Unknown Label Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Get your hands in the air and wave them about like you just don't care, because this is exactly the sort of tune that will make you do that. It's built on huge old school referencing breakbeats, with just as retro piano chords layered over the top. Add in some twitchy acid sounds, slamming drums and a lung-busting diva vocal and you have an irresistible, festival sized house anthem that will unite all dancers in raptures. On the flip is a dub for those who like something slightly more subtle, but it still bangs like a heavyweight with her back against the ropes.

Review: Here comes an all new and unknown edits labels with some playful disco house jams packed with characterful samples from Chaka Kenn. 'Dawn Breaker' opens up with freewheeling melodies and loose drum breaks that makes for a nice sunny vibe run through with jazzy Rhodes action. 'High Steaks' takes on a heavier house vibe with layers of lo-fi synth and some muffled vocals for company. Last of all is some playful swing that fuses house and hip hop over Hall & Oates bump and grind groove and filtered vocals. Useful tools for sure.

Review: Charles Green, who performed under the name Chas, released his debut album For Your Love on Love Joy Records in 1985. The album's soulful r&b accompanied Green's smooth vocals and heartfelt lyrics at the forefront. The album's title track was also released as a single and received some airplay on radio stations at the time and helped to establish Green as a promising new voice in the soul and r&b music scenes. Green went on to be a keyboardist for boogie, funk, soul and house releases such as Scott Grooves & Roy Ayers 'Expansions' in 1998 among others.

Review: Sampled by everyone from J-Lo to Jay-Z, Manu Dibango's 1972 classic is perhaps one of the most influential and heavily referenced afrofunk tracks of all time. Echoing with shades of every genre we know and love today, it still sounds just as timeless, infectious and ultimately agenda-setting today as the first time you heard it. If your collection doesn't sport this original yet, now is most certainly the time.

Review: We now know that Daman Albarn's face-less and animated Gorillaz project was way ahead of its time. The tunes still stand up, too, with early hit 'Clint Eastwood' one of the best they did. It gets pressed dup here to this cheeky and limited 7", its low slung and downbeat groove topped with dub harmonicas and the drawling vocals of Albarn. On the flip is the more sunny, big beat offering of '19-2000' (Soulchild remix) which is lit up with naggy vocal hooks and singalong verses that are ripe for cheery party sessions in the great outdoors.

Review: On the latest instalment of Palm Beach Records' Secret series, regular contributor Fred Hush is once again at the controls. This time round, we not only get unheard original cuts but remixes, too - including Hush and Dimitri Andreas's stripped back but stomping, ever-building 'remake' of Emmanuel Top's 'Acid Phase'. There's plenty to set the pulse racing across the EP, from the sub-heavy, subtly bleep-influenced hedonism of techno roller 'Close Your Eyes', a riff-heavy, warehouse-ready old school techno re-wire of 'I Say' courtesy of Noeda, and a ridiculously heavy, rave-igniting re-imagining of the same track by Klaudia Gawlas that could be compared positively to the work of Amelie Lens.

Review: Opolopo is a machine when it comes to serving up superb disco, funk and soul sounds. He's done so for two decades on plenty of top labels from Toolroom to Version Galore to Gamm. This time out he finds himself on a self-released tip with X Machine which is a mash-up of James Brown. The original vocals cut through funky basslines and lots of big percussions as the loose drums rumbled on next to warming organ chords. The instrumental is a more direct to dancefloor jam.

Review: We've got some of that naughty and irresistible white label madness here from new and mysterious label and production outfit Outtaface. It comes with a label that references the energetic cartoon stylings of the late Keith Haring and a bassline that will melt your face. The 'Vocal' track mixes up disco, skank, rave, The Prodigy references and outer space designs into a truly unusual blend that will bring colour and craziness to the floor. The flip side dub slows it down, fleshes out the low and and allows the cosmic synth work more room to shine. A handy 12" for sure.

Review: Ron's Reworks is a mysterious new edit label that deals in tweaking disco gems. Whether Ron is the name of the edit artist, or a nod to the fact these tunes might have been played Ron Hardy, we don't know, but we do know they are worth having: Gilles Peterson played the lush soul grooves of "Flight Of The Eisenberg" on his 6 Music show which should be all the support you need to know about, while "Heads" is a more deep cut of late night funk with playful riffs and a gorgeous vocal sample next to jazzy Rhodes keys. "The Jubes" ends things with a heartwarming gospel vocal from beautiful outfit The Supreme Jubilees that will leave you feeling warm inside.

Review: Ron's Reworks, a series of scalpel jobs and lightly beefed-up reworks from Crazy P co-founder Jim Baron AKA Ron Basejam, has now reached its fourth volume. Predictably, the included material is every bit as well-crafted as its' similarly inclined predecessors. The standout is undoubtedly A-side 'They Speak Colour', a loopy, soft-focus disco-house jam whose relentless grooves, synthesizer splashes and simmering orchestration make it sound like Soundstream after a bong full of Marijuana smoke and several disco biscuits. Elsewhere, 'The City' is a canny revision of an unusual disco-boogie number that builds through sections of drums and cut-up, scat style vocals before finally flourishing late on, while 'The Cull' is a deep and meandering head-nodder tailor-made for warm-up sets and sit-down bar gigs.

Review: .Ron Basejam has always cooked up a wealth of characterful cuts across the house and disco spectrum. This unknown label is now home to a load more starting with the lovely soft focus chords and gospel tinged vocal bursts of deep house meditation 'We Need Change'. A house dub ups the energy a little with more cosmic sprinkles raining down over percussive grooves. 'BFG' then ups the disco quotient with elastic bass and leggy drums, a nice organic vibe and carefree chords. 'Blue' shuts down with some feel good soul and funk house fusion work.

Review: Michael McDonald anthem 'Sweet Freedom' is an epic of its era and here it gets a special revision from edit royalty The Reflex. It's a a one sided, highly weaponised 12" that fuses disco, soul, and oodles of good time vibes, all together into one killer cut. The vocal is the main draw - its clean and pure, and tugs at the heart. The drums are silky and slinky, the bass rumbles deep down below and there is a real sense of cosmic dust being sprinkled over the whole thing.

Review: A couple of years ago, Max Stocklosa debuted the Trii Group project - albeit under the alternative TRjj moniker - via a couple of decent releases on STROOM. This limited 45 marks the first Trii Group outing of 2021 and was made in cahoots with Hipolito, a fellow Cologne-based artist who has previously contributed to Stocklosa's cassette-heavy TRii Musik label. A-side 'Circuit' is odd but rather good, offering a glorious mixture of tipsy, inebriated new age electronics, distant vocals and chiming melodies. 'Timer' retains the same reverb-laden vocal sound, this time placing Hipolito's vocals atop undulating, lo-fi machine drums and the kind of bubbly, alien-sounding modular melodies that were once a feature of compositions by the Radiophonic Workshop.

Review: Another UK tech house/Rominimal styled white label in this week, a one-sided 12" titled 'Close'. This bouncy and bass-driven jam is as loopy and hypnotic as you like it, and the pop/R'n'B vocals thrown into the mix make it really infectious. Sure to have rocked many a dancefloor this summer, it's absolutely essential for fans of labels like Digwah, EEE or ODE. Tip!