MASTERS AT WORK 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Following a series of tweaked reissues featuring previously forgotten (and unreleased) remixes of back catalogue gems, Masters at Work offer up something even more special: a double-pack containing four tracks rediscovered in their archives last year. They begin with the bubbly, mid-tempo NYC house shuffle of 'MAW Apes Groove' - all warming organ chords, bubbly analogue bass and oddball vocal samples - before serving up the hip-swinging, sub-heavy, sax-laden bump of KenLou's 'Lost I'M Ready (Sax Dub)'. Over on the second slab of wax, 'Virus Ruff Mutes' is a locked-in slab of house hedonism marked out by a tight, looped organ stab, while 'KenLou' thump recalls the inspired, jazz-dance-friendly, Latin-tinged brilliance of 'The Nervous Track', one of their most admired cuts.

Review: First released in 2022 as an exemplary slice of Masters At Work's most recent offerings to house music at large - adding to their very own MAW Records imprint, which has been going since the mid 1990s - 'The Ha Drop' counts as one of the more heavily swung, raw and militant works. While a five-track digital version appeared recently on online stores, this 12" verison sands things down to just two choice bits; Kenny Dope's propulsive remix-edit, and his complementary dubbed-out 'Lil' Dope' version. Whip-cracking, crowd-corralling stuff, the waxen equivalent of a cattle-prod.

Review: One of the many Masters At Work 'Lost Tapes' - simply put, a series of lost gems sifted from the esteemed house duo's earliest recording sessions from the 1990s - 'Funky Anane' is something of a precursor to broken beat as it came to fruition later in the decade. Jazzy, chromatic gas wafts come amid vinyl-lifted drum samples, as a sultry voice simply intones the word "funky", again and again - allegedly, the sample was taken from Anane's 'Maw Want You'. "From the archives we pulled this track out noticing the new parts never heard along with the vocal sample which was actually Anane's first time at the studio with Masters At Work behind the mic back in 96." A mythical collaboration we hope never gets lost to time!

Review: Originally released digitally at the tail end of 2021 and finally out on vinyl, Masters At Work's brilliant 'It's What We Live, It's What We Are' is a shameless throwback to their classic works of the 1990s. The A-side version summarises everything that's best about the veteran NYC duo, with raw, warehouse-ready synth stabs, twinkling piano motifs and vocal snippets from an early '80s Peech Boys workout (originally championed by the late, great Larry Levan) over a booming bassline and bouncy beats from the drum machine of the masterful Kenny 'Dope' Gonzalez. On the flip, they tip a hat to their influential Nuyorican Soul project by peppering a Latin-tinged broken house groove with woozy synth sounds, extra-hot percussion and Latin piano flourishes.