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Next up on High Praise, we're pleased to welcome two long time friends of the label for their first collaborative venture. Introducing Rude & Mean (also know as James Rudie and EVM128). As key members of the infamous CoOp collective, they have been flying the flag for the UK's broken beat revival, turning heads with their intensely soulful productions. Supporters include the likes of Gilles Peterson, Bradley Zero and many more.

'Moments In Soul' and 'Just flow' are two exuberant masterclasses in how to create a joyful edit. Their broken beat background shines through in the meticulous drum programming, giving the performance a natural, live feel and setting it apart from others in their class. Syncopated rhythms, celebratory chords and relentlessly energetic basslines feature throughout - creating a groove so powerful you can't help but be spirited away to the dance floor.

With this release High Praise continue to build their status as a label to keep an eye on, with their party series and clothing line steadily growing in popularity.

Dutch duo Abstract Division (aka Paul Boex and Dave Miller) present 'Aftermath EP', a four track package due *release date* on the eponymous imprint from Milan based collective Just This. Featured in the release are remixes from Peter Van Hoesen and VRIL. Title track is a subtle dancefloor killer with funky cyclic rhythms and peculiar harmonies, followed by 'Isolated', a subdued yet dizzying dose of syncopated drums and crystalline melodic inflections. For his interpretation of 'Isolated', VRIL mutates the stripped back hypnotism of the original into a maximal, angular workout, whilst Peter Van Hoesen focuses on the dizzying loops of the original, repurposing them into an immersive spiral of funk driven techno. 'Aftermath EP' fuses elements of ambient and soulful techno for an understated but powerful package.

CODY BLACK was born and raised in Cincinnati in the shadow of King Records where he cut this landmark Northern Soul 45 'I'm Slowly Molding' in 1968. However, it didn't impact on the UK soul scene until the mid-Eighties when, at last, it finally hit at the ground-breaking 'Top Of The World' club in Stafford. Still a mainstay of the All-Nighter scene to this day and commanding prices in the region of $1,000. Black recorded a string of 45s for as many labels including the highly prized 'It's Our Time To Fall In Love' on 'GIG' and the sublime 'Mr Blue' on 'D-Town'.
CHARLES SPURLING was a fellow Cincinnati music hustler working as an A&R man at King Records when he cut this pounding Northern Soul dancer in 1967. AWESOME!

Tracks from Aural Imbalance's Propagation Of Light album versioned and rendered for wax.

Just Breathe gets spotlighted on the A-side with two remixes. First up, Maps Of Hyperspace grafts his brand of dubby ambience to Simon's instrumentation for trippy chill house goodness. Off Land strips back the beats and ups the ambient bandwidth on his version to close out the side.

The B-side kicks off with Soul Solution, one of Mr. Huxtable's trademark lusicous atmospheric house tracks. Adriano Mirabile brings his techy production stylest o the desk on Fall Of Stars to wrap things.

Milan based collective Just This return with their biggest compilation yet, a twelve track package featuring varied entries from label regulars and esoteric talents alike. JT022 is due for release July 20th. Melodic fragments and melancholic harmonies spiral through ricocheting drums and marching kicks. Contributions from Skudge, Hiver, Hunter/Game, Artefakt, Pizetsky and many more combine to forge a formidable package channelling moody, hypnotic techno for darkened dancefloors.

5 catchy tracks by eighties bristol outfit Umo Vogue Umo Vogue formed in Bristol by Stig Manley, Russ Crook and Neil Deamer who were in Bath based ska rock outfit 'The AT's', along with Bristol based singer Debbie Marlow. Neil's Brother Clive joined the band bringing a fantastic new dynamic to the band on drums, percussion and heavy artillery. The band name is a deliberate misspelling of the ultra-chic Italian fashion magazine 'L'Uomo Vogue'. After winning the Bristol 'Battle of the Bands' in 1982 they were signed to Phonogram and dropped a few months later. They then signed to EMI in '83 and released their first single 'Just My Love' released in early 1984. The second single was 'Make It Real' and was never released as the band were culled from the EMI roster in late '84. For this reissue of their debut single we've added 3 bonus tracks, a demo of 'Just My Love', the unreleased follow single 'Make It Real' and a bedroom demo 'Erotica.'

