Back catalogue: Deep House

Review: Three relases in and we still have no information about the people behind this label. Whoever it is seems very keen to keep it a secret. 10" vinyl. One press only

Review: Greek label Acid Cuts continues to serve up its unique 8" offerings with lashings of great acid sounds on each one. This 18th helping comes from Acidaloius and opens with 'Family 83', a meandering acid line weaves in and out of jacked up, early Chicago house drums. It's dark and direct but has plenty of mystery in the distant synth work. The highlight of this particular package though is the flipside 'Korma' with its pinging kicks and clipped sense of techno funk. It is again run through with a soft acid line and makes for a nice fresh take on the sound.

Review: London-based Italian David Agrella is the man behind the Agrellomatica Records label and now for its fifth release, he has tapped up some undeniably quality names to remix the title tune from his debut Modulo EP back in 2007. Baby Ford kicks off with a deliciously deep and dubbed-out minimal house roller that is detailed with wispy chords and eerie vocalisations. Agrella himself then flips it into a rubbery 909 workout with pops and bubbles next to the leggy drums. GNMR goes for a gritty, heads down and back room techno roller and to close, NDR brings a retro techno sound with molten acid lines. All in all a very useful outing.

Review: This is a fine first outing from Chez De Milo's Club Blanco label, an imprint named after the DJ/producer's now long-running party in his hometown of Bristol. He's scored something of a coup, too, by persuading Paranoid London man Quinn Whalley to re-activate his occasional Johnny Aux alias after 12 years. Whalley delivers two original cuts: 'Supersonic', a kind of techno-tempo 4/4 electro number with pulsating bass, elongated chords and restless electronic riffs, and 'On The Train', a breathless breakbeat number peppered with fizzing electronics and his trademark TB-303 acid sounds. Jamie Paton remixes that track, giving it a smoother, more spaced-out feel - it's a superb revision all told - while Chez De Milo turns 'Supersonic' into a dark acid roller.

Review: Needs' commendable charity drive continues to bring forth the goods, both in terms of good causes and world class club music. Rallying round in support of World Mental Health Day 2020, Shanti Celeste kicks the record off in style with the rapid fire, deep-diving workout 'Fantasma'. OCB keeps the pressure up with the psychotropic techno of 'RS3', while Michelle works up some delightfully freaky synths on playful jacker 'Aesthetic'. Bobby's 'Free Your Mind' is a 90s-tinged, full fat techno production indebted to Detroit, Peder Mannerfelt keeps things stripped and raw on 'Our Levels' and Yu Su weaves a beautiful tapestry of interweaving rhythms on 'Brittney'. Adam Pits' trippy techno sounds resplendent on 'Wind Tunnel' and DJ Sports completes the set with the inventive, dembow slanted funk of 'Needs Dub'.

Review: Demi Riquisimo's 'A Lifetime On The Hips' sublabel returns to make it a hat-trick of releases for 2023 with the impressive 'Body Move' V/A, featuring eclectic club cuts from Dreamrdreamr, SY, Papa Nugs, Elfenberg, Absolute. & Ysanne. Dreamdreamr's emotive 'Zone 4 Booty Call' kicks off the A-side; it's a track that effortlessly fuses elements of deep house, trance, and r&'b, setting the the tone perfectly for an EP not bound by the borders of any genre. The titular 'Body Move' by SY is up next; a no-nonsense house chugger with flourishes of Italian 90s progressive and acid - a perfect modern interpretation of a foundational strand of club music. The A-side wraps up with one of 2023's most exciting prospects Papa Nugs and the vocoder infused, percussive, twisted jam 'Loosey Goosey'. The flip picks up right where the A-side left off with Elfenberg's 'Solarplexus', a cosmic, evolving and psychedelic interpretation of house. After, UK mainstay Absolute offers a 'Devastating Rhythm', a peak time techno floor filler that sounds like a Frankenstein mix of seminal imprints Dance Mania & D'jax-Up-Beats' output - proper gear. Finally, drawing the curtain on the 'Body Move' V/A is Ysanne's 'Tisno Tango'; a slightly more introspective cut, but with more than enough groove to make you dance, a perfect closer.

Review: France has always had a distinct time take on deep house ever since the 90s and greats like DJ Gregory, Alan Braxe and co. It remains a fertile scene, too, with several new artists and labels always coming through and the latest is Capybara which kicks off with this fresh new various artists EP. Sasha Pervukhin opens up with 'Oh No!' which brings jacked up drums and frazzled pads. Amadeo Savio then brings some nice acid mutations on 'Faces' and Varhat kicks off the flip with 'Alright' which is a loose, rickety house cut with balmy pads. Salmanazar shuts down with a slinky and loopy offering in the form of 'Last Night.'

Review: Fresh from Spain with no limitations; Tombolo release their first ever VA collection, rallying up troops from all corners of the global dancefloor and breaking boundaries between acid house, techno, breaks and electro. From the opening free party spirit of the brilliantly titled 'Bog Juice' by Canada's Unknown Mobile right through the final glacial tremors of 'Temporary Protection' from Ukrainian artist Poly Chain, the whole EP hits with an open-armed, timeless energy that transcends the usual genre brackets. Only 150 pressed; get to ready to rumble.

Review: Repeat continue their exploration of Mark Ambrose's imperious tech house legacy with another double pack that will delight diggers and dismay sharks in equal measure. 'Harmony (Sun Mix)' is a truly dreamy cut that will go down a treat as we head towards sunnier dancefloor moments across the Northern Hemisphere. 'My Soul Your Soul' has a deadly broken beat edge to the drum programming, while 'Destiny Angel' creates a starry-eyed disco-house fusion that has to be heard to be believed. The quality and ingenuity spilling out of every one of these tracks is a marvel, and as a collection this release helps cement Ambrose's position as one of the finest artists to emerge from the mid 90s UK scene.

Review: Faithfully jammy acid techno from the idiomatic Acid Cuts, a new Grecian outing helmed up by an as yet unnamed head honcho. 'Der Compositeur Classique' is the first LP on the label and comes by way of producer Apoll, real name Andre Pollmann, a longtime fixture of the German industrial landscape come soundscape (he grew up in the Ruhr area), whose movements through the 80s industrial and EBM circuits through to minimal techno has made for a well-seasoned though not unbalanced purveyor of sound. An eight-tracker of knockingly brutal acid pingers, this is a motherboard's worth of complication and fidget here, best among them being the deep house-techno trembler 'Top Of The Block' and the utilitarian, preferential hip house verger 'Coffee, But No Cookies'.

Review: Ireland's Automatic Tasty (AKA Wicklow-based producer Jonny Dillon) seems to be getting better with age. Having skirted round the edges of analogue techno, deep house and electro since 2008, he really came of age with a pair of inspired singles on Lunar Disko back in 2012. Here, he delivers his fifth full-length, a delightfully fuzzy saunter through good old-fashioned electronica, 8-bit electro, melody-driven analogue iciness and low-key alien funk. There's naturally much to admire, from the Mr Fingers-goes-acid deepness of "Cheers Curtis! (Thx Mix)" and vibrant ZX Spectrum-house feel of "Talking At Right Angles", to the rush-inducing bliss and delightful vintage synthesizers of "I Seen You Through a Crowd (She's So Cool)".