Suche:deep groove

Zopelar arrives on Tartelet with Charme - an album of effervescent machine funk harking back to a golden era of Brazilian party music, releasing October 21st.

The era of interest for Sao Paulo’s Pedro Zopelar begins in the 1980s in Rio de Janeiro, when a particular phenomenon caught on at suburban parties which became known as Charme. “Charme was like a mix of slow boogie, RnB and new jack swing,” explains Zopelar. “DJ Corello started calling ‘charme’ the moment of the party when he played slow grooves and felt that the people started dancing differently, with sexier synchronized moves. Some years later, charme evolved from an awaited moment of a night to a whole movement of parties just playing that kind of music. On this record I tried to make something that brings this emotional feeling to my music in a modern way.”

Much like the original genre-not-genre he drew inspiration from, Zopelar’s approach across his latest LP spans different moods and tempos. There’s blissful, sultry mystery lingering around ‘Clara’ and ‘Do You Feel?’ while OSAGIE lends some chops to the exquisite, Rompler-powered synth funk of ‘Chain Net’. The lead singles ‘Shibuya’, ‘Charme’ and ‘Passado’ all tap into varying shades of deep house, from slinky City Pop-tinted loungers to peak-time dance pop and Larry Heard-influenced flavours, with the constant being Zopelar’s immaculate production and the unbridled warmth of his compositions.

Continuing the Latin-rooted theme of the album, the artworkconception of Charme was realized by multidisciplinary artist and curator Ode, showcasing a popular style of street paintings made by anonymous artists throughout Latin America. It’s not about graffiti-culture but a popular solution utilized by small restaurants, bars and other establishments to use their own walls for commercial purposes, hiring artists to paint food and drink menus or other information about their products.

With an emotional sincerity stemming from his move to reconnect with the Brazilian dimension of his creative background, Charme arrives as Zopelar’s heartfelt celebration of life and music, of sentimental moments shared and good times enjoyed.

Means&3rd returns to Unveiled Nuance with 002 following the label's debut 'Thought Contortion'. This time coming armed with 4 tracks providing a more direct club sound and falling in line with NUANCE001's affinity for low-end, tight percussion and underlying tribalism.

‘Aberrance’ opens Side A with a broken rolling kick drum and FM-type polyrhythmic stabs which reach a
kinetic climax with further patterns of distorted FM crunch and propulsive percussion that sit next to alien
sound FX. ‘Life’s Glorious Mosaic’ gives way to a much more mesmerising mood, utilising classic CR-78
percussive shots to provide energy amongst a sea of delicately delayed glassy synth chirps, spacious and
mystic, the perfect hypnotic spell.

‘Kairos’ is the first cut on side B, picking up the pace with deep and dense shamanic formant drones
juxtaposed against ethereal stabs which provide rest bite from the heavy groove, a chance for the ear to get lost in a moment of psychedelia before seeing us out with the return to the solid rhythm. ‘Discordianism’ closes out the EP, anchoring around the repetitive grit of the lead synth, textured stabs unfold next to squeezed shots of phased synth work that subtly lay underneath it, the whole track, reduced in nature,perfect as a layered tool.

Pressed on 140g black Vinyl, reverse board full colour print sleeve with poly-lined inner sleeve.

Produced, Programmed and Mixed by Means&3rd
Mastered by Neel @ Enisslab, Rome
Cut @ Schnittstelle Berlin
Design by Means&3rd
Pressed By Matter Of Fact, Güstrow, Germany
Distributed by Rubadub, Glasgow

This 2LP edition of 'Polaris' is presented in a wide spine sleeve. TesseracT are currently on a headline world tour in support of Sonder, which began in North America, through Australia and on to Europe and the UK with

Between the Buried and Me including London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire. The band have also announced a second extensive tour of North America in Feb/Mar as guest support for BTAM.

