Malbetrieb & Rik Woldring – Diepe Vlakte EP

Some typically deep underground house vibes here from Sebastian Davidson's Nightbird Music.

Diepe Vlakte itself is a dub-informed cut sitting right on the deep house/deep techno borders, with the tiniest of chopped-up breathy female vocal snips sitting atop a fractured pulsating groove tailor-made for late-night smoking sessions. On the B, Vlakke Diepte is in a similar vein; this one's perhaps a little more floor-friendly but we'd be still only talking warm-up/afterhours play and it'd be equally at home on the sofa. And then finally there's a third bonus slab of deepness in the form of Malbetrieb & Sebastian Davidson's Song For M.

'Uncompromising' is the word here… this is proper head music for losing yourself in, not one for dropping at your cousin Trevor's stag night, as Nightbird continue to explore house music's more cerebral fringes.

Out: This week

About: You can find Nightbird Music on Soundcloud and Facebook. And Diepe Vlakte and Vlakke Diepte are I believe Dutch for, roughly translated, "deep and simple" and "simply deep" or something like that. Thank you, Google Translate.

Nadja Lind – Drifting Elements

Another one I'm loving loving loving here… it's quite good fun listening to all this house music and writing this blog sometimes y'know! I think I said recently how much I've been loving that big, dubby Klartraum/Lucidflow sound of late, and this solo offering from Ms Lind, who is of course one half of both, is no exception.

Five mixes to choose from, covering various shades of house and techno… and they're all pretty damn good, to be fair. But the Original and Dunck AKA Pawas's jittery, skittery 'deep techno meets future garage' mix are doing it best for me, I think, with a special mention also for Jeff Fontaine & Deep Spelle's dub house-y rub.

Out: This week

About: You can find Lucidflow at their website, floating on a cloud of sound and in a book of faces.

Nick Devon - So Addicted EP

This record just made me turn out all the lights, pump up the volume and have a disco in the living room to it all by my own self. Which is about as good as it gets at the age of 42, really.

Two tracks, four mixes in total, and every one a winner. "Deep and dark bass-led house," is what the hype sheet calls So Addicted itself, and I won't argue. I will just point out though that a) label boss Al Bradley's 3am Deep Remix is the dog's nuts and b) no, it's not the Mainline sample you might be expecting – it's actually got a spoken male vocal, with vocodered 'answer' vox to die for.

But speaking of samples, over on the B Nothing does very strange things with the vocal from People Hold On… or is it just the lyric, cos I'm not sure if it's a resung male version of the same, or just a very pitched-down sample? Either way, this second big, echo-y monster can also be found lurking in a canine scrotal sack near you… and it comes with a deeper refix from Pete Dafeet too so we really are getting a bit spoilt here.

Out: This week

About: This comes of course on 3am Recordings, who can be found on Facebook and Soundcloud. Nick Devon is from Greece, and I'd also just like to point out that I don't think I've ever typed the words "canine scrotal sack" before.

I'm gonna try not to make a habit of it. You never know where these things will end.

A7L - The Best Of Time

Right then, not sure how many reviews you're gonna get tonight…  it's been a stressful few days what with deadline week at the day job and the girlf being in hospital. But there's at least time to tell you about this one, a) because it's great and b) because there's just the one mix.

What a mix it is, though. The Best Of Time consists of little more than straight-up house beats, a rumblin, bubblin' bass-synth riff and female power-vox… and not even all that all at once, a lot of the time. There's space in the production here you could comfortably navigate a smallish galactic nebula through.

This is big, echo-y, tuff and credible vocal house in the classic NYC stylee, made for big speakers, big rooms and very little lighting, and the only thing wrong with it is it ends too soon! It's like 1995 all over again. Me like.

Out: This week

About: A7L are the Italian duo of Luca Meeucci and Andrea Sutera, and on this particular outing they've had a little help from the label owner, who just so happens to be none other than… Mario Piu. Proof that house really does conquer all eventually! Anyway, it's on Mr Piu's Fahrenheit Music… their website seems to be STILL 'under construction' but hey.

