INTERNATIONAL PEOPLES GANG - Ps - Hi-Phi Music

Fast shaping up to be one of the freshest imprints around, Hi Phi are proud to present International Peoples Gang aka Martyn Watson and Ric Peet.

This is IPG’s first release since 2010’s ‘Up’ LP and is another determined attempt to create music that knows no boundaries. Having cropped up on quality labels such as Heavenly, Is It Balearic? and International Feel, this duo are perhaps best known for their classic, ambient defining debut 3395 on the seminal em:t imprint. They’re now back with a bang.
Up first, ‘PS’ is a haunting slab of deep, disco house; sweeping synths create a sense of tension as whispered vocals bring a mysterious vibe to the cosmic beats. As the hypnotic groove gets fleshed out with even more twinkling melodies we’re taken ever higher into the night sky. It’s a magical track with a spine tingling breakdown. ‘Saffron’ is no less special.
This one is much slower, with lazily tumbling drums imbued with a sense of dusty Africanism. Star-spangled synths, sun kissed chords and a breezy, beach-bar vibe pervade the track and will have you dreaming of summer days of future past. Aching, emotive vocals add layer upon layer of human sensitivity and finish the track off in style.
The Coyote Low Spirits dub flips the track into a Balearic classic awash with sensitive piano lines, drums that lap like waves on a beach and golden synth lines that diffuse into a humid summer sky.
As we head into the height of summer this new EP is the perfect weapon for any DJs wishing to bliss out their crowds.

PS: IPG are currently making waves with ‘U R My Luv’ (the anthem of the summer) and collaborating with Crazy P, Begin and DIY. Watch this space.


Tracklist:

1 - PS
2 - Saffron (Coyote Low Spirits dub)
3 - Saffron

BENEDETTO & FARINA feat JAW - Your Smile - Leftroom Limited

Benedetto & Farina team up with dOP frontman Jaw for ‘Your Smile’ which drops this June on Leftroom Limited with remixes from Barem, Francesca Lombardo and Matt Tolfrey.



French duo Benedetto & Farina have stacked up an impressive back-catalogue of work on labels such as Chilli Mint, King Street, Way of House and Loulou Records. For their first release on Leftroom Limited they deliver a dynamic five-track EP featuring the charisma-riddled vocalist Jaw.


The opening track ‘Your Smile’ leads with soft pads and a shifting percussion, building towards the smooth and hypnotic vocal from Jaw to climax and breakdown into a warm, low-slung summer groove.


Leftroom head honcho Tolfrey teams up with Crosstown Rebels affiliate Francesca Lombardo to deliver a slightly punchier re-imagining, introducing submerged bass, mesmeric modulations and a steady 303 line which seamlessly dances around Jaw’s spoken word vox.
The Argentinian producer Barem steps up next, bringing him with him talents showcased on labels such as Kiara, M_nus and Jetaime. For his edit he works in space-dimensional atmospherics alongside sub-led low-end tones, rumbling bass lines and shifting percussion to deliver an ethereal third provision.

 For the final two tracks the French pair work out a bouncy ‘dub’ alongside a melodic ‘spoken dub version’ which featured as a focal point on Matt Tolfrey and Ryan Crosson’s ‘Don’t Be Leftout’ mix compilation that dropped on Leftroom back in April.

Benedetto & Farina feat Jaw ‘Your Smile’ is out on Leftroom Limited on 23rd June.



Tracklist:

1.    Your Smile (Original Mix)

2.    Your Smile (Matt Tolfrey + Francesca Lombardo Remix)

3.    Your Smile (Barem Remix)

4.    Your Smile (Dub)

5.    Your Smile (Spoken Dub Version)

LOCK SMITH - Settle Down Na EP - Thoughtless Music

Noah Pred’s Thoughtless Music imprint returns this August with a five-track package from Lock Smith, entitled ‘Settle Down Na’ and featuring remixes from Dave Aju, and recent Thoughtless signing Auk.