'Polaris is, at last, the platonic ideal of a TesseracT album, the one where they get everything just right. It's drama bringing, supremely melodic and riffheavy.' - Revolver Magazine

The pioneers of an ever-evolving metal scene, TesseracT, released their fourth studio album entitled 'Sonder' in April 2018, following 2015's worldwide acclaimed 'Polaris'. Originally formed as a studio project by guitarist Acle

Kahney, TesseracT are a band full of melody, dynamics and groove, they sit outside the bounds of any genre specificity to truly create a sound that has always been pioneering and creative; an unstoppable force of off-kilter riffs,

soaring melodies and disorientating atmospherics. Prior to 'Sonder', the band's vision quickly translated to success, with a collective 100,000 sales in North America alone. 'Polaris' reached Billboard's #10 (Hard

Rock) & #57 (Current Albums) charts and #9 in the UK (Indie Albums) and #7 (Rock and Metal) and have seen continued support from worldwide press. Having found a new creative energy after reuniting with original singer Dan

Tompkins, the band's output changed in 2015 with the opus 'Polaris'; an undoubted evolution from 'Altered State' and features skilful experimentation with sounds and tones, plus a deeper exploration of the core attributes that

define TesseracT's trademark sound. 'keeps impressing with every release, going with different ideas and compositions while still keeping their identity' - Outburn Magazine

'is best defined as a sum of the group's polished production smoothly colliding with an offensive onslaught of vocal and instrumentation virtuosity.' - Metal Injection

Saft's X series signs up accomplished French house artist Pablo Valentino for a new EP that features Patchworks and includes a remix from Seb Wildblood. Valentino hails from East France but his work has made a global impact. He runs FACES Records and is A&R for the cult MCDE Recordings. Next to that he DJs around Europe and has produced both solo and as part of collectives such as Creative Swing Alliance and Hipster Wonkaz for labels like MCDE, Eureka and Room With A View.

Atmospheric opener "Look Deeper" is a rough and steamy deep house cut for cosy basements. The drums are raw and alive, the lead synth is haunting, and the keys bring a jazz feel while vocal coos add some serious soul. French jazz, soul and deep house artist Patchworks guests on "X Rousse", a freewheeling jam with loose-limbed drums and funky chords. It channels the spirit of Moodymann and is sure to bring heat to any party. The final original is "Bagaco"; a bubbly and percussive number underpinned by warm bass stabs. The dynamic groove never rests and raw claps amp up the energy throughout.

Seb Wildblood is a driving force in the South London scene thanks to running Church, All My Thoughts and Coastal Haze. From house to downtempo, leftfield to techno, he has a broad stylistic range that always looks forwards. His remix is a celebratory broken beat workout. It's all about big stabs, soulful smeared chords and cutting loose on the dance floor without a care in the world. Once again, The Saft X

DJ Different dons his Terraform alias as he begins his journey in ‘Entering The Void’ on CYBERDOME; exploring phat electro bass-lines and party-starting ghettotech energy with its crosshairs fixated firmly on the club environment.

Born and raised in the culturally rich city of Malmo, the Swedish producer has previously released on London based label Deeply Cultured, Distant Hawaii, Mood Of Era, 1Ø PILLS MATE and Traxx Underground, spanning atmospheric techno, ethereal breakbeat and chunky electro.

‘Ultrasonic’ is an ear-wriggling cut of stripped-back psychedelia. As David Holmes would say, all the best electronic music tracks are made up of only a few components. Here, typical electro synth stabs, robotic vocal sampling and sparse precision allows the track room to breathe, whilst maintaining a deep and funk-driven groove.

‘Ghettotech’ sounds how you would expect it to; pounding kicks, frantic atmospherics and lairy screw-face hype combine on a certified fire-starter, before ‘Exiting The Void’ introduces itself on a footwork vibe that evolves into a sequence of interstellar-dungeon dub-electro.

‘The Rise of the Slavs’ takes its inspiration from the diverse group of tribes who lived in Central and Eastern Europe in the 6th to 10th centuries, establishing the foundations for the Slavic nations; it’s marching rhythm beaming historical context into 21st Century dance music.

