Paraphrasing the Soul Sonic Force and sorting through today`s releases for tunes that could have graced Alfredo Fiorito & Leo Mas’ Amnesia dance-floor.

BBTT had a Mac crash… We’ve got a bit of catching up to do…

Dr Bronzer / Sandee Bottoms / Is It Balearic?

Dr Bronzer is an alias of Alex Pasternak – he of Saidera and Florecer fame. Stepping away from the Brazilian boogie and ethereal sunset pop of those 2 projects, this solo E.P., features a couple of odd ball, but very Balearic, beats.

Sandee Bottoms’ clattering, rattling, metallic percussion pounds out an irregular rhythm, part hip hop, part house, beneath buzzing and ringing synths. The focal point is a Spanish vixen, a Mediterranean minx, who alternates between sexy whispers, and party-starting shouts. Echoed giggles and “Arriba!”s – like Sandee’s Notice Me, via Rio Rhythm Band’s Carnival Da Casa. LUPO’s Keep It Up. The vibe’s a little early `90s Creation Records, like Sheertaft or Hypnotone on the lash with Nena de Ibiza. A Coyote remix then adds a more conformist kick, in an attempt to tame the ecstatic exclamations – the yelps and shrieks, sharp exhales, of someone getting (consensually) spanked. 

Wet Dreams is a crazy, collaged, cowbell go-go-not-go-go groove, further coloured by explosions of TB-303 flexing, and serious 6-string shredding, which struts its stuff somewhere between William Orbit’s Bass-O-Matic and ACR’s Good Together. Max Essa’s mix is significantly mellow-er, smoothed out. Its main melody now made up of steel pan-like chimes. Projections’ reshape is a nice slice of seductive sunset boogie. All syncopated finger snaps, fusion keys – funky Moog-y modulations – and a jazzy b-line. 

Esa & Kamazu / Shukuma / Aweh

Shukuma is a quality piece of afro, acid house. Esa’s racing rhythm and TB-303 squiggles combining with South African star, Kamazu’s uplifting vocal, on a cracking continuation of a musical tradition that can be traced back to Zanga Zanga’s Oh Ciolili and Martyn Young’s remixes of Mory Kante’s Ye Ke Ye Ke. Its new age arpeggios dancing like sunlight on Suzanne Ciani’s Seven Waves. If you dig this, then do yourself a favour and also check Djingo Typical Band’s Vini Ouais, which has been remixed by Art Of Tones. 

On the flip you’ll find Aweh, which is must for fans of that Penny Penny collection released on Awesome Tapes. Significantly slower in tempo, but boasting a big banging piano, with its honking sax, and lyrical hook of “We need to share, we need each other”, it’s possibly even more Balearic. 

Eyes Of Others / Safehouse (Decius Remix) / Heavenly Recordings 

Eyes Of Others’ Safehouse is a scuzzy, scuffed up, bed-sit blues. An indie-rock dub score for the morning after the bash / binge before. An unshaven, sore-headed shuffle, shaking off the remaining “residuals”, accompanied by melodica blasts, while re-lighting what’s left of last night’s spliff. Its cowbell and Casio keyboard approximations of the tropics a cruel reminder that a proper summer holiday is a long way off. In Decius’ devilish hands it becomes a galloping electronic groove. The pitched-up +8 jack of Ron Hardy at Chicago’s Music Box, the pummelling EBM of the city’s less celebrated but equally infamous club, Medusa. Rocking, repetitive, and lo-fi, with lots of lovely raw edges. Rude, and defiantly analogue. Ruff, and ready to say “Yes!” to anything and everything. Doing their best to blow the valves on their busted old boxes of vintage gear.

Ghoßt Assembly / I Miss Your Love  / Ruf Cutz

Highly respected DJ, and co-founder of Manchester Digital Music Archive, Abigail Ward, dons the guise of Ghoßt Assembly for her debut 12 on Ruf Dug’s Ruf Cutz. While the press one-sheets cites the sounds of `80s Chicago as a point of reference, to my ears I Miss Your Love is more an homage to the music that was, at the same time, coming out of New York. Big, booming, and very, very sexy, it’s the Civilles & Cole of Sandee’s Notice Me and Seduction’s Seduction Theme. David Morales’ stripped-back Red Zone dubs. Popping and locking to perky programmed percussion, the vocals delivered by a dark, dangerous, obsessive diva. This marvellous mix of brilliant bass-line, drama-packed, minor-key Solina strings, and countering rave-y synth riff, also recalls the influential club smashes released on Canada’s Bigshot. Landlord’s I Like It. Mr & Mrs Dale’s It’s You. Personally I don’t need the prodigious piano, but when it hits you can be sure your party’ll go right off. 

Gratts / Jour De Fête / Be Strong Be Free

The new one from Gratts is a totally tropical, afro-Caribbean affair. Working with a full band in Berlin, the results remind me a great deal of Voilaaa’s brilliant, irresistible grooves. Hitting a house tempo, but packed with live instrumentation – bass, Clavinet, trumpet, Fender Rhodes – leading the charge is veteran musician Ange Nawasadio, who supplies the French vocals and some damn fine guitar. Also attempting to hog the spotlight is a harmonica hook, that comes care of Rheinzand’s Rheinhard Vanbergen. 

The Idjut Boys’ Conrad McDonnell delivers 2 dynamite, much more machined, dubs. He keeps the b-line intact, all be it amped up and buzzing, but reduces the rest of the original to echoed elements that fly, spin, in and out. The harmonica is filtered, gated, and phased. The rhythm guitar shaken apart. Each instrument taking its turn to be treated, twisted, and allowed a moment to shine, within the spaced-out, surroundings. 

Radio Slave / Amnesia / Rekids

Matt “Radio Slave” Edwards and Tom “Cagedbaby” Gandey get together for the single, Amnesia. Matt admits that the song is an homage to Ibiza’s hedonistic 1980s heyday, but the piece is actually more complicated, nuanced, than that. While it rattles along to the famous / familiar, oft sampled Funky Drummer break, combined with the sad melancholy synths, muted brass fanfares, and Tom’s fragile vocal, it’s actually a ringer for Wladimir M’s downbeat Dutch techno classic, Planet E. A direct descendent of this timeless thought-provoking and poetic track, Amnesia is not only a nod to the legendary club of the same name, but its lyric, with its “Surrounded by love” hook, is less concerned with crazy parties and psycho-active shenanigans, and more about us reconnecting with, and not forgetting, our humanity. Moody, and magnificent, a Fender Rhodes reveals itself in music’s final moments.