ALBUM Mateo & Matos – House Legends

It's entirely possible that some younger readers of this blog might not know who Mateo & Matos are… Jon and Eddie haven't been as prolific in recent years as they once were. But suffice to say, if deep, jazzy or soulful house is your bag then the music you love owes at least some debt to this duo, who've been turning out quality trackage since the mid-90s.

Well, if you're among those uninitiated then this 24-track comp spanning 17 years is the perfect place to start; for long-term fans, on the other hand, it's a chance to revisit some perhaps forgotten old favourites… I used to play Hisa Jazz all the time back in 2003, hearing it out of the blue again was like bumping into an old schoolfriend!

Out: This week

About: This is the fourth in the House Masters series, previous installments having been supplied by Mood II Swing, Frankie Feliciano and Kerri Chandler. More info at the King Street Sounds website.

Andrew MK – Stop/Listen/Repeat EP

Sorry there were no reviews last night, I was… doing summat else. But here we are now… and there's some damn fine house music to tell you about as well.

Starting with this EP from a new name to me, Andrew Mk (not to be confused with the MTV rock dude Andrew WK), which comes on US label Dance Through Life. With eight original tracks I'm not going into each one individually, but the general theme is contemporary-sounding deep house with a jazzy twist, lots of wonky piano loops and, notably, a penchant for sampling classic vocals.

We'll assume this has been done as deliberate concept/theme, of course, not that he just couldn't think of any other ideas! But yeah, Bad Habit gets the treatment on Never Say Never, Jovan's garage classic Make My Body Rock is used on Trip The Guitar alongside a cheeky, plinky-plonky nod to the Satisfaction riff, The Insatiable Piano samples Junior's Get Your Hands Off My Man while the standout of the EP for me is Touch The Piano, a slow, techy, dubby throbber topped off with the Candi Staton I Know vocal (as sampled by Altern-8 and Bowa back in the ravey davey gravy days).

The latter's frankly an astoundingly good piece of house music but the cascading jazz ivories of A Lot Of Love also deserve a special mention, and generally speaking the EP's a bit of a winner all round. No idea who Andrew Mk is but let's hope we hear more soon.

Out: This week

About: You can find Dance Through Life on Soundcloud or Facebook

Raw & Darren Clarke – Jazz EP

Now then, anyone fancy guessing what this one might sound like? Yeah, you got it… deep, sultry, jazzy house is the order of the day on this three-tracker from new-ish (this is number six from them) Sheffield label Them On The Hill.

Lead track Digital Jazz Fix, from Raw, comes in two mixes. The Original is pretty self-explanatory – think the housier end of the Compost catalogue or the jazz-dance sessions at Southport, if you need a signpost – while the NZ Dub from Kiwi collaborator Darren Clarke is, er, a drummier, dubbier take on the same, not much else I can say, with brushed snares a-gogo.

Rounding out the EP is Free Form from Clarke, a more straight-up deep house cut that to these ears suggests late 90s French deep house labels like Defender and Brique Rouge may feature prominently in Mr Clarke's collection, and that features some old jazz dude reminiscing as a vocal.

It's all very easy on the ears all round, really. But not, I hasten to add, in a lame-ass, coffee table kinda way! It's just… groovy, daddio.

Out: This week

About: Although Them On The Hill is a new label, the crew behind it are no newcomers to the game. They started out as a party collective in Sheffield in 1993 and Raw himself you might remember from his work as Digital Boogie (with Callum Wordsworth) on DiY Discs, or as Vibe, Inc (with Groove Assassin) on Black Vinyl, Transport, 4th Floor and Glasgow Underground.

Anyway, you can find Them On The Hill at their own website or on Soundcloud. Nice…

Norm Talley – Travlin' EP

Okay, TIWWD is now back, back, BACK!* after a long and most relaxing weekend in sunny Wales. Remind me that I still owe you a round-up of the rest of last week's releases that I didn't get around to before I went, but right now time, tides and release schedules wait for no man, so let's crack on with this week's releases, starting with this three-tracker from Norm Talley.

Talley is a Detroit producer who's been in the game for over 25 years, and his experience and production knowledge certainly shine through here. Analog Dreams works a VERY familiar vocal sample (I won't spoil it) over militant snare-heavy riddims, ION is a deeper, more late-night houser with a jazzy kinda vibe and finally Travlin' itself sees the Detroit influences come to the fore beats-wise while a meandering, mournful sax line brings the musicality.

Three very different tracks, then, but all three are of the highest quality, making this something of a must-check for all lovers of the deep.

Out: This week on vinyl, next week digitally

About: This is only the fifth release from London-based label Landed Records… to find out more about 'em visit their website or hit 'em up on Facebook.

*Cheesy phrasing © Smash Hits, 1980s

Rami Deejay & Keely Timlin - Disengage

Finally for tonight, after all that nu-disco and prog, we return to deep house pastures with this latest from Sebastian Davidson's ever-excellent Nightbird Music.

This time we're at the soulful end of the deep house spectrum, with Disengage sporting a jazz-inflected vocal from Ms Timlin that reminds me a lot of the mighty Nicolette. The lazy, lounge-y original is complemented with an ultra-deep, piano-sprinkled Afterhours Remix from Ferdy, a techier, glitchier rub from Malbetrieb & Rik Wolding and, best of all to these ears, a stripped and dubby makeover from the mighty Karol XVII & MB Valence, which nonetheless leaves that vocal intact.

Nightbird seem to be continuing with their policy of focusing on quality not quantity; here, they've struck gold once more.

Out: It just says 'March', so sometime very soon is all I can tell you. Or now even, who can say?

About: You can find Nightbird Music on Facebook and MySpace.

