"Remixed With Love Volume 3" is the latest edition of what has become the industry-leading disco remix series. No one knows this era of music better than Dave Lee, who under his Joey Negro alias once again turns his impeccable hand to some of the best-loved records ever committed to wax.

'I can clearly remember in the 80s having fantasies about being a remixer and dreaming of tweaking my favourite songs and re-releasing them. I really never thought it would happen. The days when I receive the parts for some of these classic recordings are literally a dream come true.' – Dave Lee.

"Remixed With Love Volume 3" has been a real labour of love, and a release several years in the making. With original parts for some of these classics hard to find, and with major labels rightly protective of songs created by legendary artists, it is a testament to both the perseverance of Lee and the esteem in which he is held as a remixer that the project was ever completed. Luckily for us though, here we are: "Remixed With Love Volume 3" is done, dusted and ready to deliver a healthy dose of joy to us all.

As with previous volumes, Lee has put his own inimitable spin on more than a dozen seminal records, with The Fatback Band, Patti LaBelle, Evelyn 'Champagne' King, Odyssey and many more vying for attention across a stunning three part gatefold double vinyl, double CD and digital release.

Released back in 2016, 'Remixed With Love Volume 2' included exclusive reworks of classic soul and disco records all from the original master tapes, with the collection going on to be Traxsource’s best-selling of 2016, reaching top 30 on iTunes album chart, and also being named DJ Mag’s compilation of the year. It also fetches more than a pretty penny on the 2nd hand market.

All the remixes here are 100% new and exclusive to the compilation, making "Remixed With Love Volume 3" an essential purchase for any serious disco devotee. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Joey Negro continues the long running disco lineage of The Remixer. Taking the crown in the modern age. We salute you Dave!

"Remixed With Love Volume 3" is the latest edition of what has become the industry-leading disco remix series. No one knows this era of music better than Dave Lee, who under his Joey Negro alias once again turns his impeccable hand to some of the best-loved records ever committed to wax.

'I can clearly remember in the 80s having fantasies about being a remixer and dreaming of tweaking my favourite songs and re-releasing them. I really never thought it would happen. The days when I receive the parts for some of these classic recordings are literally a dream come true.' – Dave Lee.

"Remixed With Love Volume 3" has been a real labour of love, and a release several years in the making. With original parts for some of these classics hard to find, and with major labels rightly protective of songs created by legendary artists, it is a testament to both the perseverance of Lee and the esteem in which he is held as a remixer that the project was ever completed. Luckily for us though, here we are: "Remixed With Love Volume 3" is done, dusted and ready to deliver a healthy dose of joy to us all.

As with previous volumes, Lee has put his own inimitable spin on more than a dozen seminal records, with The Fatback Band, Patti LaBelle, Evelyn 'Champagne' King, Odyssey and many more vying for attention across a stunning three part gatefold double vinyl, double CD and digital release.

Released back in 2016, 'Remixed With Love Volume 2' included exclusive reworks of classic soul and disco records all from the original master tapes, with the collection going on to be Traxsource’s best-selling of 2016, reaching top 30 on iTunes album chart, and also being named DJ Mag’s compilation of the year. It also fetches more than a pretty penny on the 2nd hand market.

All the remixes here are 100% new and exclusive to the compilation, making "Remixed With Love Volume 3" an essential purchase for any serious disco devotee. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Joey Negro continues the long running disco lineage of The Remixer. Taking the crown in the modern age. We salute you Dave!

STAFF COMMENTS

Sil says: The titles of the series implies serious business. The content is par with it. The formula? Gigantic heavyweights of disco treated by another gigant in the biz, Joey Negro, who applies gentle and smart touches to make dancefloor tunes into disco edit anthems. Effective and full of happiness and positive vibes. Dig Dimitri, dig Mr Krivit et al? This is for you!

Four cuts from Joey's acclaimed "Produced With Love" album get that all important remix treatment. 

Kicking it off Chicago legend Ron Trent takes the original funked out, Arthur Russell flavoured, "Distorting Space Time" and turns it into a deep house groover complete with a strong walking bass alongside adding a soul & richness to the elements that only he knows how. Crackazat step up next to take on "Lactican Boogie" crafting it into an uptempo piano driven, emotionally charged stomper sure to do some damage this summer. Flip it over and Lay-Far delve into "In Search of The Dream", adding squelchy synth stabs and a deep bass to give a more hard hitting edge to the track whilst retaining that disco flavor with Angela Johnson's emotive vocals. Closing out the EP Fouk come full circle, bringing their hazy, jazz tinged style to "Distorting Space Time" - building the remix around those warm Rhodes chords, shuffling rhythm and dynamic bassline. Pure gold once again from the Z Records camp!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Big big big uptempo floor slayers from four hot house producers, working with some great source material from Joey N. TIP!

