Collection: New Releases

Rome's contemporary jazz maestro Stefano De Santis is back with his 'New Beginning' EP on the esteemed Quattro Bambole Music. Across four stunning tracks, Stefano's musicianship shines as he explores jazz-infused broken beat, boogie, deep house and lo-fi hip-hop. Highlights come thick and fast and include the mellow jazz landscapes of 'Roy,' the lush blend of slow-motion house and broken beats on 'Lie#3', the emotive, piano-driven 'Paths' and the 80s boogie vibe of 'Tokyo 80.' UK producer Sean McCabe mastered the EP but also delivers a deep house dub of 'Lie#3.'

Jonny Dillon is Automatic Tasty and One Foot in the Rave is his debut album on Winthorpe Records. An influential name in acid-driven electronic music, Jonny has spent over 15 years with labels like Acid Waxa, Further Electronix and CPU and knocks it out of the park once more with this new eight-track LP. It's immediately recognisable as his work thanks to its sonic blueprints, melodic acid grooves, bleepy funk and warm analogue textures. Tracks like 'The Apocalypse is Now' and 'Raymond Tuesday's Big Day Out' bring upfront energy, while 'Starry Night' and 'Ringfort' infuse subtle psychedelia to make this a captivating braindance workout.

The accomplished Zopelar debuts on the equally superb Clone Royal Oak series with a four-track EP packed to the rafters with his 90s Chicago, New York and Detroit-inspired house grooves. The Sao Paulo-based producer and musician born Pedro Zopelar adds a twist of sound from this homeland into his work and opens this one with 'Astral Dynamics', a deep, widescreen sound alive with bendy synths and noodling keys. 'Arp Magic' is bright, synth-laced and uplifting with ever-busier lines and jacked-up drums. 'Miles Away' is another dreamy cut with cosmic pads and an infinite horizon then 'Dark Places Where I Feel Safe' brings a little unsettling synth work to close.

Virgo Four makes a compelling return with their latest release SoDp. This EP showcases the legendary Detroit duo's knack for blending deep house with their signature acid and Chicago house influences. On Side-1, the Gherkin Jerks Tribute remix of 'SoDp' is a Larry Heard remix bomb! With its captivating melody drawing listeners in and sinister acid line, we know this record will get massive play. The Fuckthegovernment Ltd remix follows, delivering a deeper, jazz-inflected take with an eerie atmosphere that contrasts sharply with the original. Side-2 presents the original version of 'SoDp,' featuring high-strung acid sounds that capture the essence of Virgo Four's raw, innovative edge. Closing the EP is '333', a track steeped in Detroit's deep techno tradition, offering a minimalistic groove that underscores the band's enduring influence. With Virgo Four's return you can always expect quality and nostalgic intertwined into their signature sound.

Chicago's disco-house generator Rahaan Young goes a tad Balearic with 'My Girl Is Better', an exemplar of the artist's much-honoured and much-emulated skill at disco editing. The star track on this record is itself a version of Talking Heads' 'Girlfriend Is Better', which comes backed by an impressively isolated dub version on the B-side, which the original Talking Heads number itself did not come accompanied by. Rahaan's version fattens, monoises and clarifies the beat, adding little more than a DJ edit's worth of space to mix things; the dub version is only subtly dissimilar, its main feature being its echoic breakdowns and word painting.

PPU is one of your favourite labels when it comes to dusty and lo-fi soul and related sounds. Now the DC-based crew delivers another gem with Grand Hotel, a collection of ten rare tracks from Estonian funk legend Uku Kuut, who they have released several times before now. The instrumental album traces Kuut's journey through the Soviet Union, Sweden, Los Angeles, and Estonia and is a window into his excellently eclectic style. Highlights include his first home recording from 1982 and a track produced in Herbie Hancock's studio. After more than 30 years of travelling across borders, these precious masters have found a permanent home and means that Grand Hotel is a fine tribute to Kuut's international influences.

Maledetta Discoteca proudly announces the birth of their first daughter LA SIRENETTA (*The mermaid) and the release of her first record! An hommage to the Italian Afro scene of the late 80s, La Sirenetta is a sub-label born to take World Music to the next level for the contemporary Dancing Club Scene. We aim at digging, selecting and editing obscure bangers from our analogue record collections, travelling from Martinique to Ivory Coast, from Nigeria to Haiti, and giving them back to deejays and dancefloors in high-quality, highly collectable, 12” releases.

Jéroboam, also known in the streets of Paris and Montreuil as Echoes Of, is celebrating Britfunk and the rich musical heritage of Greater London, reflecting their deep appreciation for the iconic Britfunk sound. After several successful collaborations celebrating the genre with the label at the infamous New Morning venue in Paris, Jéroboam has crafted two brilliant compositions for this EP.

Chicago underground legend Mark Grusane presents "Take Me" on his own Disctechno imprint, a proper 12" single featuring vocals from DJ Saucy Lady, the "Beantown Disco Queen." The lead single uses a driving bassline, infectious synth fills and filtered arps and pads to build up an electrified disco heater with sweat-soaked NRG. Saucy Lady's seductive, dubbed out vocals bounce off the walls with a repeating mantra of "just take me" and spoken words from a creature of the night, backed by her harmonizing ooh's and aah's. This combination sounds something like Bobby O locked in a Chicago basement during a heatwave with nothing but a fog machine and broken A/C for company. On the B-Side, disco wizard Rahaan reworks the lead single with a "Psychedelic Dub" that layers the sounds of machine funk synth sweeps and disorienting tweaks for a mesmerizing take on the lead single. On either side of the record are also the Dub Instrumental and Accappella versions - versatile tools for freaking out any dancefloor.

Functional and nostalgic House stunners - highly recommended.

Don Carlos should by now be known to most house music crate-ologists as Carlo Troja from Verase, Italy -not Euvin Spencer from Kingston town. Alas, confusion still runs rampant over the ambiguity surrounding the Don Carlos name; if only they'd heard just how great this new EP from the former North Italian nuff-sayer truly was, they'd never forget the difference, of course! 'Italian Paradise' is a fresh, still dripping-wet house EP out via Groove Culture; its lightweight organ triplets, electric piano smears, and lens-fogged sunglass strings are what makes it *it*: a more than suitable release for hammock skygazing and/or wooly garment shedding.

LA's Jarren returns to Apron Records with a six-track EP of glitz. Following on the heels of his last LP Antera, 'Fresco' marks a return to the EP form, and flaunts some of the crispest, swangiest electronic funk, house and electro on offer in the city of angels right now. We open with 'Jam', which catches us off guard almost but signalling that this could be the start of another kind of record, with staccato sports whistles, and three-note cheese synths aplenty, against a decided new jack swing. Only after this detour are we offered the real meat on things; the knocking 4x4 neons of 'Round & Round' and 'Florence Blue', and the increasing raw bootylectro of 'Gina' and/or 'The Way You Do'.

Italian twosome Gino and Dino (that's G&D to you and me) have released some of the most on-point and well-crafted re-edits of recent times. Their EPs are always worth a look, and this one - the first of two featuring other editors alongside the popular duo - is no exception. They begin on side A with 'PeeGee870', a fine version of a low-slung, synth-sporting Italian disco chugger from (we think) the turn of the 1980s, before moving on to the eyes closed disco bliss of 'understanding', where heady lead vocals and sweeping orchestration catches the ear. Over on side B, the previous unheard G.Bros and In.an offer up their 'Balearic' edit of 'Polpette', joining the dots between laidback, loved-up disco, quirky Balearic colour and huggable dancefloor lusciousness.