Having torn up raves for well over a decade, the Detroit duo Rickers and Ted Krisko AKA Ataxia present their debut longplayer ‘Out Of Step’. Featuring guest spots from close peers DJ Minx, Andrés and Mr Joshooa, they twist house, techno, electro, breakbeat and rave into revitalized new shapes; embellished with a touch of soul, funk and hip hop. With backgrounds in hardcore and punk, Ataxia’s debut is suffused with that energy, attitude, and approach; this is raw, lean and unashamedly no-nonsense dance floor tackle that goes straight for the jugular. Heavily analogue, the album experiments with tape saturation, which harks back to the duo’s formative years in bands, recording demos to cassettes. These straight-up, in-the-red tracks give preference to overdriven drum machines, rather than generic polished sheen, but conversely, it’s all deceptively well-crafted too; ‘Out Of Step’ is a standout record that’s big in character, bringing to mind the renegade spirit of Underground Resistance, and the bombastic brilliance of The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers.

Defiantly optimistic despite the state of the world, a “life is good” vocal sample meets minor chords sliding over 808 hats on the exemplary house/techno pumper ‘Detroit Gospel’, before a lighter moment on the album, but no less impactful with its hefty low-end thump, is ‘Pine Island’ featuring Motor City hero Andrés. Together they cook up a Motown-inspired house cut awash with horn swells and backup singers, bouncing to wide swung funk bass, in classic 313 style. ‘Language’ turns the club on its head – busting out one of the most distinct basslines in recent times, and bristling with buzzy, undulating chords, whilst ‘Maxia’ features influential Detroit royalty DJ Minx. Inspired by her classic ‘A Walk In The Park’, with a fat distorted kick and stealthy bass groove, this is low-slung, stripped-back, heads-down coolness. The high-tech funk of ‘Spit In Your Percolator’, is laser-guided in its efficiency, with a strobe-like, increasingly intensifying energy, peppered with clever, tripped up vocal chops. With the next cut, conveyor belt noises and fast churning low-end gives way to a dubbed-out breakdown, on the deep breakbeat roller ‘98 Degrees’. Charged with a blistering, rave intensity, ‘Number Streets’, is a futuristic distorted techno workout that booms through the subs, whilst ‘The Formulator’ mixes filtered snippets, abstract synth noises and melodic bleeps with a bassline echoing Paperclip People’s ‘The Floor’. Closer to the UK definition of hardcore, combining 4/4 and breakbeat, ‘The Pusher’ evokes the spirit of late 80s orbital raves, adding a natty keys solo, and deadly bass used sparingly, for even deadlier effect. ‘Feels Like’ sees Rickers and Ted team up their studiomate and fellow TV Lounge resident and club booker, Mister Joshooa. Inspired by Photek but also almost UKG in style, this breakbeat session is stamped with MJ’s signature chopped vocals and intricate rhythmic interplay. The bubbling, wobbly loose swing of ‘WM’ is constructed around a classic chopped-up MTV cribs sample, with a filtered vocal creating a far out psychedelic effect – all of which is propelled apace by a huge bruising LFO. The LP concludes in fine style with ‘Dance The Bridge’, where bouncy beats and wigged-out keys meet bright, gently uplifting synth chords that bring a clear-skied mood; ending the record as it began, on an optimistic note.

‘Out Of Step’ marks another chapter in the ongoing relationship between Life and Death co-founder DJ Tennis and Ataxia. Their connection goes back to the earliest days of the label, where they played gigs together on some of Tennis’ initial visits to Detroit. It’s a friendship that’s blossomed organically over the last decade through their shared love of punk and hardcore, and led to the fruition of one of Ataxia’s most compelling projects to date. Labels to release Ataxia’s output include legendary Detroit techno imprints Planet E and KMS, plus the seminal American house label Nervous Records. Their catalogue also includes music for Visionquest, Leftroom, 20/20 Vision and Seth Troxler’s Play It Say It.