Follow up to the amazing "Backstreet Brit Funk". Volume 2 has been eight years in the making and continues to showcase the best of the genre from the late 70s to early 80s, compiled once again by Joey Negro. Perhaps one of the UK’s most under-appreciated genres and emerging in the late 70’s; it takes influences from jazz, funk, reggae and pop and by the early 80s it had spread all over the UK. Chart-topping mainstream bands like Wham!, Spandau Ballet and Haircut 100 tapped into the style and sound to help launch their careers, whilst Linx, Level 42, Light of The World, The Cool Notes and Hi Tension were all Brit Funk acts who troubled the UK top 40 with their own singles.

Brit Funk was essentially the UK’s answer to underground disco & boogie , with musicians at first imitating and eventually developing the sounds they heard on the US imports that made it across the pond. And like disco, the Brit Funk scene was significant in reducing racial boundaries in the clubs and raising the profile of black and white musicians who worked together. Back in 2010 Joey Negro complied the first volume of Back Street Brit Funk: a collection of obscure and forgotten gems of the scene that found favour across the board. The fact that it’s taken eight years for Volume 2 to see the light of day is a testament to the both the obscurity of the records included, and the logistical challenges involved in digitizing what started life as vinyl-only releases, with only a handful of 12”s remaining in some cases.
'I hadn’t planned a Volume 2 of BSBF when putting together the first, but after a while, I started to wonder if there was potential for a follow-up. Over the past 8 years I’ve kept my ears peeled for interesting UK productions that for some reason hadn’t come to my attention before.' Joey Negro.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: We've had 'nuff resurgences in disco, Italo and boogie thus far, but no-one's really popped the lid off the whole Brit Funk cannon. Save for that wonderful "In The Red" comp on Chuwanaga (and Volume 1 of this series of course) the scene has gone relatively 'Un-comp'ed'... until now! Maestro Joey Negro can always be relied upon to present to us the first sift off the crop. Here showing us the dizzying delights of this very British operation... High energy, high musicianship - high vibe! I used to roller-skate to this shit!! ;)

"Produced With Love" is the new album from UK legend Joey Negro: a buoyant, life-affirming, disco-inspired album with monumental production. Seriously, new disco hasn't sounded this crisp and fresh since Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories". Recorded in retaliation to the plethora of disco sample-based house records that mine the old stuff, Joey was surprised to see a dearth of new material being recorded. Although highly prolific as a house producer, and also turning his hand to plenty of disco remixes over the years, this is actually only the second full length of original material Joey Negro has released, I guess a sign of his strict quality control - evident throughout the album. Glitzy, high definition disco and house music is order of the day. Album opener ‘Prove That You’re Feeling Me" features Diane Charlemagne and evokes the great Nile Rogers and Chic at their funkiest. Unfortunately Diane passed away recently but her two other stunning collaborations with Negro - "Overnight Sensation" & "Must Be The Music" are both presented for our enjoyment here. R&B and house music mainstay Linda Clifford narrates on "Won’t Let Go", a deep house cut that celebrates musical escapism, whilst "It’s More Fun To Compute" - an unlikely cover - is a fully orchestrated disco rework of Dusseldorf’s finest. Further highlights include a completely remade "Must Be The Music" (one of Joey Negro’s best-known records), which is utterly transformed from its previous incarnation, whilst things get both dubby and jazzy on the Arthur Russell-evoking "Distorting Space Time". Joey Negro is back on top and sounding as good as ever! Most recommended.

2016 was another strong year for ZR as it continued its commitment to high quality compilation releases with Joey Negro’s hugely successful Remixed With Love Vol.2 album topping charts everywhere and receiving across the board DJ and Radio support. There was also the 5th instalment of the ever-popular Under The Influence series which saw long time ZR album co-compiler Sean P select some of his long held secret weapons.

For 2017 Z Records will be back in the funk hot-seat, but this time Joey Negro presents a snapshot of the edgier, robotic sounds of the emerging early 80s Electro scene. From stone-cold classics such as Hashim’s ‘Al Naafiysh (The Soul)’, Tyrone Brunson’s ‘The Smurf’ and Key-Matic’s ‘Breakin' In Space’ to revered party anthem’s such as Aleem’s ‘Release Yourself (Dub)’, Two Sisters ‘High Noon (Part 2)’ and Dwayne Omarr’s ‘This Party's Jam Packed’ to electro oddities like Paul Hardcastle’s ‘Rain Forest’ and The Packman’s ‘I’m The Packman’ we get a genuine labour of love and a timely reminder of the raw drum machine sounds that were soon to define the beginning of the house and techno scenes we have today.

