Five on heavy rotation right now…

Beatrice Dillon’s ace Curl on Alien Jams sounds like a proper hit record and jam type affair. I just can’t get enough of this one at the minute.

Great when you receive a promo and think fuck that’s different and really good, as was the case when Late Night Call arrived to my inbox.

This whole Proibito release is first class as Mr Naples presents his own take on disco, house and chuggy electronics. At Ease is my fav though, fresh as!

A good friend put me onto this weapon a while ago, the mix of afro vocals, percussion and weird synths has resulted in regular club use every since.

Everyone’s favourite Auntie is certainly having a fine run of form these days. This rework by fellow jock the Revenge is just beaut.

I have loved the Comeme label since the get go. Born from the BumBumBox street parties on the sticky streets of South America, a sweet, sweaty break from the norm. Fun, vivacious and almost a little simplistic in their approach –  but in the best possible way. Their releases are truly designed to make you move.

Five here to get you going…

We love Ron Hardy and have done ever since we found out about him in our teens and always will due to the timeless nature of his productions. Everyone bangs on about Larry Levan & Paradise Garage, no doubt those nights were incredible but If we could fire up the time machine for one night only though, The Muzic/Music Box (delete as applicable) circa mid eighties would be the destination. We love the period when the disco era was moving towards the rawer sounds of early house music.

Ron Hardy was great, versatile in the mix, a master of the edit and generally in the blending of disco, house, acid and 80s pop favs, exactly what we’d be after. He would have been 59 this month, if we’ve done our calculations properly, so in respect of the man here are some firm favourites.

Slice and lock baby!

The kind of disco we love, raw and switching around like crazy. This Hardy edit is still good to go.

Robert Owens, Chip E, Larry Heard and Hardy, if you can get more house royalty gold on a disc we’ve yet to hear it.

Raw as you like, real as you like. There is a reason why tracks like this have outlasted the super polished stuff that came after.

Opening sets with this, then smashing the place to pieces with, acid, 909 drums and disco vocals. Come on that’s bound to have been insane and ridiculously fresh at the time. True innovator!

R.I.P Ron Hardy.

What a strange and interesting band.

Q – What kind of music are you into? Me – I like Hot Chocolate. Q – What, really?

Yes a lot of their material isn’t great but I’m always drunkenly going on to people about how they have some of the best, cheapest, deepest, weirdest tunes out there. Fact. The production is amazing, his voice is pure sex and the lyrics at times surprising, dark and political. Makes me think what else they have sitting in the vaults that was never released. Some of these records are obvious but it’s worth listening to them in a row to appreciate how good they sound.

Surely one of the finest, long standing imprints that’s come out of Europe is the French power house, Versatile Records. It releases absolute gold and style wise it pretty much touches on everything I love in modern electronics. Here are just a few favourites from their vast back catalogue.

Label owner DJ Gilb’R & DJ Sotofett joined forces on Foliage and show how to make jazz flecked conga house that doesn’t sound shit.

I:Cube is a VR mainstay, this could have so easily been a top five from him alone.

Here he is, getting all hip house on our asses.

This track does very little but at the same time does everything, hypnotic and timeless it’s exactly the kind of thing I look for in a house record and rarely leaves my record bag.

You can’t beat a bit of acid, especially on the Arabic tip.

Joakim is a firm BB favourite, everything he does is gold. He can’t be placed in a nice little genre specific box and we love him for it. A vintage Joakim number here, first heard on an Ivan Smagghe mix many moons ago and still sounding fresh to these ears.