What It Means To be Human is the second in a series of four albums from Jasper Høiby’s Planet B, featuring saxophonist Josh Arcoleo and drummer Marc Michel, that focus on global topics of vital importance - Humanity, Climate Change, Artificial intelligence and Monetary Reform. This album seeks connection. A connection between humanity and the planet, between the problems we all face and about an opportunistic optimism to fix them. The mastermind is Jasper Høiby, the esteemed and revered Danish bassist and the deeply reflective, expressive and visionary artist. Whilst there are many moments that display the virtuosity and hard-hitting grooves of Phronesis, the long-standing band that shot Jasper to the limelight, Planet B offers additional rewards of subtle expression. The music is captivating and highly absorbing, enhanced by soundscapes of electronics and interspersed with powerful, emotive speech by some unique and forward-thinking female minds including Grace Lee Boggs, Ruby Sales and Jane Goddall. They all share a profound understanding of the world, only achievable through practical wisdom, each offering their individual take on where we are as a species and what we can do to improve. At the heart of the album is the trio. A group of like-minded and creative souls where the focus is all about the collective sound. As a whole, the music is a powerful, mesmerising and poignant display of musicianship, integrity and storytelling. What it Means To Be Human is an album at the forefront of the creative European scene.

Stretch and enjoy a.k.a. The Last Ronin returns to AKO150 Arcade with two beautifully crafted jungle tracks.

Changeling VIP starts off with a rare groove rift with sound system samples that build up before the drop comes that will get you going on the dance floor.
Roll the dice is another track that rolls and keeps getting better as it goes along with pads, subs, brakes, and deep baseline with the iconic sample ‘roll a dice’ do you know what movie this is from?

To celebrate its first anniversary Lempuyang firmly stakes its claim amongst the forefront of deep techno labels with an outrageous line-up consisting of eight of the most respected heads in the business, all doing their stuff across four pieces of vinyl. Among the highlights are the growling menace of Sa Pa's 'Randomer', Gradient's fizzy, dubbed up 'Dopamine Rain' wearing its Basic Channel influence on its sleeve, the ghostly rave stabs of Deadbeat's 'Planterwald' among a sea of radioactive white noise and the clear, sculpted linear grooves of 'Growing Pains' by Bluetrain. That said, there's no weak link among the eight cuts and put together into one coherent package it's more than the sum of its part.

Ever since he remixed Abimaro & The Free’s ‘Mark’ back in 2014, NuNorthern Soul boss Phil Cooper has kept in touch with Daniel Stenger, the producer and self-taught multi-instrumentalist behind the Flashbaxx project. Cooper was always convinced that Sanger would be capable of crafting a very special release for the label but was willing to give him time to come up with something special.

With Take Care My Friend, a mini-album inspired by the German producer’s deeply rooted love of jazz-funk, Stenger has repaid the faith shown in him. He’s deliv-ered a collection of quality cuts marked out by audible warmth, effortless musicality and memorable, sun-soaked songs.

As he makes clear in the liner notes included with the vinyl version of the mini album, the project began with the recording of luscious, Rhodes-laden opener ‘Al-right’. After staying up all night recording the track, Stenger not only decided to continue recording with the same relatively limited set of instruments (think bass and electric guitars, drums, piano, electric piano, organ, hand percussion and a handful of synthesizers), but also stick to a hybrid sound that added a subtle Lat-in shuffle to his Balearic-minded take on jazz, funk and soul fusion.

We’re biased of course, but there’s no denying that Stenger’s creative choices have resulted in a superb set of tracks. While the restricted kit list provided focus during the music-making process, there’s still plenty of musical variety across the six tracks that make up the set.

For proof, compare and contrast the jazzy, loose-limbed headiness of ‘It Just Happens’, where simmer-ing synth-strings, twinkling melodic motifs and glis-tening guitar licks rise above smooth jazz-funk bass and a gentle broken beat rhythm, and the slow-motion soul brilliance of ‘Strangers’, where Kathryn Kempf’s evocative and poignant lead vocals rise above a sump-tuous downtempo groove and heart-aching piano lines.

This subtly varied but musically coherent vibe contin-ues across the mini album. Stenger indulges in a bit of New York daydreaming on ‘Brooklyn Love Boat’, a wonderfully musically detailed chunk of 1970s style jazz-funk heat that offers knowing nods to Roy Ayers, Herbie Hancock and the jazz-fusion stylings of Azymuth, before opting for a deeper, slower and even more seductive sound on the Hammond-sporting bliss of ‘Take Care My Friend’.

