Friends & Relations Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Sample-house maestro Nebraska (real name Alistair Gibbs) has released some of his most potent material of recent years on Friends & Relations, an imprint he established in 2016 in order to promote DJ tools, loop jams and future disco-house anthems. Your Love Is True, his first outing of 2021, is another excitable, peak-time ready gem. The standout is probably French Touch-style disco-house jam 'Your Love Is True', though the accompanying dub, which makes more of his superb percussion programming and douses many musical elements in pleasing amounts of delay, is our highlight. Over on the flip he showcases his stoned, downtempo side via the drowsy chords, trippy vocal samples and soft touch beats of 'Fuis', before brilliantly re-imagining it as an ultra-deep house workout on 'Espace Fuis'.

Review: Nebraska's Friends & Relations series continues to serve up the finest disco-sprinkled house delights, following on from the previous installment of Disco Dubs with another on point reduction of dusty grooves through the mixing desk. These jams are stripped back and oh so heavy, with FX flaring in all the right places to give an eerie, trippy tint to the jams. It's like walking into the deep end of the session where Walter Gibbons jams with King Tubby uptown, and you'd be right in thinking that's a match made in far-out disco heaven.

Review: Nebraska's Friends & Relations label is back in action with another two assured cuts of dusty, earthly grooves from the South London beat fiend. There's a rough n' ready MPC vibe to the break that courses its way through "The Guitar," providing a sturdy basis for the noodling titular axe cartwheeling its way across the mix. After those slightly Balearic vibes, "The Vocoder" brings a more forthright floor-filling attitude to the record thanks to a classic sizzling disco hook and a relentless forwards momentum. It's Nebraska on impeccable form, bringing the heat and stirring the soul in equal measure.

Review: Nebraska fires up his own Friends & Relations label once again to take a trip into the strain of lilting, summery deep house that has previously fitted in so well on Rush Hour, Mister Saturday Night and more. This time around Nebraska is getting the remix treatment from an all star cast, leading in with the woozy, soul-soaked shuffle of Session Victim's treatment of "Pintxos." Mr Beatnick keeps things suitably deep when tackling "Rat Boogie," all laid back disco patter and filtered funk, before Marcel Vogel goes one step further on "Keep What Ya Got" and rolls out slow and juicy funk of the raunchiest kind.

Review: Nebraska fires up his own Friends & Relations label once again for a limited screen-printed run of the latest batch of remixes of his treasured sunkissed deep house jams. This time around he's getting the remix treatment from an all star cast, leading in with the woozy, soul-soaked shuffle of Session Victim's treatment of "Pintxos." Mr Beatnick keeps things suitably deep when tackling "Rat Boogie," all laid back disco patter and filtered funk, before Marcel Vogel goes one step further on "Keep What Ya Got" and rolls out slow and juicy funk of the raunchiest kind.

Review: Ali Gibbs' Nebraska project is mounting more praise from various sources in the house and techno scene, and for good reason too. The young producer first began to appear via Holland's Rush House, then onto NYC's excellent Mister Saturday Night, and is now beginning to churn out a solid selection of tunes through his own Friends & Relations imprint. This is the second instalment in the series, and there really is no better way than to kickstart an A-side with a track like "Pintxos", a jazzy, absolutely laid-back house bomb with a gorgeous selection of piano keys and funked-out bass tones. "Tapas", on the flipside, sticks to the jazz-funk, but goes much deeper, unleashing what is one of the best slices of dub-house that we've heard so far in 2017; bold, well-constructed, and endlessly funky.

Review: While still popping up on the likes of Delusions of Grandeur and Mister Saturday Night, Nebraska has been lately channeling much of his energy into his emergent Friends & Relations label as a vessel for his own productions. This third installment on the label kicks off with the warm, honey-coated chords of "Rien Ne Vas Plus", which rides on an easy groove and lets the keys sing out in a hazy summer reverie. The "Version" follows suit with a similar disposition, while both takes on "Don't You Know" on the B side deal in a common goal to gently coax all kinds of woozy soul sounds through a laid back house framework.

Review: Nebraska's Friends & Relations series continues to deliver the goods as another no nonsense slab of sample-a-delic house delights lands on our platters. There is a fine balance struck between familiarity and obscurity on these edit-esque productions, where you might well recognise the odd break or sample, but Nebraska applies a deft touch to keep things mysterious and fresh. There is funk spilling out of the grooves like you wouldn't believe, from rugged basslines to heavy vibing keys, with splashes of dub FX and a little cosmic dust sprinkled on top for good measure. Heads down business for serious dancers, and the DJs that love to keep them locked in.

Review: Friends & Relations is a freshly minted imprint based in Peckham, a neighbourhood that has gone from run-down dump to hipster haven in the space of a few short years. The label's first missive comes from its' founder and proud Peckham-dweller, Ali 'Nebraska' Gibbs, a producer best known for his missives on Rush Hour and Mister Saturday Night. It's a predictably strong release, with both "Stop Playing With My Heart" and "Keep What Ya Got" showcasing Gibbs' skill for turning rubbery disco and soul gems into tasty, club-ready house cuts. He's particularly good at teasing out tracks via judicious use of sampled loops, as the deeper and smokier closer, "Rat Boogie", deftly proves.

Review: Nebraska's Friends & Relations series is yielding some of the strongest material the steadfast producer has served up in recent years, drawing as it does on a deep well of personal inspiration from his formative musical loves. This time around, you'll have to decipher the track titles "A.T.T.A.T.C.Q 01-05" to work out which seminal hip hop crew are under the spotlight, but the results are magical. Refiguring jazzed up breaks and licks into low slung house structures, Nebraska is clearly having a whale of a time. The vibes are heavy, heady, smoked out and utterly infectious from the start to the finish.

Review: Nebraska's Friends & Relations label continues to yield the finest club tackle for those who need the real deal in their DJ sets. 'Deep Tune' casts its net as low as the Mariana Trench while riding a sweet disco loop, setting the scene for a teasing, dramatic drum throwdown with nimble synth flourishes on 'Drum Track 01'. 'Shift' takes things on a more interstellar trajectory with a heady beat elevated by star-strafing lead lines, and then 'Drum Track 02' whips up another killer percussive workout that keeps the organic intensity of the beat intact while still making it totally workable for the floor.

Review: For its next outing, the Nebraska label has curated a mini best-of EP that serves up a quartet of tunes that have been digital only until now. Side A opens with 'Senza Parole,' featuring a weird and wonderful vocal sound and some loose hand claps under Italo-infused disco-funk drums. 'Let Me Be The One' is a nice tripped pout and slow motion 90s downtempo jam and 'Funkbraska' is an homage to French Touch with filtered synth loops fizzing with sugar goodness over a characterful bassline, and last of all is 'Love + Hate', another low slung hose groove that oozes cool and has a fantastic bassline propping it up.