Soundealers – I Know You Want Me

Just one more quickly tonight… and it's another gem from that rather excellent bundle of King Street promos I mentioned recently. This one comes from the currently much talked-about Soundealers, on the mothership King Street label itself.

There are just the two mixes. On the A is the Night Mix from Langenberg, a shufflin' midtempo groover with very busy production full of atmospheric washes, insistent shakers, solid but muted kicks and, most importantly, the underlying throbbing vox-as-bassline riff. It's cool, but the real beauty here for me is the B-side's Rey & Kjavik Remix, which is based around a simple looping three-note synth/organ riff. It's actually got a full vocal, but it's a) whispered and b) placed so far back in the mix that you could be forgiven for hardly noticing it's there… a vocal screamer this certainly isn't.

Instead, you can file it under "sparse, stripped-down grooves, aimed fair and square at the proper heads that are still on the floor at 5am". And we like that kind of thing round these 'ere parts, don't we?

Out: This week

About: I told you you'd be seeing this link to the King Street website a fair bit!

This Chris – Framed EP

Something of a change of pace now! It's been a while since I had anything through from Junglepress, so much so that I was beginning to think I'd fallen off their list… so it was with great pleasure that, just the other day, I downloaded this brand-new slab of liquid funk action from Plush Recordings.

There are three tracks on offer, and while all three certainly fit under the liquid funk banner, let's be clear: we're talking the firing, energetic High Contrast/Hospital Records end of the liquid spectrum, as opposed to the mellow, ambient/intelligent side of things.

There's no great reinventing of wheels going on, admittedly. And I'm not sure how popular this sound actually is on the D&B scene 'proper' right now, which as far as I can see seems to be all about either 190mph tear-outs with big stoopid trance/electro synths,  or dark, moody, dubstep-informed minimalism. The former, I think is shit… the latter I do like, but it's a very boys-y music.

Whereas liquid, well… that was always the sort of D&B that girls and househeads and jazzers can dig too. And there's not a huge amount of it about, so these three soul-infused, yet uptempo and floor-friendly grooves are very welcome indeed – the atmospheric title track particularly.

Out: This week


About: This Chris is, we're informed, a "local producer"… except being told that by a label based jointly in Denver and South London doesn't actually help a great deal! Never mind though, I can at least tell you that his full name is Chris Jameson… and I can also tell you once more that Plush Recordings are an excellent label that can be found at their website and on Facebook.

Lee Perez – Get U/Kinda Strange

Covering Bizarre Inc's I'm Gonna Get You Baby in a 2012 house stylee… it sounds like a terrible idea on paper, doesn't it? But, while it's possible to see this not finding favour in certain more earnest, chin-stroking sections of the house community, it's got to be said… it's actually quite good.

The familiar electric piano riff shines through in full effect, and there's even a snatch of the "Yo DJ pump this party rap," but the vocal – shamelessly burned from the mighty Jocelyn in the first place, of course – appears only in heavily filtered form, to such an extent that there'll no doubt be those who, on hearing this in a club, may wonder if they really heard it at all! Underneath it all, meanwhile, thoroughly modern beats, production and – crucially – tempo mean this will slot right into a contemporary house set, no problem.

On the B, Kinda Strange isn't particularly strange at all… instead it's a very playable tech-houser, stripped down to beats and the sound of distant sirens at the outset, then building slowly with vocal incantations and… oh, no, that pretty much IS it! Think deep house informed by the methods of deep, dubby techno and you're somewhere in the ballpark.

All told, then, another strong offering from Unrivaled Music.

Out: This week

About: You can find Unrivaled at the usual place.

A slight delay… and a free D&B album

Thanks for rolling by This Is Why We Dance today!

Unfortunately my girlfriend has unexpectedly had to go into hospital, so you'll understand if reviewing records isn't the number one thing on my mind right now.