Closing cut ‘City Lights’, a gorgeous, soft-focus affair smothered in echoing Rhodes riffs and immersive chords, has the feel of an underground classic in wait-ing: a stirring, string-drenched future sing-along whose emotion-packed lyrics are delivered brilliantly by Glasgow-born singer/songwriter Chris Pookah.

Despite the song’s subject matter – the painful final breakdown of a relationship – there’s something strangely uplifting about the combination of Pookah’s pitch-perfect vocal delivery and the absorbing warmth of Stenger’s comforting and sonically detailed music. It provides a fittingly impressive finish to a mightily immersive mini album.

Michele Manzo is an esteemed producer, musician and DJ who has collaborated with a fine list of globally recognised talents such as Omar Lye-Fook, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Declaime, and Yancey Boys, amongst many others. His new EP on Detroit don Wajeed's Dirt Tech Rack label showcases his original house style with opener 'Around Brasilia' bring that South American flair. The bird claps, shuffling samba beats and lively percussion all bring the heat. Wajeed then remixes it into a tougher, more drum lead rhythm. The flip side offers the deep but metallic percussive workout that is 'A Minha Vida' and the soul drenched grooves of 'Brilhante's Anthem.'

Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depth-full & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. Room-tone, electric fields, environment, ceiling echo, live recording, Mondays, Los Angeles. Jeff Parker's first double album & first live album, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy belongs in the lineage of such canonical live double albums recorded on the West Coast as Lee Morgan’s Live at the Lighthouse, Miles Davis' In Person Friday & Saturday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco & Black Beauty, & John Coltrane's Live in Seattle.

While the IVtet sometimes plays standards &, including on this recording, original compositions, it is as previously stated largely a free improv group —just not in the genre meaning of the term. The music is more free composition than free improvisation, more blending than discordant. It’s tensile, yet spacious & relaxed. Clearly all four musicians have spent significant time in the planetary system known as jazz, but relationships to other musics, across many scenes & eras —dub & Dilla, primary source psychedelia, ambient & drone— suffuse the proceedings. Listening to playbacks Parker remarked, humorously & not, “we sound like the Byrds” (to certain ears, the Clarence White-era Byrds, who really stretched it).

A fundamental of all great ensembles, whether basketball teams or bands, is the ability of each member to move fluidly & fluently in & out of lead & supportive roles. Building on the communicative pathways they’ve established in Parker’s -The New Breed- project, Parker & Johnson maintain a constant dialogue of lead & support. Their sampled & looped phrases move continuously thru the music, layered & alive, adding depth & texture & pattern, evoking birds in formation, sea creatures drifting below the photic zone. Or, the two musicians simulate those processes by entwining their terse, clear-lined playing in real-time. The stop/start flow of Bellerose, too, simulates the sampler, recalling drum parts in Parker’s beat-driven projects. Mostly Bellerose's animated phraseologies deliver the inimitable instantaneous feel of live creative drumming. The range of tonal colors he conjures from his extremely vintage battery of drums & shakers —as distinctive a sonic signature as we have in contemporary acoustic drumming— bring almost folkloric qualities to the aesthetic currency of the IVtet's language. A wonderful revelation in this band is the playing of Anna Butterss. The strength, judiciousness & humility with which she navigates the bass position both ground & lift upward the egalitarian group sound. As the IVtet's grooves flow & clip, loop & repeat, the ensemble elements reconfigure, a terrarium of musical cultivation growing under controlled variables, a tight experiment of harmony & intuition, deep focus & freedom.

For all its varied sonic personality, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy scans immediately & unmistakably as music coming from Jeff Parker‘s unique sound world. Generous in spirit, trenchant & disciplined in execution, Parker’s music has an earned respect for itself & for its place in history that transmutes through the musical event into the listener. Many moods & shapes of heart & mind will find utility & hope in a music that combines the autonomy & the community we collectively long to see take hold in our world, in substance & in staying power.

