June in tech-house #1

Maxime Iko - Beau Rivages (La Vie En Rose)

La Vie En Rose release dropped into my inbox and caught my ear immediately. Maxime Iko's 'Beau Rivage' is a brilliant old-school inspired house number in the sort of sleazy funkiness only the French know how to do. With quirky 80s style synth stabs, stark percussion and a cool vocal sample this is sure to be a big hit in many floors. 'Alice' is the deeper number with a deep bassline, haunting chords and wicked vocal sample yet again... A bonus addition to the release is the Alice remix of U.S.H. 'Labrador'. This sort of rock music sampling effort has been done to death so badly so many times so it is an eye-opener to hear the mind-blowing quality of this. It's sort of Daft Punk meets Moodymann in style - quirky, slightly cheesy but overall a peak time weapon. La Vie En Rose website

Deetron - Starblazer E.P. (Rejected)

Deetron is hardly an artist who needs any introduction and he joins Joris Voorn & Edwin Oosterwal's Rejected label for this release. 'Starblazer' is a loopy tech-house track in a similar vein to stuff Technasia has done in recent times. Adding in a big piano riff give this a bit more party-appeal than Deetron usually serves up but it keeps the quality there enough that it doesn't cross-over too much. 'Solar Surge' is more of an old school dubby tech-house track with stabbed keys and the odd vocal surge. As far as Deetron goes this is probably his most punter-friendly release as of late. Solid stuff. Deetron on Facebook