House

Danish producer Uffe Christensen returns to Tartelet Records with his second LP 'No!', a deeply personal LP to follow 2015's unanimously unfuckwithable debut 'Radio Days'.Every bit as abundant as his first, it's a record that scales polyrhythmic percussion, improvised jazz, & billowing ballads. This, that and so much more, it's a triumph of one man's instinctive ear –– and should be consumed in one sitting.A year after his dynamic debut 'Radio Days', Uffe resurfaces on Tartelet with a record cut in the same spirit as the last: a borderless approach to music-making with organic instrumentation at its heart. Genres collide peaceably ––off-beat soul with jazz, hip-hop with the heft of house–– and are melded smooth with an earthy warmth. Like nearly all at camp Tartelet, he's a producer who is more interested in cutting loose than playing to the tune of dominant modes in dance music. In that, his album's title is instructive: a 'no' to the tyranny of trends, to slavish Facebook likes, to creative compromise. Beyond the babble of fleeting fads, Uffe enjoys his place on the perimeter –– an outlier searching critically for something closer to a timeless groove.Uffe has all of the intuition of the self-taught instrumentalist, following his ear into unexpected rhythmic and tonal combinations. It's what gives the album its urgent appeal: the sound of tentative experiments being made live, of sequences improvised amongst friends. Far from a churn of simple floor fodder, the album is a journey through a consummate narrative. Shy guitar interlude 'Fridge Magnet Radio Theme' feels its way out of the warbling jazz breakdown in 'Lesser Known Values'. 'The Fact', an unexpected vocal ballad, follows the broken beat of 'Solo, So Loud'. With the record's pleading closer 'From Me', it's a story with a start, middle, and end. A long player as long players should be.As Tartelet continue their run of consistently solid EPs & 12"s, it's still these album moments that remain the best gateways into the label's distinctive sound. Alongside Max Graef's debut 'Rivers of the Red Planet' and Glenn Astro's 'Throwback', Uffe's 'No' is a mirror to the Tartelet spirit and sits amongst the imprint's best. For lovers of the true album –– the full-length proper, the one-take listen –– this one's for you.

Strictly Rhythm is back on track after a summer hiatus with a double header from one of the most exciting producers in house music right now: the UK's Josh Butler. What is Real? and Innocence showcase Butler's talent at blending his love of classic house with fresh flavours cut for today's dancefloors.With over a dozen record releases to his name in a short career, Josh Butler is on the up. He's notched up notable partnerships with the likes of MTA, Noir, Cajual and MadTech, turned the heads of house music heavyweights Kerri Chandler, Marshall Jefferson and Pete Tong and made himself an essential fixture on the international DJ circuit.Butler broke through in 2013 with Got A Feeling on Chase & Status' MTA label, for which he picked up a beatport award, and followed it up with the No Frills EP on Kerri Chandler's MadTech imprint, The Situation and Portable EPs on Cajmere's Cajual, Feelings on Noir and a remix of Fatboy Slim feat Macy Grey's Love Life. He was awarded the prestigious Best Breakthrough Producer by DJ Mag for 2104.The DJ diary isn't too shabby either, with a posting supporting the legendary Chic on tour and two full summers in Ibiza at Sankeys under his belt, plus a US tour and clutch of festival appearances at the likes of SW4, Parklife and Secret Garden Party.

Voyeur AKA Benson Herbert and Leo Picking, are the young pair that broke through back in February 2012 with a remix of Bombay Bicycle Club.Soon after Kerri Chandler invited them to release on his Madhouse and Madtech imprints. Before long the UK duo were sharing booths with the likes of Frankie Knuckles, Masters At Work, Dennis Ferrer and Cassy.'I' Album Sampler' is a limited EP of the more dancefloor friendly tracks which kicks off with the captivating production 'Lost In Paris'. The A2 sees 'Long Beach Island' feat. Kerri Chandler with rippling drums and numerous mesmerising nuances merged together. On the flip 'Patron Saint' generates a low-slung groove from start to finish, that features label head honcho Kerri Chandler. Last but not least sees the tribal percussion and soaring synths of 'Nina'.

Packed full of cinematic textures, plaintive vocals and dusty house grooves, The Last Raw Era is the stunning debut album from Hollis Parker: a vinyl-only love-letter to New York City that harks back to bygone days of US house music.House music albums can be tricky to pull off. More often than not they are little more than a hastily thrown-together collection of club tracks, lacking the cohesion or narrative themes that mark a truly timeless body of work. Hollis Parker's debut is one of the few of recent memory that bucks this trend, applying a hip-hop production aesthetic to an album with house music at its core, creating an immersive listening experience over the course of 10 deeply emotive tracks.The Last Raw Era is themed around two distinct love stories: that evolving relationship between two fictional characters, and the entirely real emotion Hollis wears on his sleeve about New York, calling it the foundation upon which I'm built. A hazy melancholy informs much of the album's tone, with obscure samples dusted off and given a new lease of life in songs that evoke the languid production of Moomin as much as the raw house cuts of the early US masters.Crafted in the old-school style, Hollis took a turntable, a couple of samplers and a stack of vinyl records and got to work, creating a musical tapestry from instrumental samples, snatches of movie dialogue and heartfelt vocals. The result is both familiar and absolutely unique, with Hollis looking to the past to produce something refreshingly free of clichéd house tropes.This album is basically a culmination of everything I've done musically up until now says Hollis from the techniques and musicianship I learned to the equipment I figured out how to use, the different genres I've created: it all comes together on this album. It's a love story that's also about a city, specifically a city that I got to know before the internet and social media, back in the 90s, or what I like to call the last raw era.From the simultaneously heart-breaking and uplifting 4/4 bounce of What You've Done to the dreamlike drifting of Central Park Love, The Last Raw Era contains individual tracks that are without question some of the most beautiful of the year. But this is an album that needs to be listened to in its entirety to be fully appreciated: a timeless gem with the power to take you to another place.