DJ SNEAK 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: He's the original (and maybe only self-proclaimed?) house gangster and he is back in 2025 and sounding as good as ever. Puerto Rico by way of Chicago's DJ Sneak makes beats as raw as the meat he likes to chuck on his BBQ grill and UK house legend Nail must be a fan cause it's his label he lands on now. This is a solid four-tracker that ticks all the boxes with its killer grooves and smart loops. 'All I Need In Life' is a playful opener, 'Das Gud!' gets more intense and trippy with its bleepy melodic refrains and 'Help Me Somebody' then sinks back into loose and dusty, disco-tinged drums with classic cowbell hits. 'What You Expecting From Me' is a sweaty and gritty warehouse banger to close with aplomb.

Review: Original Chi-Town bad man DJ Sneak shows up with his latest selection of loop-driven house jams, serving up five floor-focused cuts on the 'Disko Dialogue' EP. A key figure in the second wave of Chicago house, his prolific career has seen him explore acid house, disco cut-ups, and hypnotic, tracky realms. Much, if not all, of that is on display here. The title track features looped strings and echoing vocals over a pounding kick and skippy snares, while 'Kick Da Flow' follows a similar trajectory, albeit with a slightly more restrained mood. 'Bottom Acid' ups the energy with pulsing 303 gliding over piercing drums, while 'Acid Wunders' dives into trippier territory, with its nocturnal groove endlessly undulating. The rolling rhythms of 'Elements' cap a fine EP, with DJ Sneak proving he's lost none of his big-room bravado or production swagger.

Review: First released on Cajual in 1995 as part of the 'Beautification Of House' EP, DJ Sneak's 'The Jacker' is comparatively less known or revered than his earliest outings on the label, or those of his released on the contemporary and now much-coveted Strictly Rhythm. But its choppy lead razz and boisterous vocal cutups make it no less of a quintessential case of early 90s "jackin" house, which heard Chicago producers such as Carlos Sosa privilege only the barest of sonic bones. As it was in 1995, no track on this 12" stoops to the nadir of overwrought "depth", and both the Jacker 3000 remix and Gettoblaster's remix here are as readily deployable as they are functional, with ample dead space left in the gaps between drum hits.

Review: Over the last 18 months, DJ Sneak has been on an impressive run of form. There have been essential releases for Phonogramme, Frappe and, most recently, Toy Tonics. Here the Chicago legend returns to Heist Recordings, an imprint he last appeared on early last year, with another essential four-track missive. He begins with the hard-wired boompty bounce of 'I Can Tell What You Want', where alien-sounding chords and chopped vocal snippets leap above an insatiable groove, before heading off on a sample-rich breakbeat house flex on 'A Taste of the 90s'. Over on the B-side, 'Dirty Jazz' joins the dots between Chi-town acid and jazz-sampling deep house, while 'You Know What I Mean' is a refreshingly rubbery and loose-limbed excursion that should appeal to dancers who like to get their feet moving.

Review: Chicago house legend and self-professed gangster DJ Sneak must have been busy recently because he has a couple of great EPs arriving this summer. This one takes him to the long-running East Yorkshire label Hudd Traxx and given the title, For The Soul Vol 1, could be the start of a series. That would not be a bad thing cause these are more than useful jams starting with 'We All Need Love' which pairs his raw, loopy, groovy style with disco-infused samples. 'For The Soul' is another silky and hypnotic house sound with hooky tones and lovely snares, while on the flip 'From Da House' gets more joyous with its streaming chords and last but not least, 'En Route' brings a more raucous percussive edge for peak time deployment.

Review: New imprint Aliens on Wax will be a label to watch this year, with the Chicago-based stable promising releases from the likes of Kevin Saunderson, Roland Clark and Bad Boy Bill. Fittingly, it's a long-serving hometown hero - the one and only DJ Sneak - who inaugurates the imprint via a typically club-focused four-tracker. He begins with 'Gettin' Ghetto', a rolling and hypnotic house loop jam in his familiar style, before opting for stomping drums, raw electronic motifs, sweat-soaked percussion fills and effects aplenty on the breathless and trippy 'I Beat That Ghetto'. Over on the reverse we're treated to two takes on 'Spirit Taker': a deliciously tracky, psychedelic and warehouse-ready 'Dub' (track 3) and the marginally more action-packed original version (track 4).

Review: DJ Sneak is of course the self-proclaimed house gangster and proud lover of his own BBQ skills. He is also a man who knows how to make a damn good house groove with fizzy loops and weighty drums that never fail to lock us in. And that's just what we get here with a new EP via Digital Tape Recordings that kick off with the train-track grooves of 'No More Waiting.' There is more bump and grind to 'Help Is On The Way' with its chopped-up vocal loops, and '1234' then has a little garage skip in its bones. 'Essex Strolling' shuts down with a deeper vibe.

Review: After a three-year break, DJ Sneak and Tripmastaz renew their partnership as Raretwo Inc, in the process making their bow on the latter Respect The Graft imprint. As you'd expect from two masters of their craft, the 33 Chambers EP is packed to the rafters with chunky, bass-heavy and sample-rich deep house workouts. Check first the jazzy, sub-heavy bounce of 'Trac 4 Kenny', before getting your ears around the muscular chunkiness of 'Aaw Lawwd', where rasping blues-man vocal snippets and tight loops ride a bustling beat and booming bassline. Elsewhere, 'Trac 4 Rick' is a lightly druggy, disco-speckled slab of locked-in deep house science, while 'XTC' is a trippy, tech-tinged late-night roller with effects aplenty and lashings of dubbed-out synth sounds.