DOWNLOAD

 

MIX NOTES

A whole bunch of deep house I’ve been collecting and hearing at parties all over Brooklyn for the past few months, with a few 90s and earlier 2000s gems thrown in to remind us where we’ve been.

You Ain’t Really Down (Jazzanova Remix) – Berlin collective Jazzanova flipped this 1983 Status IV proto-house classic in 2005 into a stripped down, percussion-forward dub. It never really gets out of first gear, but first gear is just right for the first song of this mix.

It’s What We Live, It’s What We Are – Hometown heroes Masters At Work bring the energy up, as always, with a laid back, 2021 party starter I’ve heard Louie play a few times this year. It features the immortal voice of Donnell Rush, whose vocal career was cut tragically short by heart failure in 1996 at age 35. RIP.

To Know You – DJ/Prodcuer Rainer Trueby hails from Stuttgart but commands dance floors in Berlin and Munich and at festivals all over Europe. This has been a favorite of mine since it came out in 2009. Has a soulful, Moodymann-ish vibe that just lets the groove do its thing. I’m quite sure you’ll agree.

Message (Forteba Remix) – Barcelona DJs Qmusse & Dubaa tapped Budapest DJ Krisztian Dobrocsi aka Forteba for this remix. Forteba also produces drum and bass and other electronic excursions under the pseudonym Krisztian Decay. This came out on the Hungarian label Itom in 2016.

Cutting Shapes – NYC DJ Malik Hendricks is part of a new generation of house heads coming up that seem thankfully less constrained by the orthodoxy of the old guard. This is a good thing, as they’re breathing new life into this thing we call house and carving out space for themselves and and their audience, who were too damn young for Hubert St or King St. You do you, youngblood. I like this track so much,, I bought it twice, by accident LOL.

Moving On Up (MK Movin’ mix) – the clean and polished, ,big room sound of 1993, when house was big business, especially in the UK. Detroit legend Mark Kinchen AKA MK hooked this M People track up rather nicely, with his signature sense of clarity and restraint, letting the vocals shine though. This shit sounds like The Tunnel to me, or maybe The Sound Factory, and it really holds up.

Larry’s Jam - Brooklyn’s own John Julius Knight kinda does one thing, but he does it very well. I am not always in the mood for it, but sometimes a little filtered disco is all you need. And Double Exposure’s “Everyman” is certainly in my top 10 disco songs of all time, so turn it up and get down.

Ritmo Sagrado – My man Doug Gomez continues to rule the Afro House charts from his tropical roost in Costa Rica. I try not to look at his social feed too much, especially during the NY winter, because he really seems to have “the life” down there. More power to him. This is a collab with Conway Kasey, who like Doug, really knows how to hook up some drums for old Shelter heads like me. This shit is epic.

Okay Cuba (débruit Remix) – Parisian DJ Débruit makes sparse, staccato, synthy, percussive tracks that just have an indescribably HYPE-ness for me. A bit of Pepe Braddock’s loose experiementation – but less layered. More stripped down. Just right. This came out on the remix pack for Gilles Peterson’s Havana Cultura Band in 2016.

Watoto Sonics – DJ Dafro riffs off of some of the techy, droning vibes coming out of South Africa for the last decade, creating something truly hypnotic for 2021. It’s the kind of track that makes me wish it was 6am and the system is deafening and the smoke machines and strobes are running full tilt and I can just get lost in the moment. Feel me?

Sacude – LLV hooked up this conga breakdown for Tony Touch. Both brothers know just what something this stripped down does to a dance floor. Not rocket science, Just roots.

Pure – the incomparable Monique Bingham, doing what she does best, for Jay Denes aka Blue 6. This came out in 2000 and absolutely saturated NYC at the time. Naked Music was putting out a ton of this schmoove house in those days, and it came to really sonically define much of that era, to a degree. The whole Naked Music sound was certainly over-exposed for me personally, but when I haven’t heard it in awhile, it’s blissful.

Feelin’ Feelin’ – One of my DJ heroes, and a cool-ass mofo to boot, Sting International is at it again, tapping Inaya Day, who’s been in the game for 20+ years, but seems to just be wrecking shop lately. That’s right. I’m bringing back “wreck shop”. At this rate I’ll be catching wreck in no time.

Low Down Drums (Chus & Ceballos Sweet Love Edit) - Kind of a big room, party-rocking vibe on this, remixed by big room, party rocking Spanish techno kings, Chus & Ceballos. I usually hate when producers just throw on acapellas with no regard for tempo or timing, but Barrington Levy’s voice cuts through so clear, it just kinda works.

Terrace – DJ & Producer Rampa is one of the founders of Keinemusik, a Berlin OG Techno/House label and DJ collective. This came out in 2019 but I just heard it this past summer, and I loooove these kinda techy tracks. I threw some added percussion on top,, to keep the mix from going too dark LOL.

