All ranting, review's and Ratings by Aidan Morrison.

For those of you not in the know, Aidan is a successful DJ (dB+) and runs the London based Dance label 5000Beats

All records kindly supplied for Review by Vinyl Solutions, Aberdeen St, London - In our eyes the best dance music shop, and label, this side of the pond


The Freak Project - Beat of a Drum - Soul Brother

This is quite a dark tribal tech house kinda number, the A side (Freak remix) consists of choppy undulating beats underpinned with deep bass and dark fx noises with 'the beat of a drum' repeated over the top.
The flip has a Peace Division remix, which ditches some of the choppiness of the beats in favour of a more 4 to the floor style. It still retains much of the darkness of the original albeit taking a much more stripped down approach. Good for those tribal moments on the dancefloor.

7.5 / 10




Paul Gaarn - 'Groove Maker'' / 'Rise AboveMe' - Telica Communications


'Groove Maker' is very trance, and not too cheesy. It's quite a pacy tune with a syncopated synth b line running throughout. Paul employs some quite cool sounds in the mix as well as nice use of subtle distortion at the end of some of the phrases.
I am not so keen on Rise Above me, it's a bit trance by numbers, sounding like some of the old Metropolis / Petit Prince / Phuture Wax stuff from years ago. Paul uses some good sounds in the track but it's nothing too new. Overall, for those of you of the trance trouser persuasion, give it a spin and see if you like.

7 /10




dB+ 'Your Time' / Speedorange 'Everything's History' - 5000beats


Well it's my track on my label so obviously I think it's great, after all I wouldn't make music I didn't like. Your Time has been described to me as sounding like the bastard child of Daft Punk, Armand Van Helden and Fatboy Slim, which I assume was meant as a compliment.
The Speed Orange track is like the Dirty Beatniks on drugs, dark and druggy.

In the interests of being unbiased there is no score for this track.




Chris Jackson 'Shape Shifting' - Catalyst

Sparatic, Abstract End and Extinguishing Ease are the three tracks on the wax. This is a bit of a funny one as I thought I had Catalyst down to a tee. Their usual style seeming to be mostly twisted house / techno tunes but this is definitely in the tech house ballpark. Sparatic is probably the best of the bunch with it's pitched up and down bloopy synth noises and Junglist sounding snares but ultimately it's not as great as some of the other Catalyst releases.

7 / 10




Deadly Avenger - King Tito's Gloves, Derrick Carter's Totally Original Disco Remake - Illicit Recordings

Derrick Carter is the man, I saw him spinning not so long ago and he rocked the place. This has got groove baby, and loads of it. Music to pimp to which is always good. There are 2 tracks on offer - Totally Digital Disco 'Remake' and Totally Digital Disco 'Regroove' both are very good. If you have ever watched Shaft and thought 'I wish I was that cool' then buy this record.

9/ 10




DJ Sneak - You Can't Hide From Your Bud - Classic Music Company

This is probably Sneak's finest moment, an absolutely massive track when it first came out, epitomising the groovy American twisted house sound. Derick Carter has been chosen for the remix duties on this one and he does a game job but ultimately it's gotta be hard to remix a classic and make it better. Derrik's mix opts to quiet radically change the original, making it a bit more of a slow bumper that is a real journey, changing and unfolding over one side of the vinyl. Buy this record if you like long shifting grooves.

10 / 10 (Well it is 'you Can't Hide From Your Bud')




Jaquez Your Body - DJ Cuts

Some people like this. I don't. Each to their own. There hasn't been a lot of love put into this and you can hear it.

4 /10

written by on 07/01/2001 00:00:00