “D2000″ as well as “My First Mistake” which continues the generally jazzy theme of this comp. According to Rick, there will be a CD version of the compilation that will also include more tracks than will on the 12″ EPs. Also, Rick will be playing in Pittsburgh on July 30th at the Shadow Lounge. I will be opening, so if you’re in the area you should come on through!

We Play House continue their quest for world domination with three more ill jams. The highlight for me is Tyree Cooper’s “Get Up” featuring Tony Davis. With an upright bass giving off serious “Follow Me” vibes, this is straight up hip-house of the best kind. I’ve also been playing lots of KC Flightt recently (like “Summer Madness” which I picked up over DEMF weekend), is it possible that hip-house is coming back a bit? Also on WPH is Luv Jam’s “Pitch Black EP”. This one straddles the line between deep techno and house, with slow synthetic spaced out jams. San Soda takes “Black Moon” in a decidedly more housey direction on his remix, while “Black Beauty” is my pick of the other cuts. Forthcoming soon on WPH 010 is one of the best cuts on the label so far, Raoul Lambert & Nacho Marco’s “Cinnamon Dreams”. Beautiful pads, synth chords, and vocal samples build up until a dripping wet acid line comes in to create a special moment that I can’t wait to play to a packed dancefloor.

Moodymann has been busy recently as well! By now, I think “It’s 2 Late 4 U And Me” from his “Ol’ Dirty Vinyl” EP is a certifiable anthem, but the title track is almost as good as well! The remaining cuts flesh out yet another cool EP that features dancefloor cuts alongside weirder experiments that work well for listening straight through. The Urban Tribe LP on Mahogani is similarly structured, with short one minute interludes separating deep dancefloor cuts like “Program 03″ and “Program 12″ as well as sweet downtempo jams like “Program 09″. It should be no surpise, but when you get talented cats like Sherard Ingram, Kenny Dixon Jr., Carl Craig, and Shake together, you’re going to get a great album. And that’s just what this is, one of the best of the year so far.

Kenny Dixon also had a hand in the 7″ that Kai Alcé released at this year’s NDATL party. Kenny and Theo drop a minimal, bleepy, shuffled techno cut while Larry Heard checks in with another beautiful acid jam. Kai rounds it out with a sweet deep jam that sounded really good when played at the party! Kai also got together with Jovonn for a release as Joint Movement Project on Balance Alliance. “Find A Love” is a deep soulful vocal tune, and it appears here in four different mixes. For me, it’s all about the B1!

Blondes FINALLY released their debut EP “Touched” on Merok Records, and it is absolutely stunning. Every bit as awesome as their live show, they use analog synths and heavy effects to create a swirling, deep atmosphere that is the hallmark of everything they do. Long, tripped out repetitive tracks like “Moondance” are just perfect in their execution, while even the shorter cuts like “Paradise City” (linked above) maintain that same joyous ecstasy. This is by far the record of the year, and already a classic. I honestly cannot recommend Blondes’ music enough, and they are also really cool guys to boot. I wish we had recorded their live set in Pittsburgh back in April, but oh well! Also out by the Blondes is their remix of John Talabot’s “Sunshine”. Thankfully, the original cut is a nice deep house jam that is very much different from the Blondes version, making this worth the import price and a versatile record for in the box.

Now for some quick-fire deep house record reviews:

Fred P.’s “On This Vibe” also featured on my recent mix, and is one of the tracks of the year so far for me. Beautiful summertime house!

Omar-S tries his hand at acid on his most recent Fxhe release, with nice results. You can really only hear his distinctive sound on the percussion, but “Ultra Fine Two” especially is just high quality acid trax no matter who made it.

UR is at their best when they release uplifting house cuts like “Hardlife”, “Windchime”, etc., and John Collins’ “Yeah” falls into that category. Simple, soulful, and distinctively UR!

Kyle Hall drops his best record so far for Moods & Grooves with his “The Water Is Fine” EP. While many critics adore his more “out there” releases, for me he is at his best when he keeps it simple like on “Create Your Own Existence”.