2 Da Bone – Speaking of OGs, UK super producer Grant Nelson released this jump-up floor stomper in 1995, with my man, Brooklyn’s own legendary DJ Disciple on vocals, schooling them young cats on the metaphysical, existential, universal philosophy that we now simply take as a given: house is a feeling. Cliche? Perhaps. But not in 1995. And not to me in 2021. Say word.

Just Wanna Be With You – While we’re in the Way Back Machine, let’s stop in on 1994 to peep Kerri Chandler and Shuji Hirose aka Bassmental, who were effortlessly laying the foundation for generations of house newjacks. Kerri continues to blaze trails to this day, thank god. The man is a BEAST.

Love Me Forever Or Love Me Not (C&C Dub Of Doom Mix) – More fresh sounds of 90s New York, with Clivillés & Cole at the controls, in 1990, sort of right before they blew up with Deeper Love. This track is a serious journey, and I didn’t even play the whole thing. I think I first heard Danny Tenaglia play this. If you ever have a chance to hear Danny play house classics, do NOT miss that shit. He is a master, particularly of this era.

Warrior Mdube – To be straight up, I’m a bit burnt out on much of the Afro House I hear in NY clubs these days. Sometimes it’s damn near all you get, all night. But when a track hits for me, it hits. This was an international hit in 2019, but entered my life this past year, and I just love it. Miriam Makeba’s voice is just unparalleled, and producer Godfrey Hlapa aka G-Washington from Limpopo, South Africa knew just how to let her shine.

Unobenga (LLV Remix) – More South African grooves, from Professor, Ndu Shezi, and Thebe, from 2018. OK so maybe I’m not totally sick of SA house just yet.

Know You Want Me – A bit of a palette cleanser, here. Dubby, spacey, deep house vibes from UK beat junkie Chris Upson aka Tenshu. This came out in September of this year.

Feel The Fire (Chez n Trent Dub) – Back to 1995 again, cuz nothing else quite sounds like it. I would be DJing Hip Hop upstairs at Nell’s and sometimes they’d shut the upstairs bar down early, and I could pack up and head downstairs and listen to Pal Joey close out the night playing acetates of Hot Music or whatever new shit he was cooking up. Lucky me. Whatup, Joe!

Fight To Love – Louie Vega doing what he does best, hook up some vocals so we can sing along and get our groove on. A lost art, some would say. Singer Malehloka Mary Hlalele AKA Maleh from Lesotho, SA has a beautifully warm tone, and Shimza’s original version was uncharacteristically light and bouncy, setting up Louie nicely for an easy win on NY dance floors.

Paliva – My man Matty Matt texted me a link to this track, simply saying “this went off at 718”, referring to Danny Krivit’s 718 Sessions, one of my favorite NY parties. DJs look out for each other like that LOL. Give it a listen and I’m pretty sure you can see why that might be the case. Themba is Themba Mbongeni Nkosi, aka Euphonik, who’s been blowing up dance floors in South Africa and around the world for damn near 20 years. Okay maybe I’m not so sick of Afro House, after all. Still… just give me some screaming church divas every now and then, between your Jo’Burg beats, and I’ll stop complaining.

Cookie Man – DJ Cioz is the founder of Knobs Bergamo, a creative musical hub in Bergamo, Italy for musicians and artists to collaborate and make magic. Bergamo is a hop skip and a jump Northeast of Milan and a nice place to find yourself of an evening.

Earth, Sun, Moon (Atjazz Remix) – I seem to put at least one Atjazz (Martin Iverson) track on just about every house mix I make these days. This one has two. Dude does not miss. Montreal macks Fred Everything & Trevor Walker released this last month on Compost Records, out of Munich.

Without You (Scott Wozniak remix) - You may think I’m exaggerating when I say hearing this song gets me seriously verklempt, but it was an anthem in a particularly golden era of the 39th st incarnation of Shelter that is near and dear to my heart and hips and soul. Scott Wozniak was absolutely murdering it in those days, with a remarkable ability to churn out anthem after anthem, usually R&B vocals that sounded made specifically for me and the other 400 regulars in the club. Anyway, who feels it knows it. And probably sings along to it, too.

Rose Rouge (Atjazz Astro Remix) – I’m bringing it back down to first gear for the last track of the mix. Myself and every other DJ on earth played this song to death in 2000 when it came out. It set a new standard for Jazz-infused house that a helluva lot of people spent the next decade trying to reproduce. It was the brainchild of Ludovic Navarre aka St Germain, whose been in this game since the mid 90s and continues to make dope records to this day. This year they released a bunch of remixes and Martin’s was the one for me. Thanks for listening and have a great holiday!