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



Vitamin D and Unique - Overpass - Terraform Records

This is some good wax. Very current sounding, it's got that dark filtered rolling house thing that everyone seems to be on at the moment but these boys are doing it better. Full of drops and chops for the kids as well as some lovely keys and guitar. It sounds like funk for the 21st century. Jan Driver drops a mix on the B-side but it isn't quite up to par with the original seemingly losing some of the funk along the way.

8 /10




Phatts and Small - Respect The Cock - Multiply

A dark twitchy paranoid feeling slice of house. The bass grooves along nicely with sound fx running in and out of the mix and what was originally Tom Cruise but, due to sample clearance issues, is now a sound-a-like repeating 'Respect the Cock'. The dance music press seem to be grooving on this but it doesn't really do much for me. The flip side has got the Digital Souls dub of 'This Time Around' on it and is far more rocking, fat bass, congas, filtered guitars and keys bounce around in a very summery kinda way, before rolling out with some sax action in the final part of the track.

7.5 / 10




Harry Choo Choo Romero - Tania - Bambossa Records

Another day another Romero tune. This is quite track head stuff; the groove doesn't really change much. Keys, beats, chopped slightly stuttered vocals and of course the obligatory filtered bits are the main players. There are two different mixes, the original and new mix, both of which are quite similar. For my money it's the 'new' mix that is slightly better as it has slightly different chops and edits to the loops. Ultimately though it doesn't really grab me all that much

7 / 10




Jan Driver - Soul Shaker -

Head straight for the Tom Novy Mix for a bit of the action. The others are ok and slightly different but this has got some great elements, synth drops, doom-laden vocals and a great rolling synth line running along in the background. The whole thing reminds me a little of Van Helden's Witch Doktor (think 'I am the Witch Doktor / I am the Soul Shaker.' etc). But fortunately Tom's mix stays clear of that. There is also an interesting mix from Trisco, which sounds quite like some of Fluke's earlier stuff.

7.5 / 10




Del 5 - Hunchy Pie / Super League - Shaboom

Shaboom once again. They seem to get about these boys, rolling the real house flavour straight out of Blackpool (?) Anyway this isn't the best stuff I have heard on Shaboom, out of the two the better one is Super League. Very late night track head stuff that has quite a distant sax groove playing over bubbly synth effects and a large tribal style drum thing going on.

7 / 10




Funkstar Criminal - "Groove Junkie" - Very Disco Recordings

Groove Junkie is a solid techno / house number driven by it's percussion and bass line. Although not something that is necessarily gonna be the track you remember at the end of the night it is quite effective on the dancefloor. The B1 track 'You Got Me Riding' is probably my favourite, essentially a big fat bouncy bass groove with some chopped up vocals, very funkalicious and very good for the dance floor. The B2 track Ska revival is a real cut n past filter job, not to say that it is bad, just that is what it is.

7.5 / 10 (but 8.5 for You Got Me Riding)

written by on 08/07/2001 00:00:00