Lock Smith aka Marc Smith, better known as one half of the Mobilee Records duo Safeword, offers up his first solo venture here via Thoughtless Music. Smith’s style across the release, much like his offerings as Safeword, embraces a warm analogue sound and blossoming dynamic throughout, making it a perfect fit for the Thoughtless imprint. Following recent material from Arthur Oskan, Stone Owl and Auk.
The original mix of title track ‘Settle Down Na’ kicks off the release, an intricately melodic composition fuelled by swirling, reversed synth sounds, loose, stripped-back percussive elements and a meandering sub bass hook, resulting in a jazz-inflected electronica cut exuding elegance and personality.
Circus Company’s Dave Aju reshapes ‘Settle Down Na’ next, merging insistent organic percussion and throbbing sub-bass sounds to create an ever-blooming interpretation, which bubbles away with intensity throughout its near nine-minute duration. Canadian duo Auk turn in a remix of the title cut next following their recent debut, ‘Absolution’ on Thoughtless, the pair tip the focus over to deep and dubby sounds here impressively executed rework that underscores their versatility in the studio.
On the latter stages of the release we’re treated to two more original cuts from Lock Smith, the first of which, ‘Space Bucks’ skilfully blends eerie pad lines and glistening synth sounds to create a hypnotizing and mind-bending record. Smith then rounds things off with ‘New Sequence’, a smooth closing cut which as the name would suggest is fuelled by wandering arpeggio sequences, spacey atmospherics and penetrating low-end tones to close the release in style.

Lock Smith’s ‘Settle Down Na’ is out on Thoughtless Music 4th August 2014.


Tracklist:

1.    Settle Down Na
2.    Settle Down Na (Dave Aju Remix)
3.    Settle Down Na (Auk Remix)
4.    Space Bucks
5.    New Sequence

ROMAN FLUEGEL - Happiness Is Happening - Dial Records

An album by Roman Flügel is always a sensation. That holds true for his countless monikers and collaborations as it does for his 2011 Dial debut Fatty Folders. Being the first of its kind under his civic name, the long over-due association of Hamburg's cerebral label and its group of off-centre house and techno individuals with Frankfurt's favorite electronic music producer for the thinking man and woman, proved to be a seminal one.
Now, that sort of Happiness Is Happening again. Roman Flügel's follow up on Dial takes off, where Fatty Folders landed: on a runway that acknowledges the roots of house and techno as well as its fruits, but leads to a different location. Exempt from the burden that a concept album can lay on its author, Flügel seems not to be concerned with the current trends, retro fashion or a pre-conceived topic. Free-wheeling and with a freshness akin to morning dew, he rather takes us by the hand and through ten tracks that sometimes feel like songs without a voice.
Having said that, the strongest point of Happiness Is Happening is that it has a voice.
The voice of a maker who is not afraid to mix joy and pain, ambient textures with remnants dance floor euphoria, quiet spaces and loud places. So you have an almost Depeche-Mode-like ballad that the ”Friendship Song” is, next to the techno city ghost story of “Occult Levitation”. Slow-motion robot disco (“Wilkie”) appears as much at home here as the bulky “Stuffy” or the sudden impact in “We Have A Nice Life”. That list goes on and on. The most startling fact about Roman Flügel's tour de force is that its sum is as great as its parts. Nothing feels superfluous, ill-paced or forced here. Its a condensate of a life that has been spent in techno, house and its various mutations and archetypes with a sensibility for pop music, a consciousness of indie culture and an affinity for the avant-garde as such.
Happiness Is Happening is like a concept album without a concept. A testament to the fact that the concept of an album that works within the realms and boundaries of “electronic (dance) music” can be so much more than a loose collection of 12-inches or just an exercise in style: it can be, after all, a piece of art and at its best comparable to a successful singer-songwriter album without words. Especially, when the creator of all his seems to be truly comfortable with himself and at his best. Then, Happiness Is Happening, indeed.

GERD JANSON


Tracklist:

01 Connecting The Ghost
02 Friendship Song
03 Stuffy
04 Your War Is Over
05 Wilkie
06 Tense Times
07 Parade
08 We Have A Nice Life
09 Occult Levitation
10 All That Matters

TESSELA - Rough 2 - R & S Records

Since the release of Tessela's R&S debut, Nancy's Pantry, the momentum has snowballed.
Earning a Radio 1 residency alongside James Blake, and a busy gigging schedule, Tessela AKA Ed Russell now offers up 'Rough 2' - the eagerly anticipated next instalment of his alchemic blend of tripped out sonics and punishing percussion.
Russell has amplified the disorientating elements that swim around the fragmented drum breaks and squirting laser blasts, challenging dancefloors at the same time as tearing them up.
'Rough 2' opens the release up in classic style - a frenetic batacuda style drum announces the track before giving way to unhinged re-pitched synth chords and swirling filter blasts, on the flip 'Butchwax' provides a muscular drum track and crunched up, stuttering stabs of funk, whilst the twisted 'C'mon Let's Slow Dance' sees Russell going further and deeper then ever before with a semi beatless, hallucinogenic laser light show that really pushes the boundaries of his sound to breaking point.


Tracklist:

1. Rough 2
2. Butchwax
3. C’mon, Lets Slow Dance

Boot & Tax per Discosafari: nuovo podcast!

