One Last New Records Post From Me Before DEMF

With DEMF fast approaching, I have to chill out on the record buying tip a bit to save money for the crazy hauls I always get in the D. That said, this round-up will mostly be older records because shit has been going crazy here in the Burgh recently. I’ve just been pulling up gem after gem! I’m gonna hit the new releases first though, because that’s how we do it…

First up is the record pictured at the top of this post, the various artists vinyl LP debut of the Moment Sound label out of Chicago. You will recognize the tune “Nightlife Reconsidered” by Garo from my recent mix for Jonny 5’s Infinite States podcast, but honestly all the cuts on here are dope. Moment Sound had previously been a digital-only label, and their first entry in the vinyl world is a solid one. House, techno, and soundtracks are the easy genres to fit their music into, but you can hear a genuine love for electronic music of all sorts in what they do. My personal favorites include “Nightlife Reconsidered” and Slava’s “Anything”, but this works wonderfully as an album even though many of the tracks are quite deejayable. I’m definitely looking forward to their future releases!

The cats over at Further Records are continuing their mission to make sure everyone has a functional tape deck with more awesome cassette only releases. Of most interest to ISM readers is Aybee’s “Ancient Tones”, which takes his spaced out Oakland deep house into even deeper territory than usual. Abstracting the feeling that is house until it sounds almost as ambient as it is dance music, I really like how Further is able to get music that actually sounds appropriate for a cassette! The added hiss and analog distortions that occur actually add to tunes like “Vertigo”, which sounds like early ’00s broken beat made on busted machines with a crazy electric pianist soloing over it.

For those into more heady electronics, Further rereleased an obscure ’80s private press album by Tangerine Dream’s Conrad Schnitzler called “Live 10.10.84”. This must have been quite a show, as this consists mainly of wild synth textures that build and modulate over the course of the album. In a similar vein is “Intensions” by Ian Martin, who has also had abstract/ambient albums come out on Bunker and Strange Life. This album is filled with tense, brooding electronics and beautiful Vangelis-esque material that would all work wonderfully as a soundtrack. This one is also seeing release on CDr, for those of you not cool enough to have a cassette deck 😉 Excellent music all around from Further, and it looks as though they have Donato Dozzy lined up for the next one!

Our man Omar-S has been staying busy by remixing his cousin Big Strick on a new double pack. Big Strick drops three new ones on the first disc, all dirty and abstract as on his first release. Alex drops remixes of “100% Hustler” and “Old E 800” from this release on the other disc, and also remixes “Whatup Doe” from Strick’s 7 Days EP, taking all three into a more refined sound. This works out in the end because each disc is better suited for a different kind of set, and gives good variety when sitting in your record bag.

Also on Fxhe is a 7″ re-release of a Kai Alce cut from ’03, “Dirty South Dirt”. I’ve had the original 12″ since it dropped, but the addition of a new mix available cheaply straight from Fxhe lured me in. Essential for those who didn’t already have it!

Nebraska drops his first new record since lord knows when (even the Down Low album from ’08 contained tracks recorded from the ’90s through ’04! BTW, this album is HIGHLY slept on, even by me. I had to burn it up to CD recently to bang in my ride, and MAN is it deep and funky. It has been residing in my record box again ever since!), the “A Weekend On My Own” EP on Rush Hour. I have liked everything this cat has put out so far, but this one is my favorite. Jazz, disco, and soul are always at the heart of deep house music, but on this EP the lines are blurred even further. Sounding as futuristic as it does classic, every cut is a winner. Basically, I highly recommend picking up their entire catalog, which is not many releases but the more obscure older joints are now available again thanks to Rush Hour.

We had Rick Wade in town last week, and you know he broke me off with some wax! First up is last year’s “The Melancholy of Rick Wade”, which is highlighted by the title track. Some of my favorite Rick Wade moments are when he doesn’t use the straight four on the floor, and this one fits in there with a skippy little 2-step beat along with Rick’s signature chords and strings.

Rick also broke me off with a new 12″ on Midnight Hours, which according to Discogs features Rick, ISM brother Scott Ferguson, and Toronto deep house don Nick Holder. To me, this record is a serious throwback (in a good way!) to those late ’90s mysterious deep house records that were as obscure as they were dope.