Rob Wu - The Vibes EP

I've sung the praises of Beats Me Music on here several times. They don't put out huge amounts of stuff, but when they do you can usually count on it coming straight out the top drawer. And this is no exception.

It's good VFM too, with four originals in a total of six mixes. If you like your deep house on the jazzual side, then you're gonna love Let's Keep It and Jazzy Paradise… so jazzual are these two, in fact, that it's only really the presence of a strong 4/4 kick that marks them out as house records at all, rather than out-and-out jazz-funk tracks.

That's a good thing in my books, by the way! And I should stress this is jazz without all the noodles and self-indulgent fiddly time signatures and suchlike, as well. Still, if it's all a bit too white socks n' Cortinas for ya, then a big n' bumpin Mike Jules Remix of the latter, and a beefed-up take on Let's Keep It by D'Experiment that's so Salted-esque it even sports an added chunk of sampled vocal featuring some dude talking about hiphop, should see you right.

A couple more upbeat, jazzed-out instrumentals, The Vibes and What's That, round out another excellent release from Beats Me Music. Keep 'em coming boys!

Out: This week

About: Beats Me are based on the south coast of the UK… if you want to know more, hit up their website and Facebook page. As for Rob Wu… I believe he's an Australian producer now based on these shores, but I could be wrong.

ALBUM Various - Best Of Lepento

Okay, so still in the grips of the dreaded man-flu right here… it's hard to summon up the energy or the motivation to do much of anything at all at the mo' to be honest. But I put this album on today, and it briefly took the blues away for a bit…

Regular readers will know by now that Lepento is the house/techno sister label to the dubstep/UK bass imprints LU10 and Four40. I've propped quite a few of their releases on here before now, but even I was taken aback by just how good this 'best of so far' comp really is, with nuggets that should suit no matter what style of contemporary house you're most into.

Cause & Affect's skippy, garage-y Jeans and Together open proceedings, then Corduroy Mavericks' House Journey gives us a taste of more commercial/crossover flavours, before we're back on a (simply gorgeous, soul-infused) garage tip with HapKido's Because I'm Waiting. HapKido then team up with NAIS for the jazz-inflected houser Boy, before Jayye Jackin' & Dappa D serve up the bumpin' and very now-sounding Oh Baby, from where we move into bouncy swing-tech number Ciao Ciao by Jimmy Raz and then the dark, rumbling tech-house of Keva's All Night Long, with its lyrical dig at boring DJs "playing the same beat all night long", and then… well, you get the idea, and that's only half the album covered! The rest is just as good though, trust me.

In a nutshell: 16 quality house tracks in a range of flavas, presented in full-length, unmixed format. What's not to love?

Out: A whole 8 days ago (30 Jan). I'm so behind the times…

About: You can find Lepento on MySpace and Soundcloud

Dynamode - Jin Joint

Another one from a label that's something of a TIWWD stalwart… Greece's Erase Records.

In keeping with a lot of Erase's recent output this works the familiar tech-house + jazz formula... this time though, Scottish duo Dynamode have eschewed the usual cheesy swing in favour of a lovely little minor key piano lick. As long as you're not too tired of those oompah-loompah beats just yet, it's a really rather likeable cut, coming complete with a more stripped-down and serious-minded remix from Italy's Andrea Loche & Corrado Zonnedda.

Out: This week

About: Find Erase online here... or check out Dynamode on Soundcloud

Funk Mediterraneo - Saturday Life EP

An excellent three-tracker here from Funk Mediterraneo, AKA Italian Brothers Carlo and Rosario Turturici.

In Silence is a jazz-tinged dancefloor deep houser with a west coast feel and a tinkling piano piano hook that sounds like it might be a tiny snippet of Hall & Oates' much-sampled I Can't Go For That (although equally it might not). Tanto Con Te is a more driving number that builds slowly from drum-led intro, working party noise samples over a fat, bumping b-line. But the killer here is Saturday Life itself, a simply irresistible little mid-to-uptempo groover which boasts three competing vocal samples: a fast-chat jazzy rap of the kind that means this cut would be right at home on Salted or Drop Music, plus that classic "Saturday, it's Saturday" sample and, least likely of all, a little drop of Grease… it sounds like it could be a bit cheesy but, remarkably, it's not. It's just a straight-up call to the dancefloor and for pulling THAT off, the bros Turturici are to be applauded.

Out: Last week but we're playing catch-up here

About: This is on Uma Recordings, an offshoot of Jazzy Eyewear's Miami-based So Sound Recordings. They don't seem to have a website of their own but you can find So Sound here or visit Funk Meditteraneo themselves on MySpace.

Masahiro Suzuki - Wondazloop

This actually came out on Friday, but what the hey.... it's not like I've been exactly bang on-the-ball with releases for the past few weeks, is it? Got a working computer again now though so hopefully that'll change!

Wondazloop is the latest release on the reborn Black Vinyl label and comes from the boss of Tokyo's DMR Imports record shop (it says here). It features sampled spoken word vox from the US civil rights era (I think), a cheeky Nightwriters sample, and a little dash of jazz thrown in for good measure. There's a lot going on over its five minutes 54 seconds, but it's good. On the B, Red Criola is a more uptempo, jaunty, jazzy, piano-led affair made for moving booties on dancefloors of the cheese-free variety. It's also got hints of Afro percussion... but not in a horribly noodly way.

Good to see BV back and doing what they do best: delivering underground bombs with scant regard for fashion, trends or all the other bullshit that goes with this industry.

Out: Now (but only for three days)

About: Black Vinyl are now based in sunny Antigua, don'tchaknow? Here's their new Facebook page which seems to be their primary cyberhome at the mo'.