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

A08 / Waiting For Zion Remixes / Compost Records

Dirk Leyers and DJ Nomad are A08. As Africaine 808, back in 2014, they scored a smash with a track called Lagos, New York. This is still a perfect tune for flipping between the eclectic, “Balearic” and more straightforward house. Now rebranded the pair have a new album, Waiting For Zion, out on Compost. Two pieces have also been cherrypicked and remixed. Nineoneone is vocoder-ed electro, that rides a clicking popping, percolating footwork / juke drum pattern. Its hook is a hypnotic, sorta snake charming reed. Echoing the Master Musicians of Joujouka, as ancient meets modern trance. Peruvian duo Dengue Dengue Dengue actually stay pretty to the to OG, but drive the BPMs up. Stuttering the rhythm and reinforcing the bass, heading toward the middle of the dancefloor, and summoning the sound of Mark Ernestus’ Ndaga Records. Yamahaica is sharp electronic skank, with wah-wah-like phasing and a bionic brass melody. Nerk’s heavy dub version, dancing to a double-time kick, is a fairly frantic techno steppers.

Cento / Photochrome / Miss You

Originally released on Italian label Idea, during – by the sounds of it – the late 1970s, the 45 of Cento’s Photochrome currently goes for an eye-watering sum. A favourite of legendary DJ Beppe Loda (he released his own edit) it struts its strange stuff like Jean-Pierre Massiera, Jacky Chalard, and Goblin, disguised as Discocross, sharing a studio. Crazy cosmic disco, with a giddy galloping groove, it’s packed with trippy tape effects, Spanish guitar sections, and floating female harmonies. The new Miss You 12” reissue also includes an even more deranged 8 minutes plus dub. Full of phased freakouts, this gets totally technoid halfway through.

Filippini / Listen To Your Heart / Thank You

Released in 1985, on an offshoot of Severino Lombardoni’s Disco magic, Enrico Filippini’s Listen To Your Heart is a dynamite bit of downtempo Italo. A rarity, now reissued by Thank You, it’s something that can be spun next to much-loved Balearic sides such as Mike Francis’ Let Me In and Bandaid’s A Tour In Italy. Seductive synth / electro pop, with a little of the Linda Di Franco’s about it, its keys recall the riff of State Of Play’s Natural Colour (which featured in the KU club’s legendary Look De Ibiza video), while programmed panpipes do Wally Badarou’s Mambo. A super sax solo sits on top.

Modula / Che E’ Stato? /  Archeo Recordings

Archeo Recordings might be best known for their reissues, but following their recent Infra Disco set, they now have a fresh 45 containing more brand new music. Che E’ Stato? showcases a modern Neapolitan funk sound, where Modula, aka Filippo Romano, reinterprets Gino Soccio’s 1982 dance floor hit, Who Dunnit?, and Early Sounds Recordings founder Pellegrino steps in for a remix. Modula’s makeover has great growling, sometimes rapidly slapped bass, razor-like rhythm guitar, and a shed load of spacey effects. Disco-not-disco, with a post-punk edge, it’s got something of the Factory Records, ACR and 52nd Street, about it. The I Feel Glow Rework elevates the tempo, adds an ethereal female vocal, and bounces along, kinda cosmic, Arpadys, Spatial & Co., Monkey Star-esque.

Neuro State / I Remember Gino / Sound Metaphors

Gino Soccio appears again on Neuro State’s tribute I Remember Gino. The work of prolific Florentine DJ / producer Stefano Noferini, this first popped up on the Falsinni Brothers’ imprint, Interactive Test, in 1991. Now licensed to Sound Metaphors it’s uplifting, Italian, and a shot of what Don Carlos calls “Paradise” house. More sophisticated than a full-on “scream up”, while it boasts an admittedly cheesy vocal, it’s actually from a far cooler camp, which would include pukka pieces like Paradiso’s Boys Own fanzine / label favourite, Here We Go Again It also features a little faux flute, a la the much-loved Last Rhythm. A Percappella mix makes plain the homage to Gino with a loop from his classic cosmic electronic epic, There’s A Woman.