One of the hardest cats coming out of Chicago right now is my man Specter. His new one on Sistrum is just as good as his recent live deejay mixes on ustream have been. Specter is the real deal: serious production skills, a serious record collection, and he is a dope deejay.

Malik Pittman’s newest joint on Unirhythm is another sick, disjointed house release that I actually first heard on one of Specter’s live mixes. For me, “Razz 09″ is the cut, but both are sweet and actually better than the Unirhythm Green record that everyone was going nuts about recently.

Gathering is a collaboration between Jef K and Chris Carrier (who have been making filtered disco for labels like Silver Network) and house legend Chez Damier. I’m not sure how the credit is actually spread out, but Part One of “In My System” is the one I picked up. Simple, catchy house music is what this is all about.

After hearing Rick Wade play it when he played in Pittsburgh in May (recordings of that whole night including my set and Rick’s set can still be found here), I HAD to hunt down Tom Trago’s “Use Me Again”. I can’t spot the sample source, but the strings are awesome and the slowed down vocals make this a serious dancefloor anthem.

Now for some short reviews of some of my recent digging:

A1 Records in New York City (pictured above) was my primary target for the day I could spend in the city. I ended up getting a bunch of long-time wants of mine in great shape for reasonable prices:

Willie Colón “Set Fire To Me”

Roundtree “Hit On You (Tony Humphries Remixes)”

The Rolling Stones “Undercover of the Night” as played by Ron Hardy

Luther Vandross “It’s Good For The Soul”

Inner Life “I Like It Like That”

Front Line Orchestra “Don’t Turn Your Back On Me”

All of which are 5/5 outstanding awesome joints that I have been looking for forever. My other record buying stop in NYC was at Dope Jams, where I pulled some of the new shit mentioned up on this post as well as these used joints:

Jimmy Cliff “Peace Officer”

Convertion “Let’s Do It”

Status IV “You Ain’t Really Down”

DEMF weekend was very fruitful for used records as well, mainly because of a stop at the excellent Peoples Records (pictured above). Many disco, jazz, and house classics were picked from the depths of their crates by Count Zero, Andrew Burger, and myself. Some of my finds include:

Rhyze “Just How Sweet Is Your Love” – Soulful ’80s disco business. One of my favorites on SAM!

Gaz “Sing Sing” promo 12″ on Salsoul – I’ve had the LP for ages, but could never find a clean copy of the 12″ until now!

Lenny Williams “Midnight Girl” – As played by Maurice Fulton and Ron Hardy, this one is so excellent!

The Next Movement “All I Do” – Late disco/early house joint with a mix by Mickey “Mixin” Oliver from the Hotmix 5.

New York House ‘N Authority Featuring Burrell – Self Titled LP – The only NYCH’NA record I didn’t already own, thanks to the Count for giving this one up to me since he actually came across it. The Burrell brothers are so ridiculously dope!

Tortoise “Why We Fight” – Cool groove based rock music, a hot tip from Andrew Burger.

Pittsburgh has been good to me lately as well, with a new shop opening up on Polish Hill called Mind Cure Records. Just a few of the things I’ve picked up recently:

Buari “Buari LP” – Sweet afro/funk/disco with Bernard Purdie on drums.

Alice Coltrane with Strings “World Galaxy LP” – Cosmic spiritual jazz including a really nice cover of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk “Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata LP” – Crazy music, I’m not even sure it should really be called “jazz”. What it definitely is is AWESOME.

Snatch “Another Brick In The Wall” – Awesome funky disco version of the Pink Floyd classic, I have been looking for this for a while since I heard my man Ed Um play it.

Candela “Love You Madly” – Funky disco boogie from ’82 on Arista.

Brian & Zan “Pump Your Body” – Weird electro/boogie joint, especially cool is the long 8:00 Tony Humphries Club Version!

Superior Movement “Wide Shot” – Chicago ’80s boogie funk!

That’s it for right now. If anyone read this far, I will be really impressed. I wear badgers as hats.