Each song displays ridiculously catchy melodies and innovative electronic rhythms. The drum tracks, a combination of rhythm machines and hand percussion, were mixed down from the 4-track tape used as backing on stage, with the rich slap bass and Roland SH09 synths weaves fluid lead lines in between the harmony vocals. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The record is housed in an exact replica of the original jacket and includes an 8-page booklet with photos, notes and press clippings from the band's archive. 'We're synthetic but not antiseptic. We are interested in the naivety and spontaneity of music.' - Umo Vogue

Remastered And Resissued Double A Sider For Soul Aficionados, B Boys And Jazz Funk Lovers.

Both Instantly Recognisable Across The Generations, The A Side Sees A Reissue Of One Of The Most Feel Good Records Out There In - 'express Yourself'. Most Famously Sampled By The Mighty N.w.a. In '89.... 'whatever You Do, Do It Good'.

On Flip You Get Pure Funk Destruction In The Form Of The Meters - Just Kissed My Baby. An Insatiable, Groove Laden Intro Which Has Been Prime Sampling Material Throughout The Years - Most Notably In Public Enemy's 'timebomb'.

Limited repress on Black vinyl, with a large / dinked centre hole.

Milan based collective Just This are proud to present the 'Absolute Infinity EP', a joint release from Netherlands-based producers Sinfol and Octual. Featured in this package are two remixes from Gerd Janson prescribing a heavy dose of acid. Title track is a stripped back groove with a looping synth lead that wanders through ricocheting drums. For his first remix Gerd muffles the framework of the original, making room for a floating melody and warm lead, whilst the 'Acid Only' version takes the components of the original and throws them into a bath full of acid. Closing off the EP is 'Wire', a moody dancefloor cut for the after-hours.

Mikkel Metal returns to Copenhagen's Echocord this May with his new mini LP 'Just Enough Light', comprising six originals from the Danish artist. Copenhagen based producer and DJ Mikkel Metal has been a beacon of light in the Danish electronic music scene and further afield for nearly two decades now, with the Dub Techno imprint from his hometown, Echocord, being the predominant home for his output, whilst also releasing material on Cologne's Kompakt, Tartelet, Semantica and Avant Roots, a telling sign of the quality embodied in his work. Here though we see Mikkel deliver a mini album concept in the shape of 'Just Enough Light' and opener 'Awake' perfectly sets the tone with emotive, dynamically unfolding atmospherics, tension building bass drones and spiraling dub chords subtly easing us into the project. 'Bregnan' then stirs in some classing Dub-Techno tropes with billowing stab sequences, lumpy subs and off beat high hats carrying the hypnotic groove for six and a half minutes. 'Jech' then strips things back to an almost beatless amalgamation of murky chords and modulating synth whirrs. Opening the flip side of the release is 'Include' which embraces a brighter feel via ethereal pad swells, jazztinged synth melodies and bumpy 909 rhythms before 'Konkin' edges back into the eerie, brooding aesthetic with bubbling echoes, broken drums and menacing bass swells at its core. 'Restore' then closes the package on a stripped-back vibe, laying focus on an ever- eveolving singular dub chord to ebb and flow around thunderous subs, kicks and bright hats.

Dionne Warwick is one of the most classic and iconic soul singers of all time. Over her career she has recorded a string of hits and a legacy of music of outstanding quality. Move Me No Moiuntain' was first released in 1975 on Warner Brothers and has since become her most played song on the 'modern soul' scene. (I'm) Just Being Myself' comes from an earlier album (1973) produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland', a connoisseur soul track gaining support in recent years.

Another tape extracted from the Sony vault for the first time since the records was released in 1980. A Floaty disco masterpiece that has been on the soul scene for time but deserves a broader appreciation. We present this in the much rarer issue format with the excellent ballad on the flip "Blame it on me", most o.g copies are missing this track. How the band never made it past one single i don't know as both tracks are fire.

Justin Chapman (half of the Kemeticjust duo) is back with 'Stay My Way', his first release on Visions Recordings.

Inspired by a distant collaboration with Alex Attias, the Soul Original version features Chapman's signature vocal harmonies floating over Latin influenced house rhythm and melody to provide the motivation for feet and hips.

The Just One Remix pushes things into the realm of Broken beats with a hard swing on the drums, and a deep and jazzy bass walk that gives edge to the keys and vox melodies. Classic Just One here!Justin has produced records for Neroli, RushHOur, Sonar Kollektiv and some collaboration with Recloose for Planet E and Deetron for Music Man .

