Search "The Closest Thing to Silence" 12 Items

Vintage house and disco don Dave Lee knows a thing or two about serving up irresistible and timeless cuts and that's what he does here with the 24th instalment of the long-running Attack The Dancefloor series on his own Z Records. The man himself kicks off with Maurissa Rose on the loosely chugging, deep and soulful 'Open Me Up' (a first taste of the upcoming album together). He then slips into US garage style with his popular remix of The Trammps' 'I've Gotta Stand Up' that harks back to the glory days of 90s Soulful House. Felix Buxton's Celestial Being & Citizens Of The World Choir's 'Raise The Vibration' gets a gloriously sunny and positive Crackazat club mix before Lee closes the release with squelching synth in the form of his Boogified mix of Soul Dhamma's classic 'Flower.'

For those seeking a musical experience reminiscent of the iconic Larry Heard, RON Trent & Kerri Chandler, delving into the enchanting sounds of A Vision OF Panorama is a journey well worth taking. A Vision OF Panorama, much like MR. Fingers, has mastered the art of crafting immersive and soulful electronic compositions. This latest release invites you into a sonic realm where lush melodies, dreamy textures, and intricate rhythms coalesce to create an atmosphere of pure musical bliss. In a landscape where electronic music continually evolves, A Vision OF Panorama stands out as an artist who skillfully pays homage to the timeless vibes of classic deep house while adding a contemporary touches of forward thinking smooth and Balearic jazz. The fusion of classic house elements with a futuristic flair makes A Vision Of Panorama the closest thing available to the legends that precede.

Buckle in for an orgasmic Italo trip, courtesy of Argentinian duo Furor Exótica. The result of a sweaty and shaky journey in their Buenos Aires studio, here they deliver two stir-crazy babies, crafted for dancing lovers worldwide. The title track ‘Macchina Bum Bum’ builds energy gradually from minimal beginnings, adding spine-tingling vocoder vocals, shimmering synth melodies and a familiar sample as it builds towards a euphoric climax. Prime sunset material. Meanwhile ‘Fractal’ is a hot and heavy chugger, with its throbbing bassline, trippy vocals, and euphoric synth melodies swelling and swirling together. You can practically smell the sweat on leather. On remix duties, Donald’s House kick things off with a brilliant reimagining of ‘Macchina Bum Bum’, complimenting the vocals with a squiggly, wiggly, funky and propulsive retro-futurist instrumental. Just try not to throw your hands in the air when the synth melody comes in around the halfway mark! A certified stone cold banger, ready for peak-time deployment. Bringing things home, label founders Kayroy and Greetings deliver a dreamy, psychedelic rework of ‘Fractal’. The vocals are transformed into a trippy, gated refrain, taking center stage alongside mellow, warm synth lines, and underpinned by a robust 808 kick. The track ends in a final crescendo, which should please dancers in a club or lovers in a broom closet alike.

Chicago DJ/Producer Jaycee Indamix returns for the 2nd installment of Ginzu Edits. This hand stamped single-sided record brings the heat with an insanely groovy edit of GIL SCOTT-HERON's version of "grandma's Hands" to kick things off, and closes with a disco edit of perennial favorite, Luther Vandross.

Washington based Better Listen Records drop their first VA e.p. housing four disco influenced dancefloor workouts bringing a slice of sunshine to our shores.
Folamour kicks things off with an uptempo disco stomper, complete with driving bass, infectious string hooks and energetic piano stabs. The A2 sees Ethyene slows things down combining choice vocal snippets, shuffling rhythms and sleezy synthwork to create a sunset groove ready made for the summer.
On the flip Ari Bald draws on all the elements from a classic disco anthem, with brass stabs, slap bass and an uplifting guitar riff driving things forward, before Dorsi Plantar closes things out with a blissful boogie simmerdown perfect for any sunrise set.

P&F Recordings takes a quick break from original material to welcome back everyone’s favourite Episcopalian Minister/DJ: JAZ. When it comes to left-field floor fillers, JAZ (née John Zahl) is in a league of his own. Over the past 13 years, he's churned out celebrated home listening mixes, jaw-dropping DJ sets, and extended edits with a pace that belies the usual slow-motion tempo of the majority of his selections. Here, he serves up four colourful, cosmic, dance floor delights. EP opener ‘Cloud Worship’ marries a chugging prog-rock-esque bassline with virtuosic synth work. Then ‘Pick a Toy’ gets us sweating with some serious Caribbean flair. On the flip side, ‘Puzzle’ delivers exotic chants and an infectious, serpentine beat and lastly ‘Friday Night’ closes things out with infectious, retro positivity. While one might wonder how JAZ consistently unearths these obscure yet essential gems, it's obvious that he's driven by a higher purpose. Let the ceremonies begin!

