Kohn-Acted – The Answer

Okay, so you don't get anything from Germany's Conya Records for ages… then when you do, it comes with 11 eleven mixes. That's right, 11! You can't fault 'em in the value for money stakes, that's for sure.

And you can't really fault 'em on the production quality either. I'm not gonna go into every mix individually right now – we'd be here all day – but essentially this is a midtempo deep house number from Conya A&R guru Henri Kohn and San Fran deep house legend Vincent Kwok, with a vocal from Henry's missus, AKA Miss Ann-P. Said vocal is a little poppy for me (sorry Henri!) but thankfully most of the mixes – which come from an impressive line-up that includes Brazilian Soul Crew, Haldo and Satoshi Fumi, among others – come with accompanying dubs and/or instrumentals, so that's not a problem.

The Vincent Kwok Antwort Instrumental and the dark, drummy Satoshi Fumi Dub are the rubs I'd particularly recommend you check out…

Out: This week

About: Conya are, of course, part of the Clubstar family, and you can find 'em on Facebook

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.