John Mulligan - Wax n Trax

Links

Artist:	Title:	Label:



Moodymann	Technology Stole My Vinyl	KDJ

	Single-sided twelve from the enigmatic Mr Dixon and, as usual, it's difficult to pin down, a jazz workout underpinned in the mid section with house beats, but genre labelling rarely does his work justice.

Telepopmuzik	Love Can Break Your Heart	Objektivity

Audi Soul Project	Community	NRK Sound Division

	Two moody expansive works of style and substance. Man-of-the-moment Dennis Ferrer and Abricah Soul's rework of the excellent Telepopmuzik's quirky delight from a few years back is a deep subtle builder, with a vaguely exotic flavour. And Fish Go Deep do something similar with the spoken word musings about musical creativity propelled by solid beats, and the gradual development of little elements to capture the listener's interest.

Ian Friday presents Anto Vitale	Theorema Del Faya	Tea Party

	Ian Friday and the Tea Party lable are proving themselves reliable purveyors of classy soulful house, usually with plenty of jazzy instrumentation. And no exception here, serving up a light melodic summery groove, with both mixes working well.

Olivier Desmet and Chuck Diesel	All Alone In The Dark With.. EP	Amenti Music

	4 unnamed track, with a great deep vocal gem amongst the trackier grooves, and offering the sort of atmospheric track that old fans of Naked and Om should lap up.

Nature Love	U Turn Me Around	Smooth Agent

	And if you like that you'll like this, with an unforced but soulful vocal and deep feel that still has funky swing.

DJ Romain	Late Night House Sessions Vol 6: The Tech Files	Nu Faze

James Amato & Nate Bowen, Karl Amaria, Soul System	I 94 EP	Red Brunette

	The DJ Romain EP is one for those 4am sessions in a dark club with a decent sound system - throbby linear grooves with space and FX. The I 94 triple-tracker offers chopped sample-centric grooves of the sort that are hardly thin on the ground, but it caught my attention maybe because one of them chops up the old 'Taxi' theme tune, which I have a soft spot for, and another loops a little vocal snip which I'm sure is Me'Shell Ndegocello and kinda hooks you.

N'Dambi	Can't Change Me	R2

Raw Artistic Soul ft. Ursula Rucker	The Light	Gogo Music

	Two highly attractive soulful winners, with Ron Trent housing up great nu-soul jazz diva N'Dambi, and genre-defying 21st century soul poetess Rucker bringing substance to a surprisingly optimistic organic groove.

Trackheadz	His Kingdom	Freerange

	Another outing for the Nick Holder and Kaje collaboration, and it's another atmospheric stabby builder, sitting well with stuff like the recent Shr-I-Khan and Jimpster 12s.

Stereo Mutants	I Love Soul	TriCircle

	Promo from DJ Circle's label outta Germany, and a number of decent mixes under consideration for release. For me, it's the Treasure Room Piano Jazz Remix that does the trick, the breathy sexy murmurings nudged along with some chunky keyboard work, altho' the other choices also have plenty of appeal, balancing a deep groove with spritely dynamics. Kinda cool.

Troydon	Wanna Tell You	Down Suth Music

	After his decent outing on Om here's another from Troydon, this time out of South Africa. 4 mixes offering a fair variety of choice, but it's the one with great chunks of swinging jazz excerpts and funky drums for me.

Groove Junkies ft. TC Moses	Free Your Mind	More House

Andy Caldwell ft. Xaviour and Omega	Rumours	Celebrity Records

Groove Junkies & Andy Caldwell ft. Alexander Sky	I Believe in Dreams	More House

	Proper US house produced by people who really know how. More House simply do not put out mediocre tracks, always uplifting funky and soulful with buckets of decent musicianship and barrels of energy. The latter two of these are both from a few months back but still deserve a mention. And 'Rumours' also offers a fine mix from the ever-reliable Chuck Love.

Deep Josh and Angel Pina	Movement	Soulfuric Deep
	Talking of labels we've come to trust, and the best Soulfuric release for ages. A vibrant jazzy guitar led groove pushed on by male vocal snippets and its quality all the way. Phew, thought they'd lost their way a bit with a series of rather similar and not particularly inspiring releases, but this'll do just fine.

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last revised: 30th April 2007