The summer starts beating to our doors and now that the nightmare of the pandemic (looks like) is coming to an end, mysterious dj and producer Hal Incandenza has taken over the control of MM Discos in order to get the things warmer and rock the dance-floors and festivals around the world. Besides his amazing skills as producer, Henry Saiz the man behind the project of Hal Incandenza, has also made his path in music as songwriter, musician, graphic designer and dj.

This time introduces us to "Incivitas", a killer track that oscillates between House and Nu-Disco ready to dinamite the peak time of the most selected clubs. Hypnotic, selvatic and very wild.

Things turn even wilder with "Ceremony", highly influenced by the legacy of Daft Punk while Marvin & Guy closes the EP with an epic italo-dance version of "Invicitas", if you wonder why the duo from Parma are one of the fitter guys when it comes to burn down the house, just have a listen. Bomba EP!!

Osaka based label Chillmountain's retrospective continues with Enjoy Your Self 3, as their deep, dubby and psychedelic electronic productions are examined and presented again on Especial's spin off label, Specials.

Star of both Chillmountain and now Especial (ees038 / Ees042), Akio Nagase introduces possibly the stand-out track from the whole series with his Dub Techno meets Kalimba, Mbira Dub. A Basic Channel deep groove is twisted and mixed with pure Zimbabwe idiophone rhythm, the live Mbira bringing melody against bongos and cheeky repetitive vox for the ultimate dub house shuffle.

Label stars Akira Arasawa and Ground come together for a special one-off discoid beatdown. Acid bass, Fourth World samples, trippy fx and whistles'n' chants all lead to a psychedelic pot of chugging discoid heaven.

Akira Arasawa then goes solo with Dolphin, a driving club cut of wide and deep "proporpoises". His move from shamanic Psy-Trance to slower beats complete, creating a space inbetween of dub beats. A head down, basement joy.

Things slow to a Dancing Pikapika, as 'Tokyo to Berlin' based DJ, vocalist and producer Saeko Killy closes EP3. With a recent appearance on the ever-essential Sameheads club's compilation series and music upcoming with Sofa elsewhere (Emotional Response / Music From Memory), her closer is a leftfield, new wave turn of groovy, catchy, pop and acid bubbles.

Nicky Night Time and Ali Love have collaborated for a hypnotising new single ‘Ubiquity feat. Breakbot’. Filled with classic disco flair, funk riffs, and infectious vocals the track instantly encapsulates a dreamy dance-floor moment and comes complete with remixes from The Magician, Eric Duncan and Lubelski who all add their signature spark. With each artist living in a different country, ‘Ubiquity’ has already made its way around the globe, Ali Love explains how the track came together, “‘Ubiquity’ started its life in Australia with Nicky Night Time as a drum and guitar track. Then made its way to London where I added electric bass and vocals very early in the morning. I recall there were about 8 Japanese girls in my flat for some reason, so you could say that really added to the song’s vibe. You can feel there’s a party happening. The tune then travelled to LA where, by chance, Nicky drafted in Breakbot, who wrote the amazing string and horn parts, and sent the song into the stratosphere. The stars have aligned and the vibe is ubiquitous." Nicky Night Time adds “It was a love project really and I think we felt it was a cool thing just to put out into the world between the 3 of us amigos.” For the remixes, globally renowned producer The Magician adds his signature touch highlighting the original’s funk elements and punchy drums while maintaining the driving bassline from the original. Merging disco with French touch, The Magician accentuates the cut-off and phaser effects for a playful and energetic remix. Next up, Eric Duncan hits with a synth heavy cosmic remix as Lubelski closes out proceedings going for a stripped down, late night shuffler.

