Masters at Work member Kenny Drop is the genius behind The Bucketheads – "The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)". An established history of house hall of famer, "The Bomb" is a 90’s house party soundtrack essential that mixies electro, hip-hop and 4/4 house it features samples from Chicago’s "Street Player" & Green Velvet’s "The Preacher Man" fused into a disco-funk and house groove with edgy, funky, rough and ready beats and subtle Latino flavour. It easy to see why its ranked in the 100 Greatest Dance Singles of All Time! Portuguese house producer Massivedrum is on remix duties. He has remixed dance royalty from Bob Sinclar, Axwell, Mory Kantè, Alexandra Stan, DJ Chus, Kentphonik, Yolanda B Cool among many others. He lends his house sensibilities and ear for the floor to enhance "The Bomb" to new levels for an unforgettable experience. Besides the Massivedrum remix and it’s dub, also the full 14’51” minutes original version is available on this double A sided release! 

TRACK LISTING

1 The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind) (Massivedrum Remix)
2 The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind) (Massivedrum Dub Mix)
3 The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)

Three years after he released the incredible "New Experience EP" (picking up plaudits from Bill Brewster, Tim Sweeney, Laurent Garnier, Horse Meat Disco, Leo Mas & 6Music’s Tom Ravenscroft, among many more), Tokyo’s Kota Motomura returns to Hobbes Music for his debut LP, "Pay It Forward". This is the first vinyl release on Hobbes Music since the much-loved "Aranath" EP by Leonidas & Hobbes last Spring. While the label maintains the level of quality control for which it has become recognized, the artist continues to subvert electronic and dance music norms in his iconoclastic way on this extraordinary record.

He’s a mysterious character with an ear for idiosyncratic music that runs the gamut from ambient, exotica and jazz to disco, house and techno via post punk, new wave and funk. It’s highly original and all adds up to a confection perhaps best described as Balearic, despite how tumultuous that word has become of late!

Album opener "Paradise" is a certified jazz-funk jam. Destined for dancefloors worldwide, this one’s been dropping well with DJs, Motomura demonstrating his piano chops alongside Mutsumi Takeuchi’s sax. "Tropical" pushes the boat in a more rhythmic direction, some pretty wild drum programming laced with more sounds of the, um, tropics, before mad vocal yelps suggest something yet more tribal. "To Be Free" initially resembles early 90s progressive house (pulsing bassline, synth-driven melodies), before the arrival of some new wave guitar licks a la classic Talking Heads / David Byrne and ooh ooh vocal chants take it to another dimension altogether.

B-side opener "Emotion" features Takeuchi again (on flute this time) and more vocal chants before things take a dramatic turn, threatening to open up into a full fanfare before calming and then bursting into wild life again. Rhythm flirts with an energy and pace more akin to a techno record: drums, drums, more drums plus a fair few yelps and chants - the kind of DJ tool that will send a simmering dance floor wild in the right hands. "Flower" closes things in a more melancholy style, familiar to fans of "Aboy" from the "New Experience" EP, with plaintive acoustic guitar (performed by Akichi), birdsong and big piano chords.

Support from Bill Brewster, Leo Mas, Al Kent, Red Rack’em, Nick The Record, Phil Mison, Phat Phil Cooper, KZA, Sean Johnston (ALFOS), S/A/M, Dribbler, Joe Muggs, Monolith Cocktail and more… 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Paradise
A2. Tropical
A3. To Be Free
B1. Emotion
B2. Rhythm
B3. Flower

Another assorted selection of modern 'Talo tweakers - I've omitted the 'I' as none of these chuggernauts are from Italy! Faithfully recreating that original electro-disco flavour in much the same way as our treasured Red Laser Records here in the Manchester, Bordello A Parigi are one of the leading lights of the European scene. 

First track, Zakmina's  "Moonlight Opera" is almost a carbon-copy of Count Von Delicious' "I Wonder How Flemming Dalum Is Doing?" - and that ain't no bad thing! - a star lit, heavily galvanized electro-disco BOMB with darting leads, galloping arps and synthesized vox. 

Elfenberg plug into vintage C64 arps on the psychedelic-leaning "Alitalia", tailor made for losing yourself in the smoke post-4AM climax. If you've ever been to Red Laser at The White Hotel here in Manchester I'm sure you've stumbled over on the uneven ground around the middle-back of the dancefloor to tracks like this! 

Some Chemisty's "Euro Connector" has, as the name suggest, a slightly more Euro-dans feel it - squelchy b-line, expansive lead melody and big, cascading reverbs highlighting this as an open-air epic; perfect for uniting the tribes un a big pavilion. Finally, Pete Beluga & Du Chatinier's "Only Shine At Night" concludes with a suitably robo-disco chugathon that'll keep cybernetic dancers motioning until power-down. Top stuff from these market leaders - check! 

TRACK LISTING

Zakmina - Moonlight Opera
Elfenberg - Alitalia
Some Chemistry - Euro Connector
Pete Beluga & Du Chatinier - Only Shine At Night

To accompany the "New York Cake" LP reissue, also available this week from the proto-Italo supergroup that is Kano, we have a tidy remix 12" featuring Dr. Packer and Mr. Master mixes of two of the group's most pleasurable of hits.

