Julius Papp & Lisa Shaw - Miracle

Okay, we seem to be on something of a roll with the girly vocal cuts today, so now seems a good time to tell you about this team-up between two heavyweights of the west coast deep/soulful house scene.

The main Sunset Vocal Mix of Miracle is a synth-throbbin', deep but not overly deep house cut that owes as much to Chicago as it does to San Francisco, sonically, while Ms Shaw's tonsils are in their usual fine form. It's accompanied by matching Instrumental and Dub passes, and then you also get two mixes from Smash Hunter, who serves up Disco Soul Vocal and Disco Soul Instrumental rubs that add classic-sounding tinky-tonk house pianos and some melancholic jazz sax warbles.

Overall, it's one for warm-ups and sunny afternoon sessions rather than peaktime thrills, but there's no doubting the quality on offer. If pushed, it's between the Sunset Dub and the Disco Soul Vocal mixes for me.

Out: This week

About: This comes on Julius Papp's own long-running NeoDisco imprint, and is a trailer for his soon-come artist album Music Is The Key.

New Mondo - Total Control

New Mondo are better known as west coast deep house heroes Vincent Kwok and DJ MFR, but this debut long player is a bit of a surprise… cos Total Control is a far more accessible, dare I say poppy project than you'd expect from this pair.

Don't get me wrong, we're not in Spiller/Freemasons territory just yet. But still, this is the kind of slickly produced 'grown-up pop'-style house that's more familiar coming from fellow San Fran stable Om, than from the generally more underground Transport. I still quite like it, though. If you're not in the mood then it can easily start to sound a bit too sickly sweet (and those who are allergic to vocals should steer well clear), but if you're happy with a complete album of spangly (that's spangly, not spangled) vibes then there's plenty to love here, particularly Lisa Shaw's make-me-go-a-bit-funny-at-the-knees vocal on opener I Want Cha, which is coming out as a single soon, and the rumbling Chi-Town b-line on 909. 

[UPDATE Just found some audio previews on Soundcloud]

Actually, this album reminds me of  nothing so much as Stonebridge's Can't Get Enough. Which is a compliment BTW! Anyway, you can find out more about New Mondo here, or they've got a MySpace as well but they don't seem to have done much with it yet…

About the label: Surprisingly, as I said, this is on Transport… which is a wicked deep house label out of San Fran. If you don't know the label this probably isn't the best place to start, though. May I suggest a couple of label showcases instead, Julius Papp's Montreal Departure via Om or House Session: Transport Recordings on Soulstar, or better yet DJ MFR's Rome Departure on Transport itself? Yes, I may. In fact, I just have.