On the personal tip, this was always my favorite gig to hit, a lifeline of the eremite records Santa Barbara years. Mondays southbound on the 101, driving away from tasks & screens & illness, an hour later ordering a double tequila neat at the bar with the band three feet away, knowing i was in good hands, knowing it would be back around on another Monday. To encounter life at scales beyond the human body is the collective dance of music & the beholding of its beauty, together. – Michael Ehlers & Zac Brenner

CORDELL JOHNSON'S EXCURSIONS label returns with the first vinyl release from RONALD OVERBY (DJ RONNIE RON). Two tracks of the deep and funky bass driven grooves we've come to expect from EXCURSIONS. Full color label in paper sleeve. FYI the labels have the tracks listed incorrectly including an extra song not on the 12”. The tracklisting below is correct.

Hot on the heels of the sold-out limited ep Was It Ever Real?, The Soft Pink Truth releases a super catchy, sexy contemporary disco banger Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This?, Throughout the ten songs of the album, the provocation to go "deeper" prompts promiscuous moves across the genres of disco, minimalism, ambient, and jazz, sliding onto and off of the dancefloor, sweeping higher and lower on the scale of frequencies, engaging both philosophical texts re-set as pop lyrics and wordless glossolalia. Throughout, Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? aims for a kind of psychedelic poolside take on disco, using the steady 120 bpm rhythmic chassis of the music as a launchpad for reverie rather than big room EDM bluster. Sidestepping retro kitsch but paying homage to highly personal interpretations of disco such as Arthur Russell, Don Ray, Dr. Buzzard"s Original Savannah Band, and Mandré, or the jazz-funk of Creed Taylor and CTI Records. Its emphasis on slowly morphing deep house grooves will also appeal to fans of DJ Sprinkles, Moodymann, and Theo Parrish. At once catchy and spacey, poppy and perverse, Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? shows a restless musician trying to square the circle of dance music and meditation, repetition, and change.

Hot on the heels of the sold-out limited ep Was It Ever Real?, The Soft Pink Truth releases a super catchy, sexy contemporary disco banger Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This?, Throughout the ten songs of the album, the provocation to go "deeper" prompts promiscuous moves across the genres of disco, minimalism, ambient, and jazz, sliding onto and off of the dancefloor, sweeping higher and lower on the scale of frequencies, engaging both philosophical texts re-set as pop lyrics and wordless glossolalia. Throughout, Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? aims for a kind of psychedelic poolside take on disco, using the steady 120 bpm rhythmic chassis of the music as a launchpad for reverie rather than big room EDM bluster. Sidestepping retro kitsch but paying homage to highly personal interpretations of disco such as Arthur Russell, Don Ray, Dr. Buzzard"s Original Savannah Band, and Mandré, or the jazz-funk of Creed Taylor and CTI Records. Its emphasis on slowly morphing deep house grooves will also appeal to fans of DJ Sprinkles, Moodymann, and Theo Parrish. At once catchy and spacey, poppy and perverse, Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? shows a restless musician trying to square the circle of dance music and meditation, repetition, and change.

Hailing from Brighton, InTechnicolour are a riffy, groovy, rock band with a knack for creating a colourful song or two. Formed in 2015 through a want to play loud music through slightly broken amps, the basis of the band was created. Comprised of members from the likes of Delta Sleep, LUO and Broker the five-piece are a fully-formed band of technically gifted musicians, cutting loose and playing music that’s about as far removed from their day jobs as it’s possible to get – and they are doing it better than a good portion of their contemporaries. Landing somewhere between the slack desert-groove of Kyuss and Karma to Burn, the band combine deeply satisfying riffs with a dynamic vocal style, which calls to mind the sounds of Baroness, Gojira and Mastodon.

'Mysticisms' prides itself on finding the groove, but with a nod (and wink) to discerning ears. However, sometimes it's right to just let it all out and go route one. Berlin based producer Daniel Scholz aka (DJ) Leinad was all about the dancefloor, releasing a series of simple but highly effective EPs of cut up, looped house music that summed up that late 90s Chicago-NYC-London-Paris influenced bombs.