"Unconditional Lover" is off the LP "No Cents...Go Funky!" which marked the gleeful return of the band in 2021, some 38 years since their previous release. Whilst dividing the critics due to the omission of original vocalist Glen White, it's a worthy addition to their catalogue of which the Pet Shop Boy-indebted, "Unconditional Lover" is one of the better moments. "I'm Ready" is taken off the original 1980s self titled LP. Here, Dr. Packer and Mr. Master give both tracks a modern makeover, filling out the frequency range with the kind of dazzling instrumentation we're used to off the Glitterbox releases the two producers regularly populate. It's full of that authentic disco flavour, relentlessly spiraling into the disco ball; but all elements sparkle with an up-to-date flair: DSP fx and weighty mastering setting them apart from their 80s cousins. Recommended! 

TRACK LISTING

Unconditional Lover (Dr Packer Dub Mix)
Unconditional Lover (Mr Master Remix)
I'm Ready 2022 (Mr Master Remix)
I'm Ready 2022 (Original Mix)

Remastered re-issue from this Italian disco classic from 1981! Recorded at G.R.S. Studios Milano, Itlay; Kano was actually a studio project between Luciano Ninzatti (guitars), Stefano Pulga (keyboards), and Matteo Bonsanto (producer) and vocals from Glen White. Later achieving crossover success with electro and breakdance scenes, many aficionados regard Kano as the embryonic begins of Italo disco.

"New York Cake" features six high grade Italo disco bombs which should also satisfy your hardcore boogie connoisseur. It's chock full of those classic drum boxes that'd go on to epitomize the genre, whilst the hooks and songwriting are unblemished, timeless numbers that'll ignite any dancefloor with a smidgen of taste. It's dashing, cutting fine lines across the club whilst the instrumentation is some of the most highly skilled of this era. In short, it's the under appreciated Italo disco - funk - boogie LP you never knew you needed but you most definitely do! There's not a single note, vocal utterance or drum hit on the whole LP which isn't thoroughly delicious! Most recommended. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Can't Hold Back (Your Loving)
2 She's A Star
3 Baby Not Tonight
4 Party
5 Round And Round
6 Don't Try To Stop Me

Disco Segreta reveals another music mystery! This EP -  4 years in the making - marks the first ever 12” release of the elusive downtempo Italo-boogie tune “Guarda l’Amore”, sung by the mysterious Italian duo Gianni & Donatella, only previously available on the impossibly rare 1987 “Disco Italia” compilation LP, released on the tiny Italian Disco In label.

Through the course of this excavation. Disco Segret unearthed four previously unreleased demo tracks sung by the track's author Walter Canducci along with Gianni, supposed to be part of an LP release that ultimately never saw the light of the day….until now, and guess what - they’re jaw-dropping!

Starting with the slap-bass funk bomb “Si, No”, then going into the late-night love maker “Amore Mio”, topping it all with the mellow beach vibes-infused “Come Allora”. On top of that, you’ll also get an alternate “Guarda l’Amore” demo version.

We will never know how these lo-fi demos would sound if the original project of Gianni & Donatella singing on all tracks succeeded, but the only existing recorded evidence can sure give a feel of this unique Italo-boogie studio project.  Reissue is from actual analog multitrack and stereo masters making this truly essenziale!

TRACK LISTING

1 Guarda L'Amore (Original Demo)
2 Si, No
3 Guarda L’Amore (Original LP Version)
4 Amore Mio
5 Solo Amore

For the last 20 years London-based author and party organiser Tim Lawrence has dedicated himself to excavating the history of New York City party culture and bringing some of the most powerful aspects of that culture to London’s dance scene, from where it has ricocheted around the world.

Having conducted the first and set of major interviews with David Mancuso of the New York City Loft, Lawrence started to host Loft-style Lucky Cloud Sound System parties with David and friends in London in June 2003. In February 2004 he published the first of three published three pioneering histories that have excavated and championed the previously overlooked foundations of contemporary party culture: Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music (1970-79), Hold on to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene (1973-92), and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor (1980-83). Since 2018 Lawrence has hosted and DJed at the community audiophile party "All Our Friends. Paper Magazine describes him as the “reigning authority on the history of dance music in New York”.

With knowledge to share, and a readership as well as a dance floor to feed, Lawrence released Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor as the debut imprint on Reappearing Records. A year in the making, a compilation featuring rare and iconic tracks that appear in his much-loved and heavily-thumbed classic Love Saves the Day amounts to the follow-up. The collection features several tracks selected regularly by Mancuso, the party host who exerted a prophetic and unparalleled influence on New York City party culture, as charted by Lawrence. It also includes choice picks from groundbreaking DJs such as Michael Cappello, Steve D’Acquisto, Francis Grasso, Richie Kaczor, Larry Levan and Nicky Siano, whose expressive contributions are faithfully recorded in Love Saves the Day. The compilation traces how disco grew out of the record collections and intuitive sensibility of these and other DJs, offering a unique survey of the era’s expansive sonic palette.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Les Troubadours Du Roi Baudouin - Dibwe Diambula Kabanda
A2. Chuck Mangione - Land Of Make Believe
B1. Wilson Pickett - Don't Knock My Love (Part 1)
B2. Wilson Pickett - Don't Knock My Love (Part 2)
B3. James Brown - Give It Up Or Turn It Loose
C1. J.ackson 5 - Hum Along And Dance (Uncut Version)
D1. Brainstorm - Lovin Is Really My Game (12 Version)
D2. Domenic Troiano - We All Need Love
D3. Gladys Knight And The Pips - It's Time To Go Now