France, 1990. Fun Radio, NRJ, Skyrock set a new pace, and their crushing hegemony irrevocably marks the end of the free radio utopia. The giants become vital in the hit industry and carry on fuelling France’s greatest invention: la variété. A quintessentially French version of British dance pop with a very specific tang to it, too coy to emulate trendy clubs’ and rave parties’ music, europop cautiously tests the waters of what will soon turn into a tsunami : house music. Is house the soundtrack of the 90s? In Europe, it gave steam to comeback bands just as much as to the most memorable formations of the decade, while in France it paved the way for the global success of French Touch. “Real” house music emerges in early 80’s Chicago (where the Warehouse club, which allegedly gave its name to the genre, closes down in 1983). England’s acid house and Belgium’s new beat, its European offshoots, fed the cravings of tabloids in 1988 and 1989. The house music we’re interested in though, the type bound to soon overwhelm European charts, is already pretty far away from the afro-american music born in Chicago. So far away it inherited a new name: dance music. Just like it had been the case with disco a few years back, house and techno aren’t exactly in the good books – acid house and new beat even less so. And it’s precisely the genre’s mainstream iteration this compilation focuses on; the house en français, which strives to get on board the running train in 1990. The house which sports the all-over jean look, bandana, cap, chewing gum, peugeot 205 complete with snazzy beats on the radio. The big deal big fuss type, miles away from the original, underground house. It might not have been born in the nineties, but that’s clearly when house music became mainstream. What underpins house music might even be what is to define the decade to come: jingles and pin’s, megaclubs and clips. That and the hits. Very soon house is everywhere: on the air of the big radio stations and on TV, creeping in as far as kids’ programs. The French may not even notice, but they’re all listening to it. Meanwhile, music producers smell the gravy and, willy-nilly with the earnest, enlightened amateurs, propose their very own club versions, cross breeding French variété and house. The result: a chart and club ready ersatz that is to quickly seduce young audiences. Hits, that’s what we want – or tubes for the French, like in House Tube, one of the landmarks of this compilation. The tracklist, like the soundtrack to a club night that never happened, fictitiously reconstructs the fleeting moment when house made its arrival in France, bridging the gap between variété and eurodance. House quiproquo House music barges in like a UFO on European land. With the arrival of this repetitive, yet transgressive music, tabloids freak out, while widespread incomprehension over the genre inspires dubious misconceptions. The media are happy to suckle on the music’s popularity, though well hidden behind the veil of decorum: NRJ airs a remake of a famous new beat track, Rock To The Beat, in which, however, “ecstasy” is swapped for “fantasy”. Dechavanne, thoughtful as usual, calls fans junkies and nazis on his tv show, Ciel Mon Mardi – though the show’s theme song is nothing else than a house track. The footage became a classic, and the comments, sampled by producers, provided the vocals for a flagship new beat track (Dr. Smiley – L’Echo Dechavanne). The Dechavanne episode is representative of the general confusion surrounding this barbarian music; skepticism remained high, even (if not more so?) in the musical world. In fact, it’s the subject of the unequivocal House Tube: “House tube, bouse tube ; on n’aime pas vraiment le house tube House soupe, bouse soupe ; on n’aime pas vraiment le house soupe” That is: “House hits, house shit; we don’t really dig house hits House soup, shit soup; we don’t really dig house soup” The success of house music inspired many exasperated reactions, just like House Tube (the B-side of a deodorant ad’s theme). Laurent Castellvi, surprised that the joke-track he composed at the time still sparked interest, told us: “At the beginning of the nineties, house was all over the radio. It annoyed me a little that most tracks were based on the same two chords. House Tube is a joke, it’s me sitting at the piano playing two chords. And that’s what the lyrics say.” On the other hand and following up with the next track, Fred de Fred was clearly in the know. The Frenchman had moved to the epicentre of the English commotion, Sheffield, a few years prior to the arrival of house. That’s where Warp (Autechre, Aphex Twin) originated – and at the time Warp still went by the name FON, Fred already hung around in their studios. Robert Gordon, Fred’s pal and co-founder of the label, signs the remix of one of his 1989 tracks, Sous Sous. In 1991, he composes a record of songs, and when it comes to pairing a suitable club remix single, Fred knows what’s up. Je T’Aime En Amour, sleek rock, mutates into a syncretism of french chanson and nearly rave breakbeat (here provided in its “2020” version). Fred de Fred is exemplary of the variété-club crossover driving this record; his career started within the collective ZNR, he crossed paths with the likes of Alain Bashung and then the Stone Roses, was close to Warp, and ended up signing a record on Barclay. Studio sharks Electronic musicians are often referred to as “producers”. This emanates from the delimitation of roles in the making of recorded music, traditionally assigned as singer, songwriter and producer. The latter takes care of the recording per se; that is, he manages the project, rents the studio, hires the musicians (known as requins de studio – studio sharks – for accumulating studio sessions) and cashes in at the end. The artist in electronic music is the producer alone, who essentially combines all roles at once: totally autonomous in his home studio, he can do without musicians or singers. The moment we’re interested in is this transitory period in which the two types of producers coexist. On the one hand, the new producers, like Fred Rister with Everybody Dancing, who recorded in a shack on a 4-track recorder, according to the sound engineer. On the other, the revival of old brigade producers, always on the lookout for a hot deal. The producer behind Près De Toi is of the latter type – pursuing a long musical career though quick to forget Claire-An (and so did posterity). New beat’s heritage isn’t negligible : its pioneers fashioned the “new generation” producer formula, a one-man-band in his machine-filled home studio. They’re also the first to churn out major hits, hitting the floor of a few Belgian clubs and eventually making it to the European top 50. What seems like mad creative abundance (hundreds of tracks between 1987 and 1989) is in fact the work of a handful of Belgian producers, barely ten, hidden behind multiple aliases. Among them, Marc Neuttiens, Jack Mauer and Fabian Van Messen, who often work as a trio and produce some of the genre’s most iconic tracks. In the midst of which On Se Calme, produced under the name Bassline Boys, sampling none other than Christophe Dechavanne. It’s no coincidence then that Anne Zamberlan should knock on their door with in mind the idea of an antidrug track. She wants to make noise, they know how to make a hit. And the track has it all: proto-acid gimmicks, big beat, house piano, verses rapped with a hiphouse flow… It might have been great, but even a Virgin Megastore ad she appeared in two years later got her more success. À la folie, je danse This tale is also the one of the pioneers who brought house music to France, first on the radio, well before rave parties or Laurent Garnier’s nights in Paris. As soon as the early eighties, Robert Levy Provençal plays the edits of the young Dimitri from Paris on the airwaves of Radio 7. At the time they’re unusual: like one would use samples in hip hop, Dimitri loops soul, funk and disco tracks, creating extended mixes. He breaks down tracks, reducing them to a gimmick or a bass line, thus creating easy-to-mix tools for DJs and bringing them closer to the sounds of house and techno music. He soon becomes resident DJ on NRJ and hosts the popular show Hot Mix. Like his colleague RLP, Dimitri proposes a trailblazing selection, blending together French news and the odd new sound from the States. At the turn of the nineties, when europop wants in at the club, only these influencers master the dance side of things. There’s RLP, Bibi Fricotin, Dom T… And Dimitri, who becomes the assigned variété remixer, adapting dozens of songs that were never meant to make it into a club. The general tendency however is less to official remixes than to bootlegs: a “pirate”, unauthorised and often private remix – just like Jacques Dutronc’s Opium, stretched out into a nearly 7-minute-long mix. The nineties also set the stage for the first TV stars, the ones who become famous without anyone really knowing why. Take, say, Jordy, four years old. The kid, in his diapers, sings along a New York style, house piano production and somehow makes it to the top 50’s number 1. For years, Jordy plays out the role of the child star and demonstrates that dance music is a perfectly profitable affair: it fuels the radios turned juggernauts, and lands on TV, seeping through music programs… In 1989, Vincent Lagaf (a famous french TV host) dives in with Bo Le Lavabo. The pitch is simple: the TV host adapts a track well known overseas, Lil Louis’ French Kiss (without any direct reference), simply adding lyrics taken from a sketch. He’s rather clear on his intentions (“Well, that’s just how you make it to the top 50”) and has no mercy for a musical genre he clearly understands nothing about (“See? Easy.”). Single night stars The club is a democratic place where anyone can be a star for a night (a nineties remix of Andy Warhol’s famous saying, meaning to imply: never has fame been so near, yet so far). The ghost of stardom haunts all of these forgotten tracks… This is particularly true in the case of Techno 90, Fred Rister’s first band. The DJ hailing from Northern France takes part in the short-lived though seminal Maxximum radio and mixes everywhere on both sides of the Belgian border, quickly becoming a local celebrity. At the turn of the century, he starts collaborating with David Guetta – another DJ, slightly better known than Rister and a rising star of the Parisian club scene. Together they eventually co-sign a few global hits: Love Is Gone, When Love Takes Over, I Gotta Feeling. This tale is the story of French variété’s unforeseen encounter with the avant-garde, of DJs who rose to the status of pop stars and others who descended deep into the rave party scene. It’s all of these oddities our compilation seeks to recount, like a wacky TV show featuring anonymous stars, forgotten ghosts of a decade bygone (Jacques Dutronc, Jean-Francois Maurice) or yet to come (David Guetta), inspired though unlucky blokes plus a girl band. And somewhere in the shambles, the tracklist of our compilation, the B-side of dance music’s official story – what could have been France’s alternative hit machine.

