Various
Surfing In Kansas Vol. 1

Eros’ Go For It is a fearlessly original take on Paradise Garage disco, mixed in a way that feels equally Mad Professor and Walter Gibbons. The story of Eros begins in a high school in Vauxhall, New Jersey in the mid 70s when four kids began a friendship based around their mutual love of soul, funk, rock, disco, and bands like Earth, Wind & Fire and Funkadelic. Assanouan G’Bado, Fletcher Gaines, Bobby Jones and Mike Freeman started off jamming after school, playing occasional gigs in New York and honing in on an original sound. When the group graduated, Assanouan and Bobby went off to the service and Fletcher went to university. Eros reunited in the late 70’s and began taking things more seriously, producing a set of songs with the intention of getting a deal with Motown. The morning after recording a full album’s worth of material, the group flew to Detroit hoping to sign a record deal. The legendary label was interested in the songs, but made them an offer that didn’t feel right for the group. The songs were shelved and Fletcher and Bobby moved on to new ventures. Mike and Assanouan pursued a self-released single on their own DAP records, reinterpreting two of their Motown demos with drum machines and overdubs to fill in for their two missing bandmates. Go For It was their individual take on disco, and the new 1985 remake took the AOR-oriented demo version, and transformed it into a transcendent dance floor illusion, that, in an alternate universe, would have turned dancers at the Paradise Garage upside down. Similar to Stephen Encinas’ un-classic, the song mutates deftly at the half-way point, opening up into a stripped-down and dubbed-out denouement, adorned in cascading electronics and the soaring vocals of Barbara Green. Go For It is the first of two releases from Eros on Mixed Signals, and pairs the group’s expanded electronic remake with the original Motown version, rescued from the last surviving demo cassette. Stay tuned for the unreleased demo album Motown missed out on, slated to come out later this year.

LANK002 by LANKLANK002 is a compilation that gives a future listen of what’s to come for the new Belgian label. Side A starts out slowly whilst side B highlights the up-tempo vision of the label. The release focusses on different electronic styles but it also takes a look beyond. Every track, put aside the exception, is performed and recorded in one take. The cassette is numbered, limited to 50 copies and comes with a download code, including some extra bonus tracks.

Legendary Italian underground. Get it while we got it, perfect combination of anything and everything you would need.

It’s one of the best kept secrets of the Indonesian archipelago. Hidden away on a pop album inspired by The Police, lies ‘Licik’, a deep vocoder funk workout lasting over nine minutes. It’s the first recorded Indonesian song to use the vocoder in such a way.‘Licik’ is a hauntingly unique track and a testament to the quality of some of the best music the archipelago has to offer. Friends 82, consisting of Delly Rollies, Norman Rachman and the vocoder wizard Harry Sabar, wrote and recorded the track on the spot back in 1981. The B-side pays tribute to the original song, with a re-contextualisation of the original by Jakarta-born, Bali-based multi-instrumentalist Dea Barandana.Fully licensed from the songwriter and living legend Harry Sabar, Jiwa Jiwa seeks to offer a platform and hub to build bridges and connect natives of the archipelago and its diaspora around the world, across different generations. Focusing on the music and creating contemporary projects through a variety of disciplines.

Highpath Records welcomes London based producer, Nick Gynn (Superlux Records) with his dynamic Pull Up EP.The A side opens with Pull Up - Rough And Ready Acid Mix that features energy drum machine rhythms and early British acid taste. Next Bumpin And Gurnin switches things up gracefully to some brilliant bass antics and rolling dancefloor flows. B Side starts with Pull Up - Lover Erotica Mix this version brings dimensional groove and coloured fusion of rave chords. Finally Acid Drops settles up the trips into a minimalist club gem.