Friday 20 May 2011

Various - Beatdown Sampler Vol 1

Beatdown MusicThat’s Beatdown Music the Australian record label, you understand, not as in beatdown the slightly vague ‘genre’. So don’t pick this up looking for future soul, bruk beat, slo-mo house and deep, abstract techno. DO pick it up if you’re looking for some proper bumpin’ house to rock your dancefloor, with the cheeky biting of very familar vocal samples something of a theme…

First up, What’s His Name? comes from Marc Spence & Dr Love, and works snippets of the eponymous First Choice classic over insistent, bouncing beats. Tom Shorterz’ Cafe Of Lost Love then places another very familiar vocal sample (Primal Scream fans will recognise it for sure) over some rolling disco-house vibes in that late 90s kinda vein.

Next we have label boss Sonny Fodera, whose Contact is an upbeat slab of dancefloor deep in a Salted kinda vein, with a heavy dose of jazz (musically and vocally) and a little bit of Fatboy thrown in for good measure. And then finally, you get Don't Stop by James Shoji, which is in a similarly driving dancefloor vein, with echoes of UKG in its skippy, chopped-up feel and, unbelievably, chunks of Smokey Robinson’s Being With You, along with one or two other naggingly famliar little soundbites...

The latter takes some serious cojones, and it’s between that and the Sonny Fodera track as to which is my fave, but this is a very, very strong EP all round if it’s dancefloor frolics you’re after.

Out: This week

About: Beatdown Music is Sonny Fodera’s own label and just six releases young. The likes of Mark Farina, Gramphonedzie and Jorge Watts have already made appearances, though, so the future’s looking decidedly bright! You can find out more here.

Which is a good time to tell you as well, I guess, that Sonny is also featured in this month’s iDJ, along with Yakine, Pretty Criminals, Youandewan, Tempered DJs, Groovik and a bunch of other names that should be familiar to TIWWD readers, in a 'Rising Stars of Deep & Tech House' feature penned by yours truly. It’s in UK stores right now.

No comments:

Post a Comment