The album features extensive sleeves notes written by early electro pioneer and DJ Greg Wilson who remembers the time as; “during the early-mid ‘80s electro-funk became the dominant force on the UK’s black music scene. With the previous era’s jazz-funk movement running out of steam the way was clear for this new technological direction to sweep out the old and announce a new wave of dance music with a distinctive futuristic edge.”

People maybe associate Dave Lee (Joey Negro) with disco, funk and boogie more than electro but the truth is, he is a music fan first and foremost. Back in 82/83/84 Dave was fanatical about this futuristic new style of dance music called electro. Although at the time this new sound remained very divisive within the soul and jazz-funk scenes, he liked both Lonnie Liston Smith and Man Parrish.

As Dave recalls in his own album sleeve notes: “I can see why the soul boys hated electro as it lacked the soaring vocals, intricate orchestration and polished organic production of jazz funk. Unfortunately for the purists by the mid 80s all dance music had become more electronic with the likes of Roland introducing powerful drum machines and affordable synthesizers, not to mention the onset of early samplers. Many straight up soul boogie records got electrofied, complete with rapped sections and scratching - not to say it was an improvement, just stating a fact.” Anyway this isn't THE definitive electro album, it's some of Joey Negro’s favourites, plus a few lesser-known and collectable cuts. However that being said we do think it's one of the best electro comps ever released!

Founded way back in 91, Z Records have since amassed a lauded and plentiful collection of singles, albums and compilations. Run by Dave Lee aka Joey Negro, the label has enjoyed success through his unique ability to foster the principles of underground dance music whilst also remaining mindful of commercial appeal.

Through various compilations, Mr Lee has consistently delved deep into the heart of a specific genre or era and selecting a lesser-known series of tracks that give a real insight into the spirit and energy that made that point in time special. Whether it's been gogo, Brit-funk, boogie, Italo house or straight up disco, he has mined deep into his extensive bank of influences and also enlisted the help of some of his most clued-up comrades in offering some unforgettable collections of classics. Next up - he pulls together a collection of his favourite moments across a definitive decade for house and garage: the 90’s. Inclusive of material from Kerri Chandler, Robert Owens and MAW as well as remixes from Mood II Swing and Ron Trent - the compilation is packed with sultry vocal lines and the sort of slick, irresistible grooves that defined the era. Sticking with the ethos of his series, Joey Negro has dug out an olio of music that may have until now ‘slipped under the garage doors’ meaning a lot of the material on this compilation is being digitised for the very first time. In searching deeper and wider than the average compilation, the package provides a thorough insight into why this was such a fertile period for production and gives a nod to the sort of drum patterns, sampling techniques and vocal lines that have inspired the likes of Bicep, Brawther and Huxley amongst many more.

Z Records tap Nick The Record for their fourth volume of the 'Under The Influence' series. Packed to the brim with disco, boogie, electro-funk and tropical gems, it's another essential offering from Z.

"My whole life has revolved around records. I was buying hip hop and house in the 80s as it was released and I got heavily into tracing the steps back through breaks and sample sources that were used in hip hop records. I also joined the dots between disco and modern club and house music and spread my music explorations from rare groove to rare disco. There were very few people interested in this vein of music history at the time and even fewer as obsessed as me so when the reemergence of disco exploded I was well ahead of the curve, not only in collecting but historical knowledge. The best thing about record collecting is it never ends and after 35 years of buying, after 25 years of selling and playing records there is still old stuff to discover and new releases to endeavour to keep up with. So as something of an expert in all things disco I get quite a few offers to release compilations but as a record obsessive my natural hoarding mentality makes me cautious to give up the goods. I feel this 'Under The Influence' series offers the chance to put together a more personal comp, which reflects the many different flavours of my taste and my collection and gives you a feel of my DJ style at the same time." - Nick The Record

This four track vinyl EP features cuts taken from The Revenge's debut compilation CD "Reekin’Structions". Embracing pure disco heads, funk fanatics, and boogie-soul worshipers these tracks mark the rise of The Revenge as one of the pioneers of a generation, rediscovering classic moments from decades gone and refreshing them through his individual interpretation.

Kicking things off on "Sampler 2" we have two Revenge's edits of Velvet Hammer's "Party Down". A typically Revenge style mid-tempo disco chugger, the cut is lifted by a continuous piano line and killer vocal breakdown. The 'Revenge Unreleased Dub' turns the track into a piano-driven house cut - mid-tempo and groovin'. Flip it for the triangle-driven (it's not often I get to give you that as a description!) "Love Message" by Sargeant & Malone. Punchy electro bass and filtered vocals make this a winner. For his final edit offering the Revenge throws caution to the wind and heads to upbeat boogie-disco land with the stringy, brassy "Summer Groove" by The Joneses. A killer!