Justin Harris - Music's My Religion

It's that time of the week again, where you're running out of days and nowhere near running out cool tunes, so might have to do one of those round-up thingies this weekend. But this had to get a proper mention. Yes, it's Justin Harris of Freaks fame. So you'd expect this to be quality for sure. What's a little bit surprising, though, is that it's one of the most straight-up 'house' things we've heard from the man in years.

Not that I'm not a fan of the Freaks' more experimental/leftfield vibes, cos I am – and nor is this house-by-numbers Hed Kandi fodder by a long chalk – but yeah, it's a little bit more geared towards Saturday nights in big rooms than a lot of the Freaks' output. In a good way.

The original features a preacherman vocal over an insistent, pulsating synth bassline, equally insistent percussion and a bunch of other sounds that have a distinctly 1993 feeling about them. The script gets flipped totally by Demarkus Lewis on Deez Preach 2 Teach Mix, which puts the same vocal over some classic Chicago-style squelchy acid deepness à la Mr Fingers. But then People 2011 is more of the retro party vibes, reworking a certain VERY familiar piano sample alongside a little of that gypsy vibe to devastating effect.

Like I said… just quality straight-up house music.

Out: This week

About: I think I've told you before about the mildly interesting fact Justin Harris DJ'd at my birthday party once (in 1993, funnily enough, years before he was famous or owt), so we'll skip that bit and I'll just tell you that this is another killer from the mighty Baker Street. And if having Justin Harris and Demarkus Lewis on the one 12" isn't a sign how far the Leeds boys have come up in the house music world, I don't know what is…