my baby's got esp

ESP Institute, Andrew Hogge aka Lovefinger's mind boggling label, is undoubtedly one of the year's most exciting developments; Andrew's other label BlackDisco, his blog and various projects were all previously, glaring indications of the man's unmatchable talent for seeking out the very best in obscure music from the past. His work, however, with ESP Institute really does take it to an entirely new and shimmering level. I was meant to write a review of their recent compilation 'Concentration Vol1.', in fact i did, but it became so long and dangly that I abandoned it entirely, lest i should come across as a whimpering blithering idiot in the light of what is a truly great and timeless collection of music. Now the Institute have two new 12"s out from Tokyo based duo Cos/Mes...

'Chaosexotica' (the third of four planned releases) comes in it's original form, along with a Thomas Bullock aka Welcome Stranger remix.That's probably the very least one could say about the 12". The duo claim the single as their most 'aggressive arrangement to date' which is certainly true; though it starts out with a minimal outlook, things quickly develop into a complex, very deep, and many layered House monster with traces of Trance, Disco & Dub House, though not like anything you've heard before. It's a big room, late night stormer made for leftfield dancers and discerning ears. The remix is an equally epic, but also psychedelic ride, with a superb experimental and dubbed out basement outlook and an ever growing field of sound.

The second of the four 12"s, 'Gozmez Land', is right on the money for me; it's a foreign 'sounds fantastic' travelogue, it's the soundtrack of an island at unease with itself, it's ancient ways fiercely negotiating a place with it's future flights of fantasy, it is in fact, simply genius. 'Gozmez Land' meanders and evolves along a hyper descriptive path, eventually morphing into a pulsing, Tribal House beauty; it's highly original and packed with detail. The TBD remix really takes the cake however; by twisting the original into a teasing Disco House (well kind of) party stormer, Justin Van Der Volgen & Lee Douglas have come up with a brilliant mesh of dancing goodness. Watch out for the break, a heavily detailed blend of noise and sonic alterations which will surely take the roof off. TBD's 'Land' is NY Tribal House updated and re-imagined for Funk seekers and Disco trained feet, it's the track of the year, for me, so far. Support this label!!!!

[ESP003B] COS/MES - Gozmez Land (snippets) by ESP Institute

biker disco with get a room!

Get A Room!'s third release for Small Time Cuts is as leftfield and as off the wall as their first two excellent records. Jeff Lasson & The Rove Dogs once again trawl through the mouldiest crates in the dankest of basements, in search of undiscovered dusty gold for their re-editing delight. Their tasty two tracker contains 'Get a Sequencer', a shady data Disco monster and a Motorhead meets Fitoussi era Vangelis chugger called 'So Close To Hell'. Once again these French diggers out beard the hairiest of Disco lovers with their specialist finds, and once again only 500 copies go out worldwide. Get the record, you'll be playing it for years... 

So Close To Hell - Get A Room! Edit

tracky bottoms casino heist

Back in 2007, dubbed up Disco edits label Tracky Bottoms put out their first 12", a tasty, beardy 3 tracker from The Dub Delay Band which I'm still playing these days. The following year they let loose with another set of mighty fine tracks from Lexx, Honey K and Casinoboy reworking Guy Ceuvas, Grace Jones & Fleetwood Mac. Back then edits were already thick on the ground but the Bottoms 12"s were obviously amongst the finest. In their absence it's probably fair to say that not too much has changed, except perhaps that edits now make up a greater percentage of the Disco, Slo Mo, Balearic & Leftfield scenes. What ever your take on this fact is, it's hard not to get excited by the return of Toby Tobias' lovely label. Toby's brought you an entirely solo produced affair, complete with a Toby Tobias side and a Casinoboy side.