Rick Wilhite is one of my favorite deejays, and an awesome producer. His record shop, Vibes New and Rare Music (pictured above), was my first stop every trip to Detroit until it closed early last year. A fitting tribute to the greatness of that shop is the new compilation Rick is issuing through Rush Hour dedicated to Vibes. The first part features cuts from Malik Pittman, Glenn Underground, and Vincent Halliburton, while part two (which I don’t have yet!) features cuts from Theo Parrish and Ricardo Miranda. Rick’s shop is where I discovered labels like Psychostasia and artists like Oliverwho Factory, and this comp fits right in with that kind of jazzy urban flavor. Speaking of Glenn Underground, he has a new one out on Moods & Grooves that combines his jazzed out style with sweet vocals, perhaps not immediately engaging but I find the more I listen to it the more I dig it! That’s always the sign of a good record…

Generally, I am not a fan of artists making concessions to whatever style is popular. I’m not sure if that is the motivation behind the reduced BPMs of Robert Hood’s “Alpha/Omega (End Times)” release, but even if it is, it’s okay by me! Hood’s music is so relentless and driving, especially when he plays it, that it may seem silly to want to play it at a tempo more suited for house. This record shows why that is not the case, with the sparse drums of “Alpha” sounding brilliant when you can mix it in with uptempo disco like an old Trax record. I hear the promos for the album are out and about; I guess we’re not cool enough here at ISM to get one, but I am eagerly awaiting its release.

Tevo Howard has been banging out a ton of releases in the last couple months, and I know some people (including me) have expressed the desire to hear some different styles from him. His new 12″ on Rebirth shows some diversity while continuing to use a similar sound palette. “Kisses From New York With Love” takes his melancholic piano lines and lays them over a thick broken beat created on his trusty 707 (the broken beat makes it mix perfectly with a Ron Trent produced cut from Carl Hancock Rux that I recently picked up, “Lamentations (You, Son)”!). Another truly beautiful and emotional addition to his catalog. The flip, “Boing Pop”, is a little more typical but the addition of some lo-fi vocal samples as well as some electric piano harmonies give it just enough to stand out. If this release disappears as quickly as the first Rebirth EP he had a track on (“Crazy Love”), plenty of people will be salty about missing out on this one.

Since hearing it in Red D.’s live mix for us last Christmas, I’ve been trying to get a copy of Azari & III’s “Reckless With Your Love”. It was always sold out anytime I was doing an order! Finally, I was able to hunt one down, and it must be said that this is one of the best releases of last year even if I didn’t have it myself at that point. Classic sounding pop-vocal house that wouldn’t be out of place in between Cece Peniston and Crystal Waters.

Moving on to some of the shit I’ve dug up recently (this post would be twice as long easily if I tried to even mention everything!)…

In the years I’ve been digging for disco music, I’d never actually seen a Philly Sound Works record in a shop. I guess it was my lucky day a couple weeks ago as I found not one, not two, but three ill disco classics from that label. Everyone knows “Heavy Vibes”, and I am glad to finally have a copy but it was the others that really got me. “Who Needs Enemies (With A Friend Like You)” is a sweet soulful and jazzy disco cut with the intro vox left wide open. I can’t think of anything that has sampled them, can you? The other PSW pickup is a jam that Ron Hardy used to play, the Trammps singing “What Happened To The Music” over a replayed version of “Love Break”. This one is all about the Paul Simpson dub mix, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who saw my Facebook rantings about Paul Simpson a couple weeks back.

Another great Paul Simpson record that I finally found recently is Serious Intention’s “You Don’t Know”. This whole era of pre-house garage coming out of NYC is one of my favorite periods of music, the disco feel mixed with the echoed out drum machines creates such a perfect vibe.

Moving up a couple years, I finally grabbed a copy of the house classic “This Brutal House” by Nitro Deluxe. This is one of those dance classics that seems to be loved by everybody, and for good reason: it is just as dope today as it ever was. Minimal, bleepy house music from long before that was the cool thing to do. In this you can even hear the beginnings of what would become jungle. Warp also compiled it on their “Warp 10 Influences”, so you know it has had no end of influence on modern dance music.

Nu Groove is one of my favorite labels, and that is mostly because of the great work the Burrell brothers did for them. Possibly the best out of all their cuts is Aphrodisiac’s “Song of the Siren”, which was produced by Ronald Burrell. Deep and nautical, this is the kind of emotional tune that shows exactly what is possiblein the realm of house music. I’ve been looking for this one for quite some time, coming up on a mint copy for next to nothing made my day, to say the least.

I’ll finish things off with two records that I had not previously heard, but upon digging them up have become favorites of mine. First is the ill boogie of Simon & McQueen’s “Let’s Get Into It”. I checked this joint out because RCA in ’83 was a boogie goldmine, and this one is no exception. Got it for nothing, mint condition.

Last, but certainly not least, is what has quickly become one of my favorite disco records. I am a sucker for the soaring disco strings, but they have to be done just right! Air Power’s only 12″ meets that criteria and then some.

That cut was compiled by Joey Negro for Disco Spectrum 2, and for very good reason. The flip is just as dope to my ears, but with a sweet vocal to go with it.