Jamie L – (What We Saw) In The Burg

A vinyl-only release here from the mighty Paper Recordings, coming courtesy of one Jamie L, who they describe as "a mysterious figure of unknown origin and history who fits into the Moodymann/Theo Parrish school of heavy future disco".

And yeah, "heavy future disco" is as good a description of (What We Saw) In The Burg as any. It's an unhurried, lo-slung and somewhat druggy, out-there kinda groove, with densely layered production driven by warping bottom-end synths, muted handclaps and barely-there samples of party noise. The Havana Candy Mix goes deeper yet more spangly, like space disco on downers, while finally the Cottam Mix is an epic, evolving pass that fuses late-night deep house vibes and soulful wails with fierce, techy percussion.

I think it's the Havana Candy Mix that does it best for me but you've got to hand it to Paper, really. Half the deep house styles that feature on this blog they pretty much invented back in the mid-90s (well, along with Pagan, Nuphonic, Toko and a few others); now the world and his brother are doing it, they're doing something slightly different, pushing us forward once more.

Out: This week

About: Paper live here, here and here (website, Facebook, Soundcloud).