Feel my Bicep

Red Bull  Music Academy have kindly given us 2 pairs of tickets to the special one-off night at the Royal Festival Hall, bringing a host of pioneers from the worlds of experimental electronics and avant-garde music. The mighty line up includes: Carl Craig, Francesco Tristano, Moritz von Oswald, Matmos, Bugge Wesseltoft, Henrik Schwarz, and Terre Thaemlitz as DJ Sprinkles.

To win a pair of tickets we want to know the funniest thing witnessed or happened to you in a club, DJing or as a punter…stick it in the comments

Continue reading ‘RBMA & RA’

This deep house classic was released on Trax records in 1986, if you want a history lesson on early house music, look at the Trax release list which began around ‘85.  The record is written by Robert Owens and Larry Heard, who helped shape the sound of dance. These two collaborated under Fingers Inc, responsible for classics like Mystery of Love. But this original release went under Robert Owens name.

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Continue reading ‘Robert Owens – Bring Down the Walls’

This perfect combination of deep jazzy Soul and House. Deep beats & Detroitesque arrangements. ‘It’s a mother f**ker’ is the A side on the W.A.R. EP out in 07′ on Stilove4music. It’s one for all the old school New Jersey Deep fans out there. Stripped down, raw a la Kerri Chandler, this is house made for a dark and sweaty dancefloor.

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Continue reading ‘Trusme – It’s a mother f**ker’

The funk line and pop-in bass in this tune is so ace….actually the whole tune is amazing. One of my favourite of the disco classics, this got to number 1 back in 1980 its sad to think amazing tunes like this will realistically never top the charts again.

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Continue reading ‘The Whispers – The beat goes on’

Every so often a tune ends up on my hard drive and I have no idea where it came from. This track is a perfect example. Apparently, its by some band called ‘4-You’, though I can’t find anything about them online. In fact, it could even be just the start of a track. Whatever, its still an amazing bit of high enery Italo.

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Continue reading ‘Love Dub – 4-You (?)’

Everyone seems to be going on about the Big Pink these days.  Though, if Iwas compaing band with ‘pink’ in their name, I’d say 80’s ‘Kissing the Pink’ are the best hands down. Ok, their trying to sound a little like Depeche Mode, but you can’t deny these two classics. Two perfect pieces of synthy and  nu-wavey perfection.

Big Man Restless

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Mr. Blunt

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Continue reading ‘Kissing The Pink’

All genres of music have their moment in the sun. In dance music that moment lasts about 6 months, and then it sounds completely out of date. In many cases, that leaves a lot of legitimately great musicians and Djs waiting five years to become relevant again. I guess the last big fad was Minimal, and I suppose every sincere dance fan should be a bit Minimalised out by now. Just like they’ll be Discoed out eventually. And then everyone will be Housed out etc. Let’s just hope Trance is indefinitely out of the loop

Anyway, here’s a Minimal tune that still packs a punch. It contains all the best elements of the genre without much flourish. I suppose thats how a classics are usually defined.

ps. turn up the bass for this one

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Continue reading ‘AM/PM – Bought & Sold’

WOW completely forgot about this track, absolute gold. Thanks to the Disco Bloodbath for including the dub in their BIS mix to refresh my memory.

Forgotten track produced by the legendary Paul Simpson. Very much in the same style as his more well known productions “Treat Her Sweeter” and “You Don’t Know”. The sound is very Larry Levan with a FAT monster bassline that hooks you straight away, the power female vocals can put some people off but happily there is a dub version available. If you like the vocal sound of the Paradise Garage around this time, then definitely worth checking out! – as Another_Swede put it.

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Continue reading ‘Barbara Roy – Gotta See You Tonight’

Fuck that House pretense shit- this tool is one of the best kept secrets to this day, Ive seen some of the best House DJs in the world drop this Spice Girls ‘BOMB’  at peak time! This is still rockin about on white labels, the MAW dub on the flip is pretty great too!

