House Reviews
by Brent Crampton
photo by Tony Bonacci

Whether it be funky and deep, bompty and quirky, or just click-click beepy – this is your monthly house music source for what’s hot and churning on the dance floors at the moment. And with the Winter Music Conference just behind us, so many great choons are now on the market.

Fred Everything – Area DJ 2005 Smartbar: June – 2020Vision/Lazy Days

Courtesy of Brad Owen of Smartbar, I was passed some Smartbar exclusive cuts. As Owen described to me, they’ll get tracks from various DJs that play in the internationally recognized house club in Chicago, so they’ll press them to vinyl and pass them out as give-aways. With two Fred Everything cuts, this plate hosts smooth melodies, grooving percussion and round-about base lines. “That thang” has Heather’s sexy spoken word vocal sampled throughout the track with jazz keys. Side B hosts the “Friday” track that recently has been gaining much acclaim. This time though, it’s the Lazy Dub version. With the same funky guitar riff and base line, you’ll be pleased at its dance floor appeal.

Andy Caldwell – May - Area DJ 2005 Smartbar Record Series

With his beautiful electro sound that Caldwell has been developing over the past few years, “Brand New Day” is executed with that 80’s house feel, compelling female vocals and pop-esque melodies. “Don’t You Love Me” gets a bit more nasty, breaking it down with an edgy base line and broken-beat feel. “Pushin” is falling straight to an old school vibe with Hacienda-garage-style guitar riffs and beautiful vocals by Gine Rene. All these tracks are will be released on Caldwell’s forthcoming release.

Jesse Outlaw feat. Bernard Harris – Love You So – Eargasmic

Take subtle melodies, soulful vocals, New York style percussion, and you’ve just spelled out Jesse Outlaw’s style. Packed with a main mix, acapella, instrumental and dub version of the track, you’ll find plenty of DJ tools that break technical boundaries as well as emotional confines. While Harris’s voice is gifted, I prefer the less-is-more dub track that makes a great deep house-layering track.

Da Sunlounge – Freak Show – Myna Music

Blue notes and cascading
With a high production quality, the base lines hit clear, hard and punchy. Adding funkified sampled vocal stabs, guitar strumming and George Clinton style synths, the “Freak Show” track brings out the foot-stomping. Bringing out the clubbin’ sampled jazz house, “Dressed in Blue” just makes the world drag on and on.

DJ Sneak – House of OM – OM

If you checked out the widely distributed house CD mixed, you’ll know the funkiness of the CD is enough to make you wanna dye your hair with purple, blue and green stripes. Does that make sense? Perhaps no, but no sense is to be had for not buying this album. The double-packed unmixed-vinyl cuts are jam full of eight different tracks. Covering the get-down grooves of boompty, quirk, acid, funk, bits of jazz and jack with producers such as Jason Hodges, No Asembly Firm, JT Donaldson and Johnny Fiasco, the LP is all dance floor friendly. I was expecting a bit more high-energy house from Sneak, but his music selection is tasteful. Just make sure your sound system has plenty of support on the lower end of things.

Gene Farris – Da Number 8 – Industry

Bringing an acid track to the international bay front of house music, Farris briefly steps away from his soulful, cool & melodic production persona in the EP, to connect to his Chicago roots through acid. Adding a male vocal, the track takes on a feel of rock electronic dance that The Faint pumps out. If that sound floats your boat, check the track out. I’m sure there’s a crowd out there that will respond. As for me, I’ll let Farris ride out his experimental tip, while awaiting ashore for his next release.

Kings of Tomorrow – Another Day – Defected

Taking on that UK Ben Watt feel to house music, Another Day is bringing another track to the impressive catalogue at Defected. The Fanatix mix takes the cake when it comes to the sugar-filled frosting melody, sprinkled with light female vocals and candles burning to the light-acid-jazz Rhodes keys occurring around the last bite of the track. Light, deep and beautifully crafted, the bakery located across the Atlantic Ocean by the name of Kings of Tomorrow brings the musicality to a mouth near you.

Niko Bellotto – My Definition – Tangent Beats

Starting off with two mundane acid-electro-ish track, I almost passed this one by. But pulling up my crate-digging instincts, I took the patience upon me to check out the other tracks. Then I came across a dub base line with spacey chords, Afro-Caribbean percussion and a scatting saxophone line. At this point I’m hooked, but then I was reeled in when the last cut brought out that funky-base line guitar, jumpin’ jazz and floating flute house feel.