Boot & Tax is the name of the self-effacing duo exploded at the end of 2013 with the Acido Ep on Optimo Trax, the offshoot label of JD Twitch’s Optimo Music for tracks aimed at DJs/dancefloors. Now the Milanese maestros are back on OT with the new bomb Fusci EP - 4 tracks in their own inimitable and distinctive style. Here's a fresh mix made just for Discosafari - what are you waiting for? Listen and download it!




Find below a small preview of what it has been said until now about Fusci EP by Boot & Tax:

"Boot & Tax return with their second EP following the success of the sold out "Acido" EP which received a multitude of plays from a plethora of djs in a profusion of discotheques.These Milanese maestros deliver four dance floor delights in their own inimitable and distinctive style. Working across a range of tempos and incorporating more of Boot's great vocalising they also manage to weave a Jaw's Harp solo in there and make it seem like a potential replacement for the TB 303."

on Optimo Trax

"JD Twitch seems to have an obsession with Italian music; amazingly, four of the first eight releases on the excellent - and typically hard to pin down - Optimo Trax imprint have come from Italian bands and producers. This second EP from Milanese twosome Boot & Trax fits into that category. It's as stylish and - on occasions - dark as you'd perhaps expect, variously being influenced by '80s industrial, fizzing post-punk, chugging Chicago house and strobelight electronica. There's naturally much to enjoy, from the hypnotic, left-of-centre Italian house revivalism of "Il Canto" and fuzzy "Occhi Blu", to the energetic, darkwave-meets-punk funk rush of the irrepressible title track."

on Juno

"Kinky Italian disco electronics from Cristian Croce and Claudio Brioschi aka Boot & Tax for Optimo Trax. They've got a neat line in wiggly triplets going down with the tribal cosmic trudge of 'Fusci' and the darker, wavier 'Occhi Blue', whilst 'Confuzed House' drops a shoulder to early Chicago proto house sounds you could imagien Ron Hardy spinning, and 'Il Canto' coins a kinda New Beat styled strut."

on Boomkat

"In December 2013 the sub-label of Optimo Music, Optimo Trax published a pump to the dance floor, the debut of the duo from Milan of Boot & Tax and the EP ‘Acido’, a track with success in many dance floors and in DJ sets of many artists, and now 4 new tracks arrive by Boot & Tax, another reference with great success, and the vinyl is Out of Stock on Juno, 4 tracks that continue with that distinctive, personal style and great variety of influences in their compositions for the sole purpose of making us dance, opening the EP with more than 7 minutes of dark and hypnotic ‘Fusci’ incorporating some vocals and guitars that trap us and make us mad; in ‘Confuzed House’ rhythms bring us more about Chicago House with the personal touch of the duo, another crazy track with some nice female laughter; dark, darkwave, post-punk on ‘Ochhi Blu’ excellent with more than 8 minutes, with vocals, bass and excellent guitar; and closing this excellent EP with ‘Il Canto’ with tribal rhythms, African percussion, tribal vocal loops, as a tribal dance. Killer release."

on Comos Las Grecas

KERRI CHANDLER - Heaven Ep - Madhouse Records

Kerri Chandler offers up a remix EP from Bristol based producers Behling & Simpson this August, entitled ‘Heaven’ and set to drop via Kerri’s very own Madhouse Records imprint.

Madhouse Records boss Kerri Chandler needs no introduction having been one of the most prominent names in underground house music for over two decades now. While rising talents Behling & Simpson’s collective output has been championed by the likes of Claude von Stroke, Derrick Carter, Ralph Lawson, Modeselektor and many more over the pairs 100+ previous releases between them (under various guises), this stands as testament to their undeniable ability to craft forward-thinking electronic music.
First up on the release we have ‘Heaven’ featuring Christopher McCray on vocal duties, Behling & Simpson’s prevalent low-slung, dropped tempo rhythms take the lead, alongside hypnotic low-end tones, while the duo capture Chandler’s warm musicality with style utilizing the original’s bright chord progressions and smooth vocal licks, creating an intricate, intelligent slice of house.
‘Peace Of My Mind’ follows on the flip side, a track originally released on Madhouse in 2011, though returning to the label in 2014 with an intriguing reshape courtesy of the Behling & Simpson, again taking on the pair’s niche slo-mo feel, setting the tone and radiantly showcasing why their sound stands tall above many of their contemporaries in such an effortlessly cool way.

Kerri Chandler’s ‘Heaven’ (Behling & Simpson Remixes) is out 28th July on Beatport and 10th August general release.


Tracklist:

1.    Heaven feat. Christopher McCray (Behling & Simpson Remix)

2.    Peace Of My Mind (Behling & Simpson Remix)