Lamalice Marcelina Wick
Sticky Plastik Volume 1

Reconnected is compiled from Harold Lucious’ addictive 1990 release Connections, a visionary mix of soulful house, New Jack Swing and RnB, an American predecessor of street soul. Deeply connected to music from an early age, Harold started his music career in the early 70s at the age of 16. He sang in his first group, The Final Seconds, who pressed a 7” single in New York City in 1973. The group would go on to record a full album called Neo Cosmic Blues, but never had the chance to press it. They would continue to perform and write together throughout the 70’s and searched in vain for a label to work with. During that time, Harold landed a guest spot on the legendary Brother Ahh record Move Ever Onward, set up by his manager who was Brother Ahh’s sibling. Harold is listed as having played koto, but really he provided background vocals. Throughout the 80’s, Harold worked at WBI radio programming talk shows. On air, he would act out modified scripts to Richard Wright novels like “The Outsider”.Connections was his effort to finally release a record after years of recording and playing music. Experimenting with dance music he came up with an album that was inspired by his love of house music and RnB. He sold the record out of his backpack, ending up with boxes of copies that were eventually destroyed when he had to move from his long-time apartment in Brooklyn. Few of the original LP remain, and it has become almost impossible to find.Reconnected is a remastered redux with four songs taken from the original LP, and pressed onto a loud 45rpm 12” for maximum dance-floor potential. Mixed Signals is honoured to introduce Harold’s music to a contemporary audience around the world.

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.

Silicone Villeray by Robert Robert

Featuring 8 different artists from Mexico to Lithuania, Peru, Portugal, Florida, UK and Belgium, ‘Maloca Vol. 1’ outlines the worldly focus of Le Motel’s new label.Launching Maloca Records earlier this year, the label’s ethos is to build bridges interlinking disparate yet like-minded musicians dedicated to blending organic electronic and acoustic elements. The global network of makers highlighted on Maloca Vol.1, the label’s first compilation, confabs a terrestrial and borderless percussive sound that has been bubbling in clubs and Le Motel’s orbit.Opening the compilation is esteemed Peruvian duo Dengue Dengue Dengue followed by Lithuania's DJ JM who has previously released on the likes of Nervous Horizon and Goon Club Allstars, Miami artist and NAAFI affiliate Nick León and Lisbon’s DJ N.K. On the second half of the compilation, there are contributions from the label founder himself, Mexico’s Omaar, UK’s Coen and mysterious artist Tsongo. Maloca Records has put out three vinyl releases to date from Oakland’s Farsight, Beijing’s Howie Lee and Le Motel. The label is quickly building a reputation for releasing brilliant forward-thinking club records whilst capturing specific international sounds.

MAGICAL by Ze in the Clouds