My 'Future Garage' chart on Junodownload

ome recommended listening to get you through March from the Junodownload store. From deep house to disc-infused techno. New tracks from DFA, Rabid Romancer, Estroe, Amy James, Alex Santer and more.

1. The Crystal Ark - The City Never Sleeps (DFA)

2. Alex Santer - Sweet Tones (Mecha)

3. Rabid Romancer - Clown Tears For Mia (Nice & Nasty)

4. Itokim - Sunlight (Seventh Sign)

5. Estroe - Ketter (Snejl)

6. Arno E Mathieu - Heritage ( (Clima Germany)

7. Ray Okpara - Brainows (Soweso Germany)

8. Amy James - Crunch (Pure Substance)

9. Timos - Move On (Sonido)

10. Mototone - Mercy Dub (Lost In House)

Check out the chart at Junodownload

Top 10 Chart - February 2010

Some soulful house gems for Feb alongside some dubbed-out tech. Japan's live house geniuses A Hundred Birds return with the summery Permament Vacation style 'Batonga'. At the other end of the spectrum Taho remixes Luciano Pizzella in sheer high tech soul madness as well as dropping his own Underground Resistance-style 'Atlantess' E.P.

1. A Hundred Birds - Batonga (Main Instrumental) (Wave Music US)

2. Alex Santer - Sweet Tones (Mecha Recordings)
3. Taho - Crossing The Photonic Belt (Lumina)

4. Luciano Pizzella - Duplicate (Taho Remix) (Snejl)

5. Beauville - Living Easy (Rob Salmon Remix) (Ospina Digital)

6. Hakan Lidbo feat Emma - What Is Love (Manuel Perez remix) (Lace Records)

7. Javier Algarra - Liverpool's Chatterbox (Mihai Popoviciu remix) (Mintgum)

8. MES (Satoshi Tomiie) - Back To Basics (SAW Recordings)

9. Maetrik - Paradigm House (Maetrik's dub edit) (Treibstoff)

10. Shoxy - Hit The Floor (Jesus Loved You Limited)

Rob's Future House Reviews - January 2010

Alex Santer - Sweet Tones (Mecha Recordings)

Santer’s debut release on Mecha proves his talent for creating devastating hypnotic grooves without resorting to the obvious. The template for ‘Sweet Tones’ is a chuggy, dubbed out drum-track, a super low bassline and cheeky cut-up vocal morphed and stuttered to perfection. This is pure New York big-room house straight out of Greece and one of Santer’s best efforts yet. ‘Toobee’ is a little more laid back in intensity but makes up for it in quality. Again, nothing is overdone, just a sparse chugging groove paired with a looped vocal backing. Santer has been a low-key creator of quality music for ages and this proves again why. Mecha Recordings

Itokim - Long Way Down (Organica Music Labworks)

Japan’s Itokim makes music which you’d expect if you got Technasia and Deep Chord in the sack together - techno with a soulful, silky vibe which he's shown over a dozen or so quality tracks in the past 18 months. His debut on Organica Music Labworks is no different and hits the sublime almost from the get-go. Pairing sparse, percussive keys with a deep groove gives ‘Long Way Down’ a floaty vibe without sacrificing dance floor appeal. In short, this is the shit. Label owner Tony Blunt’s remix goes for a more linear tech-house groove while keeping the percussion and lower key elements quite close to the original. The final track, ‘Things She Said’, is more abstract blade-runner type tech-house. Organica on Junodownload

Pawel Kobak - 99/66 EP (Lace Music)

Pawel Kobak drops just the sort of acid inspired tech-house which would kick most dance floors into high gear. ‘Nine Tee Nine’ is the opener here and it doesn’t disappoint with a chuggy old-school bassline and incremental levels of madness as the acid line is tweaked and added to. Imagine a stadium anthem slowed down with the cheese removed and you’ll get the general idea. The flipside, ‘Six Tee Six’, is also a solid track along similar lines but more of a 4am basement track bridging prog, electro and acid. A solid release with a monster groove from one of Sweden’s most reliable producers. Lace Music on junodownload