The jack that house built the "heroes" with the "touch" Souvenirs embodies Leinad's sound. Moving from high-school DJ, to computer programmer to professional producer, DJ and soundtrack artist, remixing for the likes of Yellow and Peter Gabriel's Real World, moving from early classic mid-90s German techno and trance releases on to his 'Leinad' moniker (Daniel spelt backwards), the series of releases on JXP can now go for dizzing sums. In Souvenirs, taken from the Disco Part's III EP, Mysticisms found the source - elastic bass, filtered loops, watertight kick and twisted disco'n' strings, all cut back and forth 'for the party' to abandon.

Present day remixes come from Lewie Day's 'Deep Dean' project, offering a wonderful example of an artist at work, a laid back groove, pushing all the right dancefloor buttons, all presented with respect to the past, but with acres of modern day swing; Mysticisms' own cohort Piers Harrison, side stepping his edit school as one of Soft Rocks, to produce a literal peak time acid banger; and to close the 'DJ' returns, Leinad offers a bumping 2022 remake to show he's still a teacher.

Guru The Mystery.

Repressed finally. Sometimes a single is released that reaches such dizzying heights of success that it becomes a pinnacle of the decade they're indelibly tied to. "Groove Is In The Heart" by dance-house trio Deee-Lite is one such single. The infectiously quirky, and eminently danceable track is prominently based around samples of "Bring Down The Birds" by Herbie Hancock, and "Get Up" by Vernon Burch, among many others, (Courtesy of dual producers DJs Dmitry and Towa Tei) paired with top-tier guest contributions from JB's veterans Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, background vocals from Parliament-Funkadelic's own Bootsy Collins, and even a guest rap from Q-Tip, not to mention frontwoman Lady Miss Kier's own siren-like vocals. All disparate and disconnected elements, but ones that would come together to form dancehall greatness, and chart-topping success worldwide for Deee-Lite. "Groove Is In The Heart" managed to reach #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but excelled at its best on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, where it reached to the #1 spot. On top of its success in America it was a smash internationally, climbing the heights of the charts in the UK, Canada, Australia, and a variety of other countries. It remained in heavy rotation for much of 1990 on MTV as well. As the decades went on, "Groove Is In The Heart" would be ranked among the greatest dance tracks of all time, as well as one of the greatest songs of the 1990s by VH1, Pitchfork, Buzzfeed, and many more. "Groove Is In The Heart" was a potent single for Deee-Lite to lead with, but the album bearing it was nothing to slouch at either. The group's debut record, 1990's World Clique was released to major commercial and critical success, owing just as much to its addictive hybrid of seductive retro aesthetics, modern dancefloor flair, and esoteric, socially conscious messaging, on the back of celebratory club staples like "Power Of Love", "Good Beat", "E.S.P.", and of course "Groove Is In The Heart." World Clique would reach top 20 charts in the US, UK, and Canada in sales, as well as earn rave reviews from NME, Chicago Sun-Times, Rolling Stone, and Slant Magazine, who called it an "essential pop album." A1. Good Beat A2. Power Of Love A3. Try Me On…I’m Very You A4. Smile On A5. What Is Love? B1. World Clique B2. E.S.P. B3. Groove Is In The Heart B4. Who Was That? B5. Deep Ending

Freedom is both an integral and multi-layered topic for improvised music, describing its mechanics, aesthetics, and values and often an underlying political dimension as well. In the case of free jazz specifically, the word carries additional weight given the music's deep connection to the black liberation movement of the 1960's and 70's.

The passionate and unclassifiable work of Calgary-based improviser Jairus Sharif embraces each of these definitions of freedom and others, albeit strictly on its own personal and idiosyncratic terms. Since early 2020, the 34 year-old autodidact has been generating a steady stream of homespun solo recordings that forge unprecedented connections between hip-hop abstraction, cosmic skronk, outsider jazz, and staunch post-punk DIY ethos.