Pye Corner Audio / Walk In The Forest Acid / Pye Corner Audio

Martin Jenkins has produced his fair share of “Balearic” moments, alongside friends Pete Herbert and Mat Anthony, releasing on labels such as Mancunian institution Aficionado. Solo, as Pye Corner Audio, I associate him with his output on Ghost Box, and their cult, collectable hauntological, hermetic world of library music, folk horror, vintage movie scores, and BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound effects. However, every month, for Bandcamp’s Fee-Free-Friday, he manages to manufacture a more dancefloor-directed missive. May’s offering is Walk In The Forest Acid, which is sort of “ambient” house. A track whose TB-303 bass-line starts out booming, but fairly restrained, and slowly gets more and more gnarly. Whose synths emit euphoric explosions. Swells, surges, rushes of well-being, like a slow motion firework display, accompanied by classic Detroit techno strings. Then a second 303 comes in…

Juan Ramos / Pulse / Bless You

ESP Institute extended family member Juan Ramos has a belter out on Bless You. Pulse is unpredictable, post-punk edged, and has ants in its pants and party to start. With a loop of disco percussion it kicks off a carnival of car alarms and clanked, clonked pots and pans. Noisy, energetic, and encompassing enthusiastic “ecstatic” exclamations / porno moans and groans, it comes across like a lost Daniele Baldelli / Cosmic Club classic given a 21st Century production punch.

Jake Stephenson / Voyage To Atlantis / Transmigration

Jake Stephenson was an incredibly prolific (Discogs lists a staggering 61 aliases) UK trance producer, who sadly prematurely passed in 2005. Already the subject of a small retrospective on Pennsylvania-based label, Re:discovery, Jake is now also the focus of a new collection care of Berlin’s Transmigration. While most of the E.P. is definitely too banging for me, Voyage To Atlantis – credited to Shamanic Tribes On Acid – is trippy and ethereal, and channels the prog-y productions of Underworld, William Orbit, and The Orb. With a long beatless intro, and outro, it includes a section set to marching drums. While it’s not breakbeat-driven the vibe reminds me of seminal sides like Scott Hardkiss’ Rain Cry. That perhaps crossed with Lazer Worshipers’ Free Flight. It could just be that I’ve been listening to a lot of this stuff recently, while prepping my Sabresonic piece. Regardless, what you get is nine and half minutes of euphoric downtempo trance. Spiralling sequences and angelic voices are looped, relentlessly, hitting in wave after wave. Even listened to straight it gets a bit disorientating / “rushy”. I sold a lot of similar sounding records in the mid-90s, as I thought they erred too much toward the cheese. However, in hindsight, some of them do still work.

John Tejada & Plaid / Freeways / Palette Recordings

L.A.’s John Tejada has been engaged in a lot of collaborations lately. The most recent one is with Ed Handley and Andy Turner aka Plaid. The project, so far, has produced two tracks, released on John’s Palette Recordings. Freeways is my favourite. It fuses nostalgic, rose-tinted, rave riffs – think Orbital’s Chime – with delicate, mercurial melodies, that dance in counterpoint. Waltz in 3 /4 time. It’s far house-ier, “straighter” than anything Plaid would produce themselves these days – perhaps even since their 1993 Warp debut, Bytes – and could easily spin side-by-side the music of a younger generation, one clearly inspired by them. Share a dancefloor, say, with big selling artists such as Bicep.

Zsa Zsa La Boum / Something Scary / Sound Migration 

Zsa Zsa La Boum’s Something Scary is a banging bit of early Belgian house. Produced in by 1988 Ferre Baelen and Rembert De Smet – both legends in their scene – as New Beat birthed Hard Beat, and aimed at the barmy boys and girls who partied at Ghent’s mega club, Boccaccio. Sprinkled with samples from the 1982 horror flick The Entity – which Martin Scorsese has called one the scariest films ever made – the track’s stamped with a distinctive squelchy acid noise. However, I don’t think this is a TB-303, rather Ferre and Rembert improvising, doing their best to create something that sounds like a riff from Roland’s game-changing little silver box. Their contemporaries, Herman Gillis, Jo Casters, Roland Beelen, as Airplane Crashers, did something similar by cutting up Tyrone Brunson’s The Smurf. A new reissue of Zsa Zsa on Sound Migration also features a couple of fierce, forceful remixes from Anatolian Weapons, who most definitely owns a legit 303.