Some absolutely beautiful records came out of the early days of dance music culture in the late 80s – mid 90s (some call it Rave) and have transcended through the years to still make perfect sense today. An innocence in delivery combined with not stuffing the life out of proceedings created these perfectly frozen in time moments, that many have imitated but rarely bettered over the years. The majority of these great recordings were born out of Belgium, Germany and Italy on hardware set ups with fairly limited computing situations, meaning sequencing on the fly, fiddly synth & sampler work created certain restrictions but also meant the elements you put in had to count! Here’s five still good to go and ONE that went under the knife by us…

Below are some tracks I think embody a certain type of sound, a sound I adore and look for in other records. It’s a sound I can only really describe as sleaze. This sound isn’t celebrating the campness and escapism of Hi NRG or Italo – it sits somewhere else, just down a bit in the cheap seats. It’s a seedy sound of broken hearts, base lines, cheap drum machines… and yes, sex. Desperation and dancing. Below are some classics and a BB EDIT thrown in, for the more adventurous DJ to play out at their local.

Finally a cheeky little cover of Male Stripper by Clinic.

Another free edit HERE and our inspiration behind it! I love Chicago house music, it is and always will be the true essence of what house music really is – naive, camp, raw, often acidic and essentially about a feeling over flashy production techniques. Sadly a lot of house got completely bastardised and polished to death over the years but on a plus point it has kept the originals and the people who carry the torch as relevant as ever. Here are just five from a list of hundreds we love…

In the lead up to the next BB 12″ coming out in July, we are gonna focus on some aspects we love in music. Starting with KEEP DANCIN’ our Chris Issak edit, where his live bass and drums are married in dubbed out bliss…

Also below a selection of some firm favourites from the same haunting and reverbed territory.

After the US paved the way and before Germany and Holland properly took hold, the UK (London in particular) held the crown for well over a decade with some of the best labels and output in electronics by a mile. Nuphonic was one of the most important imprints, with a hefty back cat that we often revisit in DJ sets because it’s so on point with many releases still sounding timeless. Here’s a recap on some favourites…

It put out great records that blurred the boundaries between genres in the best possible way.

Motif – with the kind of dubbed out, loose non-polished house music we lap up.

Pepe Braddock on the remix means only one thing, genre defying quality.

Block 16 again, this time in original form with a weird slice of electro influenced club business.

Xpress II’s Diesel flying solo with a piece of ace hypnotic deepness.

They also birthed the ace spin off label Tirk, which put out gold like this.

Their compilations were among the best around, all killer no filler affairs covering all the areas between house, disco and more and included Andrew Weatherall’s – Nine O’ Clock Drop which featured the above weapon.

The Idjut Boy’s Saturday Nite Live is another stand out Nuphonic compilation. It skirts effortlessly between dub, disco, afro, techno & jazz, reinforcing great djs don’t stand still in their sets.

The label was responsible for two superb Loft compilations, celebrating some of David Mancuso’s selections.

 Nuphonic released this great Harvey Remix, way before the world and his wife were claiming to be life long fans.

Do yourself a favour and scoop this – 34 copies at £1.99 is criminal. You can thank us later!