FREDDY FRESH Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Back in 2020, hip-hop, breaks and electro stalwart Freddy Fresh decided to turn his hand to vintage-sounding house and techno, self-releasing a set of tracks called The Harvest online. Rawax were impressed, with the popular label deciding to put the pick of the cuts out on vinyl. Title track 'The Harvest' sets the tone, with the veteran producer wrapping a house-tempo, post-electro groove in sustained organ chords, spacey synths and bubbly electronic melodies. 'House-Spanner' sees him doff a cap to The Middle of Nowhere-era Orbital (seriously, it's very reminiscent of the Hartnoll brothers' late '90s output), while 'Misunderstood' is a woozy, delay-laden chunk of early morning U.S deep house. Elsewhere, the deep house dreaminess continues on the interestingly swung 'Twain', and clonking, TB-303 speckled 'Horlywagon'.

Review: The brand new Hyperdrive label kicks off with a mix of the old and the new - some tracks made recently, some that date back to the 90s, all of them top quality. Liquid Earth opens up with the spaced-out synths and electronic house sounds of '1_HP_D' then Art Of The State gets a little more tranced out and cosmic on '2_HP_D'. Dan Piu's '3_HP_D' is a tech house exploration with wispy sci-fi leads and a playful rhythm then Luis Malon & Seb G combine for the turbo-charged tech of '4_HP_D.' The legendary Freddy Fresh closes down with a high-speed sound on '5_HP_D.' Says the label, "Hyperdrive is dedicated to preserving the rich history of electronic music," and on this evidence, it will do so expertly.