VINCENT FLOYD Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Here, Descendents of The Deep launches the From Chicago To Detroit series, bringing together a quartet of deep house tracks from Michigan and Illinois-based producers. Jordan Fields kicks things off with the electric piano-laden strut of the surprisingly trippy "Excitement", before Vincent Floyd offers up a masterclass in deep, New Jersey-influenced analogue deepness in the shape of "2gether". Flip for the wonderful blissfulness of Leandre's "Images of Spring" - think starry melodies from Detroit, coupled with the rolling swing of Chicago - and "Detroit Dubz", a killer exercise in spooky beatdown from Norm Talley and Mike Huckaby. With its' heavy, compressed bassline, creepy chords and reverb-laden textures, it sounds like it was tailor-made for Halloween.

Review: Vincent Floyd is a true dance music great. Back in the 80s he was landing on vocal labels like Dance Mania and Relief, and to this day that material still stands up. Which is why Rush Hour are reissuing his ?Cruising EP from 1990. It's a primo deep house offering that features Floyd's trademark sense of spaced out melody and cosmic energy. The title track is an epic 12 minute trip on crunchy Roland drums and glistening hi hats, then 'Isolation' spaces you out with its slick but stripped back sound. 'Silent Noise' is the closer that unhinges with its edgy chord sequences and sense of intergalactic tension.

Review: Has Vincent Floyd released a duff record? Certainly, we've yet to hear one. Predictably, Contemplation of Deepness is another superb selection of cuts from the veteran U.S deep house producer. The title track, in particular, is gorgeous: a soft focus chunk of spacey deep house replete with whispered spoken word vocals, elongated chords and cascading synthesizer melodies. Lerosa's remix is rather good, too, and adds a little percussive grunt and rhythmic urgency without losing any of the melodious goodness. Also worth a listen is the surprisingly organic-sounding bonus cut "Aurrora's Smile", whose warmth and musical richness is emphasized by elastic jazz-funk bass guitar, ear-pleasing guitar chords and a surprisingly swinging drum track.

Review: Deep house enthusiasts have long held the work of Chicago producer Vincent Floyd in high regard. While he was never exactly prolific - unlike, say, Larry Heard, whose melodious, colourful and evocative productions his tracks most resemble - his early '90s singles for Resound, Dance Mania and Relief are widely considered to be peerless classics of the genre. Moonlight Fantasy revisits this period, delivering 10 previously unreleased tracks from the period, mastered from DATs that have long been hidden from view. Predictably, there's much to admire, and it seems odd that these cuts never saw the light of day first time around. Whatever the reason, tracks like "Dark Matter", "Lunar Moods" and "Unwanted Noise" should be considered to be previously unheard classics.

Review: Earlier this year, Rush Hour announced the focus of their archival attentions would fall on Vincent Floyd, a producer with a small clutch of 12? releases in the mid-90s for Dance Mania, Relief and Gherkin Records offshoot Resound Records. Having reissued Floyd's 1990 Dance Mania release Your Eyes back in February, Amsterdam outpost Rush Hour return to the Chicago artist's canon of work with Moonlight Fantasy, a six track 12" filled with unreleased material. Sourced from Floyd's personal DAT tapes, Moonlight Fantasy focuses on his earliest productions and a time when his sumptuous sound was very much in the classic deep house mould of Larry Heard. House music historians will find this a most compelling document!