Reviews with DJ Rob Warner - June 09

Some tasty new tunes for June from across the land including a fantastic new album from Swede Mark O'Sullivan.

Mark O'Sullivan - Fragments from a Long Country (Nice & Nasty)

Mark O’Sullivan and Irish label Nice & Nasty have teamed up and hit gold here. It’s the album tech-heads should be marking on their calendar to buy on release. From the get go – the jammy ‘She Stood There Laughing’ you know this is going to be a good listen and by track two the utterly brilliant ‘Come Over’ it’s a done deal. Half Joris Voorn and half mid-90s Detroit-esque is the vibe of the album which spans from the deepest spacey numbers to peak time dance floor monsters. The balance is the noticeable thing here – from the manic ‘Take You Tripping’ to key-led Underground Resistance type reprise tracks like ‘Within You’ the quality holds up right through, something which can’t be said of most electronic LPs put out these days. To preview the release a remix EP is out with a very solid remixes of album tracks by Psycatron aka Paul Hamil, Jamie Behan and Eamonn Doyle. (Out 21 July on iTunes and 14 Aug elsewhere).

Jozif – MOG Vol 1 (Hypercolour)

Very solid techy beats from Wales courtesy of the talented Jozif starts off with ‘Grobe Freiheit’ which sounds almost like a Jesse Rose-esque cut up of a Michael Jackson track – full of quirky stabs and vocal samples arranged in a pretty solid groove. The main event however is ‘Make It My Memory’, a similar concept but with some epic samples and stabs arranged beneath a spoken vocal talking about New York city. The added remix by Alex Jones & Julian takes a more quirky tech-house vibe for some nice listening.

M.in & Bastian Schuster - Jazz Me Please (Merkesdir)

The best way to describe this sort of record is comedy house. 1930s music sampling tech-house is as fun as it is hilarious to listen to in the background – in almost a Jive Bunny but not shit kind of way. ‘Jazz me Please’ is really nicely put together and would be a killer at the right moment with its bouncy beats and looped sample. The guy who owns this genre, Basti Grub, also steps in for a remix and goes for a more low-key vibe and adds a quirky flute to the arrangement.

Nicola Martorano & Roberto Capuano - Stay Tuned (Hot Fingers Music)

This is something of a rarity these days - a solid, bottom heavy, tribal led track which just says ‘play me and I’ll fill the floor’. The mix in question here is the great Simone Tavazzi remix. It’s nicely paced and has just the right amount of drops, rises and stabs to make it interesting without going overboard. Def worth a gander.