Leron Carson isn’t the most well-known or prolific of Michigan house producers – his only official release to date is 2001’s ‘China Trax’ on the Theo Parrish-split The 1987 EP – but he’s nonetheless one of the most respected.

This week sees the release of Red Lightbulb Theory ’87-’88, a compilation of tracks he recorded when Carson was in his mid-teens. Over twenty years after these tunes were cut to tape, Parrish is releasing them on 2×12" via his Sound Signature label, with some re-engineering from AOS aka Detroit’s man-of-the-year Omar-S. What’s great about tracks is how raw and unfussy they are: proper Chicago box jams, recorded without sequencing and relying on cassette tape overdubs for layering.

As a result they retain a really live, intuitive feel – proper machine funk which relies on melody and groove, slamming percussion and heavy-hitting basslines, rather than micro-detailed production. If you’ve been digging recent material from people like Omar-S and Traxx, or find yourself thirsting after the kind of music celebrated in FACT’s 20 Best Acid House, then you need to check this record pronto. Listen to samples here.

Tracklist:

1. Mechanism

2. Dedicated

3. The Unknown

4. China II

5. Red Lightbulb