Leading up to the pandemic, Sharif's immersion in spiritual and exploratory jazz had culminated in him deciding to purchase an alto saxophone. Unbeknownst to him this instrument would be a catalyst for him to discover his own ardently individualistic artistic voice.

Prior to that point, he had always been somewhat of a solitary musical traveler. In 2002, he acquired his first instrument—a pair of Technics 1200s — but struggled to find local collaborators that had equal investment in hip hop culture. Ultimately, Sharif picked up the guitar, turning to the resilient local punk community, that had also nurtured both of his mothers some time earlier.

As Black Lives Matter gained momentum in the wake of George Floyd's murder, Sharif was suddenly flooded with an acute awareness of his own identity. It compelled him to zealously plunge headlong into open-ended spontaneous solo creation. Water & Tools, his strange and stirring debut for Toronto's Telephone Explosion Records (home to full-lengths from the likes of Brodie West's Eucalyptus, Mas Aya, and Joseph Shabason), offers a glimpse into this ongoing hermetic journey.

As Sharif dedicated himself to uncovering his own deeper musical truths, he assembled a home studio in his basement, cobbling together a drum kit from bits his bandmate had left at his house pre-pandemic, chaining effects together and outfitting the entire space with microphones. Somewhere between the chaos of child's treehouse and the tidy import of a shrine, this space (pictured on the album's back cover) consecrated his own imagination. He laid it out to maximize access to any and every tool in his arsenal, providing him a freedom to explore that he had never permitted himself to consummate before.

Within this cozy private universe, his recent purchase—the saxophone—assumed new meaning. It furnished a tangible connection to the black radicalism that mobilized free jazz, but also something far more personal. From a technical standpoint, the instrument was completely unfamiliar to him, yet rather than this being a hindrance to Sharif, his inexperience opened fruitful path forward, unencumbered by preconceptions. Resolving to shirk formal training, convention, and build his own understanding of it from scratch, allowed him to access his most raw, fundamental creative impulses. The Saxophone's inseverable bond with breath compounded this effect, echoing revelatory discoveries he had been making about breathing through yoga, research, and psychotherapy. Of course, the parallels with BLM's harrowing rallying cry—“I can't breathe”—were not lost on him either.

Water & Tools is a dense, contradictory statement with a blustery surface that shelters a soulful heart. It's generous music, exuding profound vulnerability—grappling with the loss of one his mothers, Lisa—all the while brimming with electric wide-eyed wonder. Almost every one of the nine pieces seems to carry some semblance of a groove, while remaining completely untethered from pulse. For Sharif, this collection is an expression of newfound lucidity, however for the listener his sonic concoctions act as powerful psychotropics. At points, there's a timelessness that's conveyed through the music's processional, ritualistic tenor, and yet there's an endless amount of wild, futuristic detail waiting to unspool at any given moment. Similarly, while this recording emerges from Sharif's private pilgrimage and personal emancipation, he also leaves room for collaboration. Woven throughout Sharif's one-man-ensemble textures, one finds Maxmilian Turnbull (of Badge Epoque, U.S. Girls, and Cosmic Range infamy) providing sundry keyboards and treatments, as well as his mixing skills.

Whether conjuring effusive psychedelia or plumbing introspective depths, the music that Jairus Sharif produces is singular, visceral, and wondrously unpredictable. Water & Tools sketches a raw, firsthand account of his nascent explorations within his own unbridled imagination.

Los Angeles' Zen 2000 returns with its third release, the third and final chapter in its kick-off string of 7-inches. For this episode, we once again dip into the deep and diverse well of local talent for a single from Tim Jones, a.k.a. Ex.Pontoon.

“Coming Back” is a slinky, off-kilter slow burn, a slinky vocal groove snaking through SoCal G-funk refashioned into a crackly reggae dub wobble. The other side is a delirious and psychedelic trip into the desert, the fiery sun scorching the earth below. Icy guitars and a cavernous arrangement turn the sonic horizon into a shimmering mirage. For the digital bonus, an instrumental version of the B-side, further revealing the nuanced and delicate composition of the piece.