Back catalogue: Deep House

Review: Baba Stiltz is one of the greatest musical chameleons of our time. From the darkened booths of Europe's techno clubs, to the wild, open plains of half-imagined western Frontierlands, he's proven more than capable of turning a hand to an incredible variety of sounds, with a particularly lo-fi take on alternative indie rock, infused with a kind of contemporary country blend, coming to the fore more recently. Paid Testimony is, err, testimony to just how adept he is at conjuring images of small town USA. An album born from numerous trips that took the FilipinoAmerican-Swedish artist from Stockholm to northern California, it presents a series of archetypal characters summoned in some strange dream of what the latter region could and should be. People who plot bank heists, drink milk and vodka after midnight, and look for confrontation at every corner. A surreal, yet strangely poignant and universal gem.

Review: Scottish artist Barry Can't Swim has made big moves in the last year or so and finally, he capitalises on his ever-growing momentum with a debut album on the mighty Ninja Tune. The multi-faceted talent explores his most broad and diverse range of sounds to date here with 11 sublime tracks that move from deep house to jazz, heavy and percussive Afrobeat to lush ambiance. Each of the tracks feels like a fine technical achievement with complexity at its core but never at the expense of good vibes, such as the choral harmonies on 'Always Get Through To You', smart samples of Brazil's Trio Ternura on 'Dance Of The Crab' and digital and organic blends on 'Woman.'

Review: Experimental deep house superstar Bella Boo returns to Studio Barnhus for her latest album DreamySpaceyBlue, and expands outwards into a more varying tempo range in the process. If album titles are anything to go by, this one should give you an indication of the kind of sonics you'll hear when popping this 180g cream vinyl record on the belt-driven plate. Moving in more bittersweet, heartstring-tugging directions after a jankier set of EP movements years prior, the likes of 'Can't Stop' and 'Heartbeat/Into The Night' move through every influence from Jersey bounce to breaks, pitting deeply affected vocals and spacious synth bubblings against a thematic backdrop of "dark times (demanding) love, healing and forgiveness."

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Having thrown somewhat of a creative curveball with the launch of Latin and soul-centered project Sol Set, John Beltran hands over the Detroit collective's debut album Ola De Novo to a list of impressive global talent for the remix treatment. Kiko Navarro, Kaidi Tatham, Blair Frech, Ezel, Cee ElAssaad, Chris Coco and John Beltram with John Arnold all line up to do their duty, incorporating the sun kissed, percussion-heavy and exotically instrumented vibes into their more house and techno productions. Highlights include Cee ElAssaad's remix of 'Get Away', its gloriously optimistic vocal retained and re-purposed over light and nimble beats, and Chris Coco's dubby slow motion samba take on 'Linda Sau Paulo', but like the label says, it's All Good

Review: Scissor & Thread's fascination with the deeper end of the spectrum continues with another voyage into the murky and heady waters of house music's most cerebral sounds here with a new album, Ghosts, from Black Light Smoke. The opening cut itself is coated in a late-night mystery, a descending fog of humidity that dulls all sensations but the most intimate. Raw perc and whistles arrive to awaken the grooves of '727 Anthem (House Is Back)' while the dusty drums and lo-fi aesthetics continue on 'Hearts Not Broken" (feat Leah Lazonick), with a tender and seductive whisper at its core. Things remain warm and cuddly though out ensuing highlights like 'Out From Within'.

Review: Black Spuma aka Lauer and Fabrizio Mammarella take a magpie approach to sound on this new long player for Permanent Vacation which comes three long years after their last EP. But it was surely worth the wait: it's a lovely blend of jazz, bossa nova and folk that pairs down everything this duo is known for next to well defined melodies, skilled musicianship and a real playfulness of sound. The title cut is something like a benevolent 80s cop theme, there are Detroit style drums on 'Fracture', 'Obereggen' is a trance and Italian fusion and there are plenty of retro future machine sounds that are sweet as sugar and glow bright like diamonds.

Review: Australian DJ / producer Sam Brickel presents an intriguing full-length project for his home label Animalia, seeming to hone in on the most synaptic elements of nostalgic, breaksy dance music, while at the same time keeping things dreamy-weamy enough to zone out to if need be. Fittingly for the style, the album is called 'The Pulse Of Life', with the cover recalling old-school Silence or Fax releases, with the music sounding equally extraterrestrial to match. Brainy and slippery, yet somehow also minimal and no-fuss, tracks like 'Second Moon' and 'Ansible' sound to have apparated through a portal from some '90s chillout backroom, owing to Brickel's mastery over style.

Review: Bushwacka! deserves any plaudits that come his way. He was there at the birth of acid house and went on to foment his own take on tech house. He held a legendary residency at the End in London and of course dropped countless seminal tunes alongside Layo, not least their epic 'Love Story' mash-up. Now the acclaimed but still relevant UK veteran dives back into his roots to serve up the sounds that came before tech house with highlights that would have been heard at the time at parties like Heart & Soul, Release, The Drop, Vapour Space, and at venues like Heaven and The End. Skippy, dubbed garage and driving house all feature in a fine collection.

Review: The Mellophonia label offshoot Fusion Sequence won us over with its well-presented and great-sounding first EP, and now a quick follow-up does the same. This one is another various artists affair that starts with some nice futuristic robot disco from Vanity Project. There is more organic and lush Balearic from Bobby Bricks and Pacific Coliseum follows that spine-tingling Ibiza sunset vibe. On the flip side, there is everything from late-night electronic house to lazy disco via Sorcerer's blissed out 'Just For Love' which would entrance any dance floor. There's as much quality as there is variation on this one, which makes it a useful EP indeed.

Review: There is a wealth of talent on show on the third EP from the Fusion Sequence label which has put together this six-track deep house sizzler. The Variable Club' 'Biorhythms' is perfectly warm and dynamic for cosy backroom moments and Alpine DJ then brings an old school piano feel to 'Pepe Nony' before A Vision Of Panorama zones you out on lush chords and reverential keys on 'Kissing The Sun.' The flipside offers the more dark and heads-down 'Many Stories' while the blissed-out and feel-good grooves return with Common Mode's 'Bassface.' Body Corp shuts down with the slower, seductive sounds of 'Take It Or Leave It' which rounds out a top-class EP.