Don’t have much to say about this label apart from it’s pushing the boundaries of interesting ‘dance’ music into all the right territories. Covering many of the sounds I like and putting the fakers to shame. Hats off to them!

I’ve fallen in love with the Swedish imprint Born Free, as it’s releases are unique and fresh sounding. Their club ready output in particular is just what I look for in modern dance music, hypnotic grooves built around a few key elements that sound huge on a decent soundsystem. I also love the broad range of styles they release across, meaning you never really know quite what to expect. Here are five personal favs from their back cat.

For a decade they reigned supreme in my mind. Going back on these records now they still sound amazing. As a label they managed to salute the past without being a pastiche, which is incredibly hard to do.

Below are 5 that still have people asking ‘what is that record?’

I have loved a lot of this Austrian man’s output over the years, mainly because he confidently hops between modern jazz, funk, panel beating techno and slow mo electronics and as executed in such a timeless fashion, a lot of his releases (esp from the nineties) still make perfect sense today. He seems to have slowed down a touch in more recent years (haven’t we all) but here are five from Patrick Pulsinger’s extensive back catalogue that in my opinion are still good to go.

1 Plus 1, Barbie & The Kens, Beachfront, Bobby “O” & His Banana Republic, Bubba & The Jack Attack, Charlene Davis, Claus V., Condo, Darlene Down, Dressed To Kill, Fascination (3), Focus 1, Free Enterprise, Gangsters Of House (2), Gina Desire, Girls Have Fun, Girly, Gomez Presley, Gringo Lopez, Hippies With Haircuts, Hotline (2), House Of ‘O’, Ian Darby, Johnny Bankcheck, Joy Toy, Lifestyle, Lilly & the Pink, Lola (31), M.C. Fritz & The P-Rockers, Malibu (2), Mandarine, Miss Tammi Dee, Nancy Dean, New Breed, Oh Romeo, One & Two Teenies, One-Two-Three, Patty Phillipe, Sandra Ford, Something Anything, Spooge Boy, Teen-Rock, The Beat Box Boys, The Boyd Brothers, The College Boys, The Fem-Spies, The Flirts, The I-Spies, The New York Models, Vision 1, Waterfront Home, Wow, Zwei Maenner

HiNRG doesn’t get the love or recognition that disco or italo does, but for me it should. At the heart of it was Bobby ‘O’ – an incredibly strange man — a complete contradiction on a lot of levels. He’s a hyper-macho homophobic ex-boxer who made gay disco. He once backed out of a lease because he found out the previous tenant was gay, yet he produced legendary drag queen Divine, and worked with the Pet Shop Boys. Most of his songs are brazen odes to sex and partying, and yet he’s a fundamentalist Christian who penned a (still unpublished) book on creationism. Make of that what you will.