Few people are onto great records as quickly as a great record store.
Phonica’s end of year lists are always a treasure trove for undersung gems, so we realised we ought to just give the shop’s learned staff their own slot on FACT. Every Saturday, the team behind the counter at the Soho institution select five vinyl records you should pick up this week.
LIPELIS
Lipelis Edits 12″
(L.I.E.S.)
L.I.E.S. offer something quite different on this 12″ from Moscow DJ Lipelis, with three edits that offer a flavour of what goes down at the city’s Denis Simachev bar. It features Thai pop, some end-of-the-night soul grooves, and ‘It’s Alright’, an acid-filled jam that sounds like Liquid Liquid jamming with Phuture in the Paradise Garage. Even if you’re not a L.I.E.S fan, this is one to check.
PORN SWORD TOBACCO
Magnifik Botanik 12″
(Aniara Recordings)
Most recently seen on Kontra-Musik with SVN, Porn Sword Tobacco delivers this hefty doublepack for fellow Swedish label Aniara Recordings. The name Magnifik Botanik conjures up images of temperate, tropical-infused sounds, and that’s exactly what you get, applied to deep house piano lines with a hypnotic twist. If you’re a fan of the weird grooves of the SUED label, this is highly recommended.
MALL GRAB
Feel U EP
(Collect Call)
Imagine a gritty, chopped and screwed take on Galcher Lustwerk’s spoken word house music, and you’ll have some idea of what this intriguing 12″ from Mall Grab sounds like. We don’t know much about him apart from the fact he’s from Australia, but his deep stretched-out chords and dulcet vocals go together to create some of the most considered house music we’ve heard in a while.
DANNY SCRILLA
Higher Plane 7″
(Zam Zam)
With releases on Civil Music, Rudimentary Records and Om Unit’s Cosmic Bridge label in recent years, Danny Scrilla takes a slightly different approach with this 7″ for Zam Zam. While previous releases have seen him create sharp-angled club tracks with its roots in D&B and footwork, these two tracks mine classic dub for inspiration, creating two laid-back, organic tunes that retain his rhythmic intricacy.
BARIS K / VALENTIN STIP / VARIOUS
Field Works Vol. 1 EP
(Vox Populi)
Berlin’s Vox Populi label travels to Istanbul on the first of its Field Works project, with an EP that sees field recordings, jam sessions, studio recordings, street soundscapes, and religious rituals remixed and reinterpreted by a variety of producers. The results are as diverse as you’d expect, with Baris K’s quirky minimal track sitting alongside a subdued house number from Valentin Stip, chaotic groove from Volkan Akin and a peak-time techno number from Tim Karbon.