Albert’s Favourites co-founder Adam Scrimshire is set to release his fifth album 'Believers Vol. 1’, featuring guests And Is Phi, Bessi, K.O.G., Omar, Xana & Faye Houston, Penya, Stac and Tamar Osborn. The album draws from Scrimshire's passion for jazz, soul and electronic music of all styles; from energetic Afro-disco through lushly orchestrated neo-soul to harmonious jazz experiments. 'Anadwo' opens the album, a bright, Afro-disco inspired groove written with Ghanaian artist K.O.G., and is possibly Scrimshire's most extroverted track to date. Regular collaborator Stac and Brighton singer and producer Bessi sing on snappy neo-soul tracks ‘Where Are We’ and ‘Lost In Space And Time’ respectively. And Is Phi brings an eclectic mix of jazz, poetry and improvisation to ‘Chance Me’ while ‘Transformation’ stars acclaimed saxophonist Tamar Osborn. Genre-defying quartet Penya feature on global-jazz epic ‘Tanto Tiempo’ and the incomparable Omar joins with Xana and Faye Houston on album highlight ‘Love Is Loving’. Cosmic-jazz instrumental ‘Peaceless Peace’ closes out ‘Believers Vol. 1’, ending a bold and positive album filled with creativity and joy. “Writing and producing my last album, ‘Listeners’, opened the floodgates for me. I’ve written more in the last 18 months than in years. Practicing for the live band levelled up my playing and opened up possibilities in writing I couldn’t find before. Since then I’ve written more than two albums worth of “Scrimshire” songs. But I really wanted to try and focus the experience and separate between music that represented the positivity and optimism I’ve experienced in recent years against my more introverted and angrier instincts. ‘Believers Vol.1’ represents warmth and hope. Everyone I worked with early in lockdown, seemed to want to express those longings for physical and emotional connection too. The whole album reaches out, I think it’s full of long embraces. But it is also, for me personally a love letter to black music and the black artists that shaped everything I care about sonically, from my very first memories of music until now. It draws from sounds I grew up around in the early to mid eighties, classic records from the seventies that I’ve never tired of, but important dance records from the late nineties and early 2000s that celebrated and subverted those ideas too.” Scrimshire released his fourth album 'Listeners' in summer 2019, which was supported across BBC Radio 6 Music, including an Album of the Day feature, as well as by Jamz Supernova, Jamie Cullum's Radio 2 Jazz Show, Worldwide FM and Amazing Radio. His earlier albums ‘Bight’ (2013), ‘The Hollow’ (2011) and ‘Along Came The Devil One Night’ (2009) were released on the Wah Wah 45s label, where he’s also now a co-owner and director. He has continued to gain support for his successful “Scrimshire Edits” series and has produced and mixed records for artists including Stac, Daudi Matsiko, Bastien Keb, Ronin Arkestra and Jonny Drop. Albert’s Favourites was formed by Adam, Dave Koor, and Jonny Drop, who designed the logo and artwork, and has released records by Hector Plimmer, Ronin Arkestra, The Expansions, Huw Marc Bennett, and Jonny Drop.

