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:
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:
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.
16 Comments
Badgers you say!?
christ i miss a1. i used to down the street and would go there on my lunch break. the staff at dope jams are amazing as well. i’ve bought countless gems there. too bad dance tracks is gone and vinylmania and temple and…
“work down the street” is what i meant to say.
i saw those Sketches 12″s in Detroit but for some reason did not listen to them. Damn, kicking myself for that now.
Great round up Tom. Always good to hear about new and old tunes worth checking out.
I didn’t like any of the Kyle Hall things I had heard until that, I might knock in when he plays Dublin at the weekend.
More posts from the rest the ISM heads on what you’ve been buying please.
I LIVE RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM A1.
Some great records here, especially those Rolling Stones and Burrell Brothers tracks. Gems, the lot of ’em.
haha, i was at A1 for like 45 minutes at exactly the time you were gonna be at Dope Jams. i should be back in NYC soonish, we will meet up then!
For me also, this is the first Hall record I felt i really needed to buy. In general I think he has a lot of potential, but more often than not his tracks don’t click with me. I wouldn’t mind seeing him in Dublin this weekend, but work is getting in the way. And from the sets and reports I’ve heard, don’t think i’m gonna be missing much…
Kyle Halls stuff on Wild Oats is sick and for me “After Fall” is one of my favorite tracks to come out in a long time. I bought double copies so I can stretch it out. This track is so my shiznit! Huge reverbed kik, crunchy hats, and a tweeked dico loop, raw emotion… what more could one ask for. It reminds me so much of early Detroit sh!t. Dirty, simple, perfect…
Specter! Get your hands on anything this dude does. I’m sh!ting myself over his label, the Downbeat record, and the Bionic Being record. Long live Specter… (and the m@thahf@cker can play records too…)
WPH is the brainchild of a genius. Bart AKA Red D has more amazing records then any other Euro dude I’ve ever met. He’s an outstanding deejay that knows good music and his label says that about him. SOLID!
I always love everything KDJ does but I’m especially happy about these last few records on KDJ and Mahogani mainly the way he’s putting out Indie Rock alongside soul, jazz, and dance music. That just says Detroit, BIG TIME!
Nice records Tom! Its nice that dance music I really dig is still coming out. This whole deep house resurgence is really boring me… at least most dudes that did it good 10-15 years ago are still doing it good now. Plus the addition of more producers like Specter, Kyle Hall, and Fred P means there is still about 15 or 20 dudes I can count on, always.
ISM always pushing the good love… HOLLAH if you hear me!
Hollah!
You read till the end! Congrats 😉
Yeah, I’d have liked to hit all of thosein their day, but oh well! A1 is quite fun!
Loooove the Alice Coltrane version of A Love Supreme.
The Blondes record is so good, really psychedelic and positive – a touch hippy, but in a good way. was just a little disappointed that it didn’t include the live track you posted here: http://infinitestatemachine.com/2010/04/14/if-you-were-thinking-about-coming-to-pittsburgh/
It’s only a two minute clip, but it sounds absolutely killer. I really hope they put it out soon, I bet it would do well for them.
specter, fred p, the humphries remixes,…dope, dope, dope!!!
Kids are at their grandparents’ this week, so finally getting caught up on the ISM. Thanks much, Tom and crew.
Andrew
has anyone discovered the sample source of the tom trago track?
ive been searching for months..