What you get for your money is four really wonderful slabs of varying tempo'd Disco goodness; with high production values and sweet ass grooves, it's a little tough favouring one over another, so instead you get to check out clips of all four of the featured tracks below. Right now 'Alreet' and 'Omniad' are blowing my hair back, but the 80's Boogie of 'Paradub' sounds to me like summer in a bottle, it's ripe n ready for serious airwaves domination! Get on this definite classic now!! (in stock at all the usual places since monday)

Toby Tobias / Casinoboy - A Night Out at the Casino EP mini taster by trackybottomsmusic

ck in smuggler mix up

Your's truly landed the chance to play some records for Danny Red Rack'ems super fine Smugglers Inn Radio Show this wednesday evening on My House Your House. Please tune in between 7-9pm GMT to hear my set and loads of new records which Danny will be featuring. Get in early to be certain of catching my selection, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, be warned it's very eclectic and not clubby at all. I'd like to take a moment to say thank you so much to Danny for the opportunity, it's not every day one gets to play on a Gilles Peterson rated dj's show. Since i've ranted on about mr Rack'em at length in these parts, you'll know why this is a bit of a big deal for me.

paw to the floor

Wolf Music Recordings are back with a new Vinyl EP called 'Paw To The Floor' which features a bunch of very classy Discoid goodies from Greymatter, Session Victim, Francis Inferno Orchestra & The Dead Rose Music Company. Wolf are all about music for underground heads who love the sweet 'n sticky stuff; heart aching, chocolate lovin', heavy hooks re-fried for the modern groover. With a stronger focus on schmoov deep beats, the Wolf has chosen four delicious, dusty groove sampling, House workouts for their late summer (our spring), All four of these heads down, feel it in your veins tracks are thick with late nite atmospherics and tasty processed vocal snippets, but it's a tough call deciding which is the top tune on the 12". Maybe it's The Dead Rose Music Company's 'Just A Bitter Love', an epic bluesy heart breaker with a serious groove, or it could be Francis Inferno Orchestra's midtempo gem 'Time For Tea', another hip moving slice of the very deepest heat. Right now I have Greymatter's 'Only To Fall' on permanent rotation; it's an instant classic, a real call to dance! See if you can resist... Out on the 28th of this month.

   Greymatter - Only To Fall (Snippet) by NYSoul

let me be

Lots of exciting things coming up, just need the time to spend at the anoe dashboard and get them sorted; a superb mix from Lusty Zanzibar will appear shortly for our Press Play series, plus another by the mighty Nocturnal, I also have a couple of Balearic beauties to get up, so bare with me as I play catch up and get things polished and shiny like new. There are also a couple of interesting projects on the go involving this site which I'll give you a heads up on pretty damn shortly. Lastly i got promo's galore to go through and a couple of mighty dusty grooves... stay tuned.

Anyone who's been reading this blog since the start will know that spacey keyboards are the thing i love the most and of course there was an entire era which used the spaced out keyboard prolifically and most wonderfully. Here's another of those delicious slo mo, under appreciated, items from the past; The Duncans' only album, 'Gonna Stay In Love' (a Canadian release on RCA), from 1982 will set u back around $75, but it's very much worth it. Phyllis & Helen aka The Duncan Sisters produced a number of singles and two albums worth of music from the mid 70's to the mid 80's, 'Let Me Be' is easily one their best in my mind, produced and orchestrated by Sticky Fingers man Pete Pedersen, it's got a mellow bumb and some of those spacey keyboards me likes...

The Duncans - Let Me Be

dance ghost dance

A little while ago I managed to grab the parts to an upcoming release by Andy Ash (out soon on Ali Ooft's Foto Records), the track 'Dance' is a superb late night Deep House groove. Anyway the Sad Ghost version was not picked up for the release itself, due to Ali's wish to keep the Andy Ash EP undiluted by silly remixes (especially slightly overblown one's that threw out most of the parts). So I'm giving the remix I did away on Soundcloud, it's a very Deep House, 90's Disco Sampling sort of thing with some sad keys sewn in, the sample of Chic's 'Dance Dance Dance' is not on Andy's original but was rather the Ghost getting all conceptual. It also marks the end of Sad Ghost's current Deep House faze, summer hits our shores any minute so expect Slo Mo Disco, Edits and new remixes to follow... use the down arrow on the player to grab the 320k or get it here.

andy ash - dance (very sad ghost remix) by chris keys