textura

Albums
Access To Arasaka
Hans Appelqvist
A-Sun Amissa
Bass Communion
Andrea Belfi
Birds of Passage
Brooklyn Rider
Sean Byrd
c.db.sn
Condre Scr
Death By Chocolate
A Death Cinematic
Nicholas Deyoe
DVA
Espvall/Jakobsons/Szelag
The Eye Of Time
Cezary Gapik
Glitterbug
Ernest Gonzales
Eleanor Hovda
Ikin + Wenngren
Ital
Known Rebel
Loops Of Your Heart
Mirrorring
Musette
My Fun
Northerner
Pan & Me
Peter Prautzsch
Rampersaud Shaw
Silencio
Tenniscoats
Troum
Craig Vear
Voices from the Lake
Yair Yona

Compilations / Mixes
Futureboogie 10
Hatched Vol. 1
Fritz Kalkbrenner
Project Mooncircle 10th

EPs
Celer / Machinefabriek
Seth Chrisman
Kabutogani
Heidi Mortenson
Andy Vaz
Mike Wall
Marshall Watson

VA: Futureboogie 10
Futureboogie Recordings

Though Futureboogie 10 might sound related to the Future Disco series, they're in fact two wholly different projects, with the latter overseen by Needwant and the former a product of Futureboogie's recently hatched Futureboogie Recordings. The reason for the recording's title is because the Bristol-based outfit is celebrating its tenth year as a club and artist-led booking agency, management company, and, since last year, recording label. Though the imprint was launched in April, 2011 by label co-founder Julio Bashmore with his Father Father twelve-inch, he's noticeably missing on the album itself, although it's entirely possible he's present under another name. Futureboogie 10 does, however, contain brand new exclusives from the label's core artists (Christophe, Lukas, Waifs & Strays, Behling & Simpson) along with tracks from new recruits (Eats Everything, Maxxi Soundsystem, Crackazat & Typesun).

Typesun's “Last Home” begins the compilation on a reasonably satisfying note, with an appealing strings intro gradually morphing into a lounge-styled house jam replete with trumpet solo, disco strings, and braying horn figures. Slightly stronger is Crackazat's “Passagem,” whose house rhythms and dazzlingly radiant melodic patterns work themselves into a dizzying, trance-like lather, but the first peak moment arrives when Simpson serves up the broken beat funk of “Til U Were Dead.” Vocal snippets, frothy hi-hats, rollicking beats, and splashes of acid and piano chords add up to a swinging, low-slung scene-stealer that makes the opening cuts seem like warm-ups. A bit of a New Jack Swing feel gives some tracks an added kick. Funky as hell, Behling's “Last Chance,” for example, is about as light on its feet as could be imagined, elevated as it is by a buoyantly jacking groove.

The tracks aren't without an occasional flaw, however. Eats Everything's otherwise tasty “Slink,” for instance, is marred by a naggingly repetitive vocal fragment that proves hard to ignore, try as one might, but the later bass-thumper “0200” by Eats Everything & Lukas Present The Eel makes up for it, even if it likewise features an “at about two in the mornin'” vocal sample a little too prominently. Regardless, the label's future is secure if the dynamic material contributed by the likes of Maxxi Soundsystem (the slinky club stomper “Into The Future”), Waifs & Strays (the deliciously grooving house cut “Back Down”), and Lukas (the acid-disco throb of “Space Junkie Race”) to the collection is any indication of what lies ahead.

March 2012