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Continue reading ‘Spice Girls – Holler (Masters At Work Spice Beats)’

Over the last year there has been a definite movement into house,  nearly every disco dj has adopted at least one token 90s’ house tune in every mix- the majority of the time this tends to be  a classic or one that even pushed the boundry of  acceptance back then. Stick with Bicep and we will keep you right, expect essential underground house tunes in the next couple of weeks. First up Kenlou showing how to do it deep style.

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Continue reading ‘Tito Puente – Ran Kan Kan (The Kenlou Dub)’

Arguably one of the best records out last year on KDJ’s Mahogani Music, perfect music for summer – deeper than a clowns pocket but has nice sunshine vibes. Heavy on the samples combined with some nice loose MPC style grooves this is essential to the old school hip hop fans and house enthusiasts alike!

RA had a decent review of it; “Andrés’ Andrés II combines elements of soul, hip-hop, broken beat and house music. It’s a sample-heavy record which gracefully floats between head-nodding break beats and foot-tapping 4/4 grooves. While there are some slightly trite moments such as the bossa-nova sampling “Sing About It,” these are easily forgotten thanks to brilliant tracks such as “Change My Mind.” The latter samples GQ’s disco hit “Lies”—a song which Theo Parrish once (ugly) edited to create a dance floor burner. Still, Andrés’ production one-ups Parrish’s version by adding an inspired keyboard jam by Amp Fiddler as well as uplifting female vocal samples”

note: “Andrés’ production one-ups Parrish’s version” quite the statement ayh lad!

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Continue reading ‘Andrés – Walk on Through’

Massive Garage anthem which has been and will continue to rock the NYC disco scene for years.

Walter Anthony Murphy, Jr. is a pianist, composer, and arranger who had a massive hit with the instrumental, “A Fifth of Beethoven“, a disco adaptation of some passages of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, in 1976,  managing to top the top 100 and was subsequently featured on the best-selling soundtrack to “Saturday Night Fever”.

It was also a big underground hit for Soulwax on the As heard on Series, bringing this track to a new generation.

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Continue reading ‘Walter Murphy – A Fifth of Beethoven’

Some old school jack courtesy of Ian Pooley, cuttin and sampling done the old way. Fans of Daft Punk will be into this disco heavy, house groove. Even tho this was out in 97′ it still gets turned by the likes of DJ Sneak to get a party started.

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Continue reading ‘Ian Pooley – Higgledy Piggledy’

Kano are obviously heroes for us, amazing name, and classic tracks. Full on italo synth robots.

We’ve posted a couple of the greatests but thought we share some other nice little treats. From full on camp and happy sounds of ‘Ahjia’, to the darker head moving sounds of ‘Its a war’ (Im  quite surrprised we havent posted that yet) with its well crafted selection of synth action. Santiago’s edit of ‘its a war’ is pretty good to, but the original has got more feeling to it. These two both appeared on the Its a War record in 1980.

Also included is the emotional italo journey that is ‘China Star’, which was on the ‘Another Life’ LP in 1983.

Great listening, great dancing

Kano – Ahjia

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Kano – Its a War

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Kano – China Star

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Continue reading ‘Kano’

Ace arpeggiated greatness here from Fran-key, Crystal, Roger who are back with a new album. Fran-key, Crystal, Roger are a group comprising of three Tokyo Based DJ’s and Producers. Fran-key has released a number of records and a solo album “Tetrapod Love” on Crue-l, whilst Crystal is better know with his work in the DJ Unit Traks Boys. Roger Yamaha runs the Tokyo record store “Moonwalk“.

The have created a beautifully textured, multi layered sound which nods its head to Shoegaze, punk, disco, cosmic and house. Utilizing the minimum of programming to create a live, organic sound, the overall effect is a smooth, balanced feeling that flows from the speakers. Released on Japanese label Crue-l Records, the Album has been praised by the likes of James Murphy and Rub n’ Tug.

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Continue reading ‘Fran-Key, Crystal & Roger – Moonwalk On The Rock’