Few people are onto great records as quickly as a great record store.
After years spent discovering gems in Phonica’s end of year lists, it made sense to give them a regular space on FACT. Every Saturday, staff from the Soho institution pick out the five vinyl records you should grab this week.
ANDRES
‘Believin” 12″
(La Vida)
Detroit’s Andrés comes through with three mulchy, sample-heavy house hypnotisers on his own La Vida imprint. ‘Believin” brings a splash of colour with its jazzy breaks and sweet vocals, while ‘Can’t Shake It’ takes it down low and ‘Jungle Pain’ follows a skipping soul beat hewn from upright bass and piano trills. A lush trio.
DJ DEEON
Deeon Doez Deeon!
(Numbers)
DJ Deeon pitches up on Glasgow’s Numbers outlet for a shut-up-and-dance lesson in the birth of Chicago ghetto house. Four raw, gritty and unapologetically upfront tracks – all originally released on Dance Mania – have been remastered from the original DATs, from the twisted disco madness of 1996’s ‘2 B Free’ to the hammering Jeff Mills favourite ‘House-O-Matic’. Still fresh.
NO PAIN
‘It’s Gonna Be Alright’ 12″
(Hardtrax Records)
The wise selector won’t miss the reappearance of this New York classic from 1993, Cliff Saint-Cyr & Cevin Fisher’s hefty house mover ‘It’s Gonna Be Alright’. Served in five tasty flavours, from the punchy vanilla version and the sweetened “flute mix” to a versatile, free-floating a cappella.
ACID ARAB/MEHMET ASLAN/AUTARKIC
Disco Halal Volume 1 EP
(Disco Halal)
Dreamed up in Tel Aviv and launched via Berlin’s Oye Records store, Disco Halal is fresh label dedicated to Middle Eastern sounds. This inaugural volume offers three varyingly drastic edits from Parisian duo Acid Arab (with a slab of electro that’s the most club-focused effort), Turkey-via-Switzerland DJ Memhet Aslan and Tel Aviv’s Autarkic.
FORT ROMEAU
Insides 2xLP
(Ghostly International)
Londoner Mike Greene returns with a second full-length of still more sumptously crafted productions, with uplifting reveries (‘Folie’), cinematic synth work (‘Lately’) and billowing deep house (‘Insides’), all cranked out with his vintage arsenal of machines.
