Tony Barbato - Marula EP

TIWWD is a bit poorly, so not gonna be doing loads tonight, but we can find time I think to discuss this latest from UK label Favouritizm. It's the handiwork of Italian producer Tony Barbato, who's cropped up on Favouritizm before, and takes its name from Marula Beach, a club in Follonica where he's been resident since 2005.

First up is Shaka, a pleasingly non-frenzied deep/tech house cut with plenty of space in the production for the slightly old skool synths to shine. Feel It comes next, a more uptempo and more traditional vocal number, while bringing the EP to a close is Falling, which is more uptempo again but this time in a techier vein, with busy shuffling percussion, a fat walking b-line tucked away quite subtly in the mix and very distinctive, Arabic-sounding strings.

The latter stands out for me for its sheer not-sounding-like-anything-else-ness, but it's solid stuff all round, and Shaka's got some wicked drops, it has to be said.

Out: This week

About: You can find Favouritizm here. I'm off to bed with some Vit C now.

So many tunes, so little time 21

Good Lord, another week gone by! So here's our regular Sunday night round-up of the best of the rest of the week's releases… some of which might definitely have had a full review had I not had to spend most of my spare time at the hospital this week!

Alex Savanin is up first with InFlight on Highway Records, a pleasantly drifty progressive houser with an unusual sampled vocal (the clue's in the title) and remixes from Hernan Cattaneo + Soundexile and, for lovers of the deep, Neil Quigley… next there's Christian Sol with Mist on Troll Records, a fairly gentle tech-house four-tracker with a remix of the title cut from Kruse + Nuernberg… another Christian, Christian Zimmerman, gives us Gas Hero on Birmingham's Out Of Bounds, a laidback cut sitting somewhere between deep house, Balearic, slo-mo and nu-disco, and coming with a remix from Pete Herbert… Damon Martin serves up some good old-fashioned vocal house rawness in the form of That Ain't Right, coming on Disco Bloodbath… Dave Crane's Oh No on Zipped Records is one for those that like their tech-house on the techno side, with a little added glitch… DJ Sulli's Mercury Rising on Innerflight Music is a Brazilian-influenced Ibiza terrace party cut… Enigma Dubz bring us a four-track sampler from their second long-player Genesis on LU10, of which more soon… Floska's Sunset On Ocean Drive EP on Turquoise Blue is mostly fairly acceptable-but-average tech/prog fodder – apart from Dorsmachine which is a MONSTER of a tune, check it!… JP Soul's Backsliding EP on California's Roam Recordings features a mix of bouncy house and mid/downtempo funk sounds, and comes with a Q-Burns Abstract Message mix of the title cut… Micha Mischer's Space on MUM is driving, druggy tech-house and comes with a Mark Holmes Remix… Montana + Stewart serve up some gentle, sun-flecked soulful house vibes on Universe Media with Slow + Steady… Sounds Of Juan deliver the tech-house goods once more with Nick Robson's Edvard Monogram Remixes EP, while Essex neighbours Stripped Muzik do likewise but on a slightly proggier note with Pao Calderon's Kiss Me Like You Do… Latin percussion dominates Tony Barbato's tech-house four-tracker The Tuscan on Favouritizm, but do make sure you check for the organ-laced Pharda… there's lots more drummy tech-house and bouncy, house-y techno on Southpark Recordings' eight-track V/A sampler Ibiza Summit 2012… and finally Vex Vexino's Simplicity for Headset Recordings sees us in more leftfield deep house/deep techno/slo-mo pastures, with Jay Tripwire on the remix.

THANKS ALSO this week to: Alessio Frino, Asymmetric Soul, Common People, Dr Kucho, Jeff Moore + Jamie Lie A Kwie, Jennifer Pliester, Jurek Przezdziecki, Monitor, the brilliantly-named Peter + The Stringfellows, Peter McGill, Project Inertia, Ray Rosenfeld, Spacebats and Swindle…