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).

Havana Candy – The Black Keys EP

Some cool leftfield disco vibes here from those past masters of the artform, Paper Recordings… and for once they've actually said when it's out so I can tell you about it! The EP's made up of three original tracks, plus a remix of Tera from Flash Atkins.

We'll start with Tera, then, which in its original form is a seriously bass-heavy, mind-melting nu-disco throbber made with dark rooms, smoke machines and strobe lights in mind. Far be it from me to say something as crass as “pass the amyl” but, y'know… while in Mr Atkins' hands, it's basically the same track, only with several buckets of acid squelch thrown in. As for the other two, Last Train is wonky downtempo Balearica better suited to warm-up or post-club play, while All Night treads a similar path to Tera, but leans a little more towards the deep house (rather than nu disco) side of things.

Silly faces at the ready, please.

Out: This week

About: Havana Candy is the latest alias for Hebden Bridge-based Joe Lucas, who's had stuff out under various guises on such northern institutions as Fat City and 2020Vision, as well as Paper and his own Havana Candy Records. You can find him (and HEAR THIS) on Soundcloud, or you can find Paper Recordings here.