The Art Of Us (taou) begins with the story of Blair French, a cosmic messenger raised in a house of 7 on the outskirts of a historic city. From dancing at mom's disco parties at a young age, to releasing rap tapes in middle school, winning best soundtrack for the multi-award-winning film Detropia and hitting the Billboard charts with his Pure Sounds of Michigan compilation; ultimately French found a home in the world of all things Detroit, Pan-African, Balearic, and ambient. Taou is his first instrumental LP under his own name, (despite a 25 year career), bringing together his closest musical compatriots. Blair's diverse production shines on this immersive 14 track release, transcending organic/electronic, uptempo/downtempo, and light/dark, tapping in heavyweight characters including Pathe Jassi, John Arnold, Craig Huckaby, Todd Modes, Kaylan Waterman, Peter Croce, Eddie Logix, Paul Randolph, 2040, Michael Jurczak and more. Sonically, Taou holds peak-hour Deep Cosmic Afro House freak outs ("Faded By The Sun", "Celebration Ritual", "F O A", "Chest Drum"), blunted beatdown cuts ("Stay Detroit", "Jeans", "Drop Ceiling Shuffle", "River Crossing"), and soulful R&B and Afrobeat compositions ("Honey Rooftops", "Genes", "Space Time Curvature"). Mastered by Atjazz, the vinyl is cut loud to lacquer by Carl at Trutone, and pressed with love at Archer on the east side of Detroit. It includes a double sided full color art insert with lyrics on the flip side.