Records what skkatter bought so far this year (part three)

DJ Gregory - Don’t Know Malendro / Vasefa (Faya Combo)

Disco house shock horror! I-F played the “Don’t Know Malendro” track near the end of his set when he played for Electric City last December and it caught my ear so I went up and asked him what it was and it was this rather upbeat number. The B-side has a more Latin feel to it with and wouldn’t sound out of place on a Los Hermanos EP.

Roots Manuva - Colossal Insight (Big Dada)

Not one of Mr. Manuva’s best tracks by a long stretch but this release features a mind bending chopped up house remix by the Soft Pink Truth that is well worth tracking this down for. There’s also a forgettable Royksopp remix which is well worth forgetting about.

Egyptian Lover - Platinum Pyramids (Egyptian Empire Records)

Overall a rather disappointing album from the lover from Egypt. A bunch of uninspired 808 workouts with a few token “I like girls and pyramids” raps thrown over it all. The best two tracks “Party” and ” Dance Floor” were already released on a single early last year. Buy that instead, the rest of the album is filler. Shame really.

Kavinsky - Teddy Boy (Record Makers)

A bit of a strange one here. As far as I know this is Kavinsky’s debut release, he’s French and this sounds French. French synth pop type stuff. Not what I’d normally be interested in but there’s a jackin’ Mr. Oizo remix turns the synth pop into dancefloor electro pop. There’s also a not so hot Arpanet remix here, Gerald Donald needs to exercise some quality control!

Rue East - Birmingham (Birmingham)

A hugely popular techno track that originally came out in 2001 (I believe) and has been remixed by such heavyweighst as Surgeon and Ben Sims. At long last the original has been re-released, unfortunately the B-side has a god awful cheesy “rave remix” on it. Let’s just pretend we didn’t hear that. The original is one of the highlights of Mark Broom and Dave Hill’s collaborations as Rue East.

Solieb - Circus Maximus (Maschine Music)

Solieb - Plastic Facility (Maschine Music)

Maschine Music is a new label run by Oliver Lieb and these two EPs are both by him and are very deep and dubby minimal techno affairs which remind me of Frank Lorber’s Nummer Records label quite a bit (and one of these tracks is featured on Frank Lorber’s latest mix CD on Cocoon). Well worth checking out, I first heard these when Giles Armstrong played them in Electric City a good while ago. There Lieb has released another two EPs on this label but I haven’t heard them yet.

Various - Nubreed Presents: Y4K [Part Two] (Distinct’ive Breaks)

Ah breaks. I always find it difficult to find good examples of this genre without mentioning Si Begg or Tipper and this record proves my point. The A side here has a slightly interesting farty bass workout from Son of the Electric Ghost (who Simon F is always going on about) which didn’t hold my interest for long. Si Begg however delivers a monster of a track called “Turn The Volume Up” which is the best thing I’ve heard from him in a long time. The B side has a plodding breaks by numbers track by some guys called poxyMusic. Just get this for the Si Begg track if you like your breaks chopped and stretched to the (Pepsi) max.

Jimmy Edgar - Color Strip (Warp)

One of few decent members of the newer wave of Warp Records artists, Jimmy Edgar has been working overtime with the VSTs to give us a mixture of stuttering futuristic rn’b, and electro hits that sounds like a cross between Aux 88 and Prince. Imagine Tiga if he bought a copy of Reaktor.