Bianca Chandon Presents &Co - Best Of Friends

Label: Bianca Chandon

Listen to EP clips here

While it could be said that all great art has a story behind it, this is not always the case in the electronic music world. The best novels and poems can be the fruit of sudden epiphanies, incredible life experiences or years of labouring in obscurity. Rather unromantically, the best dance tracks are often the product of someone sitting hunched over a PC in their bedroom at 5am. But how much does a great narrative really add to our enjoyment of a piece?

It’s true that sometimes our finest records come from an unusual place. One might mention that this EP combines the talents of skater/ society boy Alex Olson, Sarcastic Disco’s Paul T and film composer Alberto Bof. Maybe add that it’s all released under the banner of Olson’s fashion label side-project Bianca Chandon. Or you could just say it’s the work of three friends who’ve spent a lot of time chilling out together on Venice beach. Either way, when the sound is this good, it’s easy to leave the story behind and focus on the music.

Two ten-minute epics occupy either side of the wax, mining a slo-mo disco sound with a tough acid streak. Best Of Friends lays down a tough kick and then contrasts a gurgling 303 with crystalline piano keys, perfectly balancing elegance and menace. B-side Wine Cooler is the real party-starter though, where a long jazzy build drops into an irresistible disco stomp. The two tracks are accessorised with a few filter sweeps and mix-friendly in/outros, but the pure funk coursing through these tunes is more than enough reason to get on board. There’s even a bonus acid workout included, but it doesn’t add much to the original package.

Nu-disco with actual substance, acid that doesn’t leave behind the funk, it’s a surprising and well-executed release that leaves us hoping that this unlikely trio will get together more often.

8/10

Guest Mix

Our main man Moth has come up with another sweet mix, this time charting some chilled summer house and disco, with a lot of WN favourites in the mix. Listen here:

 

Just for WN readers, here's the tracklist:

Moodymann – The Thief That Stole My Sad Days

Unknown Artist – A Jazz Thing

Metro Area – Piña

Mark Barrott – Saviours Or Savages

Domenique Dumont – L’Esprit de l’Escalier

Ben Sun – Seven Sisters

Ben Morris – Polarna Flyger Till Kuba

Paxton Fettel – Dots on the Skyline

Alice Smith – Love Endeavour (Maurice Fulton Remix)

Pablo Mateo – Roxy

J Albert – Love Delivered

Panama Brown – Theme From Panama Racing Club

Merwyn Sanders – Mimi Likes 2 Dance

Davina – Don’t You Want It

Move D – Eastman

Kornél Kovács – Malon

The Bass Foundation – Recognition (Club Rave)

Dream 2 Science – My Love Turns To Liquid

Samo DJ – Flyer Edit

Jean Adebambo – Say That You Love Me (DJ Nick The Record Re-Edit)

Aphex Twin – Alberto Balsalm

Nebraska - Stand Your Ground

Label: Mister Saturday Night

New York’s Mister Saturday Night has been a little quiet lately following the release of a label-defining compilation and mix CD last year. While they might be starting the year a little late, in May the imprint is flying out of the stables with not one but two great EPs, one from local Gunnar Haslam and this EP from another sorely-missed voice in the house scene, London’s Nebraska, who released a great album in 2011 and then totally disappeared.

Nebraska’s re-emergence is even more welcome given the quality of this EP, which is a masterclass in groove and execution, chanelling several distinct styles and nailing every one. Little Chan opens on a busy note, a flurry of bleeping synths, set in call and response with a swift acid burble while a locked rhythm subtly gives way to a straightened boogie bounce. The Stoop is a low-slung exercise in funk, jazzy keys rolling out over a confident strut and metronome handclaps.

Having started on a high, Nebraska impressively ups his game for the flipside, where title track Stand Your Ground fuses the best of the A-side’s two attributes, a swaggering groove visited by a series of glistening synths soaring straight into the stratosphere, melding the futuristic with the decidedly earthly to brilliant effect. Then Emotional Rescue rounds off the package with a smash-hit disco number out of nowhere, its filtering brass and looped vocals sure to bring euphoric vibes to the ‘floor. Stand Your Ground is quite a coup – a rare house EP where every track more than merits club play, and easily stands as one of the best releases in MSN’s already-impressive canon.

8.5/10

Tiger & Woods - Scoring Clubs

Label: Editainment

After erupting on the scene in 2011 with their superb brand of slo-mo boogie and powerful disco edits, vaguely anonymous duo Tiger & Woods have taken their sweet time over each release. As a result, each new record comes as something of an event, and since each is as good as the last, we’re happy to wait.

Celebrated DJs as well as producers, David Woods and Larry Tiger (almost certainly pseudonyms in themselves) go beyond the average disco edit. There’s a precision funk to their work, soaked in warmth but not lacking in heft, and here the pair move from their elicit bootleg white labels to full-on legitimacy, sampling two classics from the discography of Italian label Full Time Records,

A-side The Stopper has the pair on classic form, as a weighty bassline wiggles out over a sturdy, deliberate drum pattern and swift guitar riffs scooped from Kano's Don't Try To Stop Me. The duo tend to go for slow builds, here perfectly executed as the earworm vocal enters amid gasps that you might just echo yourself. The Matrix-sampling flip, Fox In The Box, is a squelchier late night affair, its diva vocals cut to an orgasmic wisp, with a hobnailed kick drum and a rave siren that’ll make you feel like you’re coming up hard even if you’re nowhere near a club. Scoring Clubs shows Tiger & Woods on as fine form as ever, pure disco killer.

7.5/10

FIO, BD, MM - BD01

Label: Big Doint

Berlin, London, New York, Detroit, Chicago… Adelaide? Not many associate Australia with a forward-thinking dance scene, but a clutch of Antipodean artists have recently been making noise on the house scene. This is mostly thanks to the work of Untzz, a close-knit group responsible for a trio of intriguing EPs over 2013. While the label’s sound has thus far erred into techy territory, their first release on sub-label Big Doint guns for the current disco/house trend head-on, resulting in a storming mixed-artist EP of three stone-cold killers. Francis Inferno Orchestra’s roiling Take No Time is the toughest of the bunch, cannily combining soulful vox and a funky bass riff with steel-toed percussion to winning effect. The brief breaks in the track’s relentless rhythm only serve to show off FIO’s hip hop styled sample manipulation, but this one's strictly for the clubbers, and it’s set to demolish the dancefloors.

The benefit of a various artists EP is that each producer can offer one of his very best rather than a collection of also-rans for the B-side, and Big Doint’s other two tracks prove just as worthwhile as FIO’s blistering A-side. The self-titled Big Doint doesn’t get off to the most promising start: its squiggly synths and jangling percussion work up a solid groove but feel like they’re missing a hook. Yet when this key element finally makes an appearance it’s better than could ever have been expected. A larger-than-life bassline swoops into play, flexing over the reinvigorated drum pattern that draws the track to a close. After two heavy-hitters the EP’s closer doesn’t disappoint either, as Mic Mills stretches out with an impossibly soulful slice of filter-disco. Following a similar track to recent WN favourites from Andrés and Chesus, Mills stitches disco loops into a warm instrumental workout, topped by a vocal breakdown which ekes out those last vestiges of honeyed soul. With its first EP Big Doint strides confidently into the big leagues, with each of its three varied tracks as essential as the last.

8.5/10