However, it is looking likely NOT to be anything serious or life-threatening, fingers crossed and touch wood, so normal service will be resumed ASAP, all being well. So please do check back tomorrow…

In the meantime, here's a link to the new Concord Dawn album, Air Chrysalis, which he's giving away free via D&B Arena…

http://drumandbassarenablog.com/2012/06/28/five-minutes-with-concord-dawn/

D McAleese – Far Out

Far out by name, far out by nature here, as D McAleese – a new name to me – manages to hit that elusive golden spot where a track is familiar-sounding and hence dancefloor-friendly, yet innovative and distinctive at the same time.

This he achieves by taking a very familiar sound – a big 1990s-style M1 organ riff – then running one note of said riff through a pitch-bend effect. I know… ridiculously simple, isn't it? Yet I can't think of another track I've ever heard that does this. So what you end up with is cut that would be just AN Other organ tune (not that that's ever stopped me from loving a record, you understand) with a sampled "thinking about you" vocal… but is instead something that truly makes ears prick up.

Mix-wise, you can take your pick from the warm, organic-sounding Original, Loonic's heads-down, tech-house pass with its crisp 909s, or Reece Johnson's more stripped-down and techier Too Far Rework. Makes no odds really: it's that one nifty little production trick that makes this a winner.

Just… producers! Don't all start doing it now, eh?

Out: This week

About: This comes on Ormskirk, Lancashire-based Discotech… a label who'd have had more props on here before had they told me when stuff's out! They seem to have grasped the importance of that particular piece of information now though, so expect to hear more about 'em in future cos they do put out some cool tuneage. Meantime to find out what you've been missing, hit up their Facebook and Soundcloud pages.

So many tunes, so little time 20

So many tunes, no time at all, in fact. So I'm not gonna faff about with sleeves and stuff for this week's round-up cos it takes ages, but here's some other goodies you might enjoy this week…

Ad.Lib & Silvision serve up some tuff tech-house and deep techno grooves in the form of Collide on Affin Music… see Rhode Sensei's Flowing Lotus on Incepto Smooth for some lovely melodic chilled shizzle, while Dunkan's Summer Beach on parent stable Incepto Music is more of the label's trademark uplifting, Balearic-style prog… Franco De Mulero & Hector Romero's I Found You on Favouritizm is similarly Balearic, only in this case in an uber-chilled deep/lounge-y house kinda way… Mr Pickle delivers some fun-filled jackin' house vibes on an untitled EP for Lepento… there's more tech-house from Nino Santos + Lightem on the On Your Feet EP from Cray1 Labworks, and from Tim Sheridan + King Roc in the form of new mixes of Ghosts That Live In Her, coming from Timo Garcia and Paul Lyman on Veryverywrongindeed… oh and also from Rayner + Wisqo on Endemic Digital in the form of Sonorous Dust… AND from Rene Beer on Stripped Digital, on the brilliantly-titled My Bass Is Your Bass EP… Resumo's La Musica on Discotech is summery house with a Latin tinge… Untitled Music come through with some typically high-quality melodic, instrumental deep house bizniss, this time from Grigory Fatyanov with an EP called Oomph…  then we're back to tech-house and bouncy, housey techno with the latest in 1605 Music Therapy's always-checkable Platform series, with Vol 6 featuring cuts from Ant Brooks, Kevin Andrews + Jason Chance and Konzept… and finally Stefano Cioffi's To Believe on Melomano Records is a five-track EP mixing up deep house, tech-house and minimal flavours.

There's plenty other bits n' bobs I didn't get round to as well, so THANKS ALSO this week to: 

Act.Sense + Stupp, AFFKT, Angelo Pomposo + Giuseppe Sorentino, Cal Johnstone, Domestic Technology, Gone Deville, ICR, Jeremias Santiago, Les Schmitz + Florian Gasperinik, Neopolis, Pedro Mercado + Karada, PRT Stacho + Underset, Suckfake, Sunshine Jones, Umek, Xaric and several bunches of 'Various artists'!