Retreat Germany 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Iron Curtis' debut for the Retreat imprint overseen by Yanneck Salvo aka Quarion and Session Victim's Hauke Freer certainly doesn't disappoint, delivering a resolutely fine deep house moment across the A Side in "Cover Me". Swathes of Chicago loving pads punctuate the first half of a track driven by liquid drips of bass and hi-hats pimped with crispness. It's the glorious drop into silence that prefaces the arrival of highly pitched vocal, thumping 808 kicks and crazed key stabs that act as the most pleasant slap in the face you'll receive in 2010. Straying far from the deep house template, the title track "Stumbled Across" is delightfully schizophrenic attempt at beatdown, driven by a deliberately off key array of snares, hi-hats and claps. An equally stuttering approach to laying down synths and keys has a dizzyingly brilliant effect. Flipping the script further, the all too brief "Creeps" displays a talent for head nodding MPC choppage to a backdrop of ethereal chord patterns.

Review: Back on the label that gives rise to their strongest material, Session Victim display their ever-maturing grasp of sampleadelic house music over three tracks that will give fans plenty to get excited about. "Pass The Diesel" is all smoky Rhodes chords and shuffling percussion in a truly laconic frame of mind, with blissful fretless bass intervals for extra moments of dreamy reverie. "Hyuwee" is a more emotional offering that focuses on looping piano while the low end calls out the heart-string-tugging harmonies. "Tearwiper" has a less direct approach that lets the musicality of the track hang suspended in the air while the beat plays a more understated role, creating a more contemplative end result.

Review: Having finished releasing 12" samplers for their superb sophomore set See You When You Get There, Session Victim return to the Retreat label they co-run with a trio of brand new tracks. There's a brilliantly dense and humid feel to the undulating bass, cowbell-heavy beats and jaunty melodies of opener "Summer Games", which is as sticky, sweaty and life-affirming as the title suggests. Turn over for "Black Cream", a typically jazzy and percussion-heavy slice of blissful deep house that makes great use of an extended, chord-heavy breakdown. Finally, the German duo explores the downtempo side of their trademark sound with "Finderlohn", whose lazy flamenco guitars, chopped-up beats and thickset chords suggests an attempt to capture a Balearic mood.

Review: After a few years of quiet, Ali 'Nebraska' Gibb seems to have refound his creative mojo and is popping up everywhere at the moment. Here he leads the way with a superb, playful refix of Session Victim on the latest Retreat 12", with his self-styled Soho Samba refix of the German duo's "Good Intentions" living up to its title and showing off Gibb's proficiency on the MPC. Session Victim then open the B-side with a remix of Iron Curtis & Leaves before the 12" closes on a Quarion rework of their cut "Black Cream." Both these are fine deep house numbers straight out of the Retreat text book but this 12" is all about that Nebraska remix!!