This single for Visions is a long overdue collaboration with an artist we wanted to work with since 2001 when Visions was based in London, so you can imagine how excited we are to take Justin on board and release this single.

Preservation Records dug out two killer blue eyed soul tracks from the Mirage vault.

Here is the original version of "Just Cause I'm Guilty", taken from the unissed tracks from the group. Shelved for over 40 years.

The soulful B side is another sureshot killer soulful track, you have probably heard it by Ruben Howell and Carl Carlton. This version made it to a mega limited demo 7" run on Warner Brothers, but never had an official release. The track is so good that it deserved a place on our Mirage releases.

Carefully remastered and cut by Timmion for Preservation Records.

Milan based collective Just This return with two VA releases to continue their 'Broken Promises' series. With the aim of documenting the progression of cultural movements, the label have pursued underground material since 2010. Broken Promises Part 3 and Part 4 are due for release on 1st December and 8th December respectively, and each feature four new tracks channelling refined techno with minimalist, ambient sentiments.
Hunter/Game open Part 3 with 'Distance', a meditative journey through ambient textures using expansive synths and vast acoustics. Next, Architectural brandishes 808 drums for a tense workout on 'Electric Soul'. On the B-side, label co-owner Pisetzky explores the darker side of minimal on 'Anterial', whilst Altman plays with moody bass and ricocheting percussion on 'Shapes'.
Part 4 opens with a shuffling rhythmic framework on Inland's 'Aechmea', followed by 'Zona', a pointillist groove by Ben Gibson, aka one half of the collaborative project Dyad. On My Flower's 'Kundal', a cyclical melody wanders through eerie acoustics whilst Hiver navigates a broken beat framework with glitchy distortions and dub echoes on 'Stellar Parallax Landing'. 

Nigeria's Kingsley Bucknor's 'Just U and Me' LP gets the long-awaited reissue treatment from Melbourne's Left Ear Records. After cutting his teeth playing with Fela in the 70's and releasing two afrobeat LP's Kingsley travelled the globe before finding himself in London, it's here that he laid down 6 distinctive electro-funk tunes inspired by African rhythms and music he'd heard through his travels in the States and in Europe. Originally issued on Kinglsley's own KAB records in '85 and according to Kingsley the release was well received at the time, but due to constraints of international marketing the record remained mostly unknown outside of his homeland. Fast-forward to 2017 and the stage is set for a new global audience to appreciate the distinct sound of KB.

Hardtek Tribe 160 BPM/170 BPM from Ralph Patetik.

Somne debuts on Just This.
The Italian producer, whose real name is Federico Maccherone, presents his first release of 2017 - a solo EP marrying the same ethereal, wide-angle synthesis and intricate drum programming that appears on standout work for Boddika's Nonplus imprint and the Afterlife label. More than ever, Maccherone shows his range - rolling, meditative recordings sit comfortably alongside some more overtly dance floor material, with both approaches bound by the same high-end production values listeners and DJ's alike have come to expect from the Somne project.
In various ways, the EP offers a certain degree of insight into Maccherone's dual identity as a producer of both clinical, dance-floor fare as well as a cerebral, leftfield work - and in turn, how the artist draws together these two strands of creative endeavour to craft unique and profoundly emotive electronic music. Nods to classic IDM and Ambient sit at the periphery of the recordings, although the main focus is on the propulsive, contemporary Techno derivatives - from warping, half-time opener Divided Love, with its crisp, white noise washes and clinical use of distortion - through to Endgame's exacting, peak-time drive. And whilst the form shifts across the EP from half-time, polyrhythmic work to more direct 4x4 compositions - everything remains bound by the same exquisite, otherworldly atmosphere that touches on the grandiose whilst maintaining a gloriously introspective bent.
Balance comes across as a principle theme on the record, both in terms of production aesthetic and track sequencing, but there is a wonderful contrast between the elements - with the sounds ringing strong and true. The two versions of lead Metropolis that perhaps appear to illustrate in the best way the powerful dichotomy within Maccherone's work, with the A side version conjuring up a distinctly brooding sentiment - a quintessential example of rolling, contemporary Electronica, whilst the Alternate Mix of the B side offers a more direct, cathartic interpretation - expertly executed for maximum dance-floor effectiveness.
Mature and accomplished, Metropolis is a fine addition to the growing Somne discography. The record paints a picture of a producer in full control of his art, definitely working to create a powerful three-dimensional space of his own within the genre.