On paper Brosnan is checking all the right boxes for a showcase of nu disco, with the likes of Todd Terje, Lindstrom, Greg Wilson, The Revenge and Tensnake, starlets of the scene all featuring heavily on this compilation. Listening to the mix he also ticks all the right mixing boxes with smooth transitions, good progression and carefully thought out mixes. It’s moments like his transition from Nick Chacona’s The Fear into the very catchy Eurodans by Todd Terje which lands the peak of the mix with an instantly recognisable focus point; or it’s the carefully timed transition from Ray Mang’s Look Into My Eyes to Bot’Ox’s Blue Steel which silkily down shifts the mix for a floating cosmic finish, and it’s those things which show off the finesse of the mix overall.

So Brosnan is doing all the right things, it achieves everything he’s set out to do. He’s got a great showcase of nu disco, its mixed well and its pitched perfectly for those forthcoming sunny summer months. Yet for all its box ticking, i’m still coming away from this mix a bit luke warm. Whilst there are some real stars on this mix, the nu disco scene isn’t as burgeoning as it once was when Future Disco released their first compilation. As with any genre over time, nu disco has found its feet, its been given a definition and we’re now starting to see a formula to the sound which is noticeable on this compilation. The converging nu disco genre has in turn taken away some of the freshness and excitement that we’ve heard on previous disco comps.

But freshness is a subjective matter. If you’re new and unschooled in the nu disco sound then this is a perfect one stop tour where it will tick all the right boxes for your disco summer. If you’re well versed in the disco scene, this mix will probably lack that cutting edge for it to be memorable.

Buy Future Disco Vol. 3: City Heat from
Amazon (CD|MP3), Play.com (CD) or HMV.com (CD)

Tracklist:
1. Drop Out Orchestra – Macaque
2. Lindstrom & Christabelle – Baby Can’t Stop
3. Curses! – The Deep End (Holy Ghost! Day School Dub)
4. The Revenge feat Danielle Moore – Just Be Good To Me (Ron Basejam Remix)
5. Ilija Rudman – Call Me Tonight (Greg Wilson Version)
6. Crazy P – Never Gonna Reach Me (Hot Toddy Remix)
7. Nick Chacona – The Fear feat Kathy Diamond (Beg To Differ Remix)
8. Todd Terje – Eurodans
9. Chamboche – Feverish (The Revenge Remix)
10. Johnny Dynell – Jam Hot (Tensnake Remix)
11. Moscow – Throw up (Brontosaurus Remix)
12. Bonar Bradberry – Carlos The Jackal
13. Sean Brosnan – Sat Jam (Ray Mang Remix)
14. Ray Mang – Look Into My Eyes
15. Bot’Ox – Blue Steel
16. Magnus International – Mandass Morran Blus

Hypercolour with Mark Henning

I’m guessing the promoters and clubs have all chipped in to charter a Mega Bus from Berlin as practically all the DJs headlining are coming over from our twinned party city. On the Friday Hypercolour are taking over East Village and they’ve reserved a seat for Mark Henning on the Mega Bus. He’ll be pushing his new HYpercolour EP, ‘The Right Time’, out in all good record shops now! Supporting him will be the Hypercolour head honchos Alex Jones and Cedric Maison whilst Pete’s 50th keep the upstairs warm with the Dalston connection.

Fabric with Luciano, Pedro, DJ Hell and Tiefschwarz

For Saturday we have Luciano cashing in on his Mega Bus ticket by including a spot of Christmas shopping over the week. He’s up in Manchester the weekend after for the Warehouse Project, but this weekend sees him return to Fabric to take control of Room 1. In toe will be his Romanian protégé Pedro who’s now convincingly made his own name with his A:rpia:r buddies. Room 2 features yet more current Berlinites in the form of DJ Hell and Tiefschwarz. A stellar line up in think you will find and coincidently it comes around just as I’ve got over the Fabric 10th Birthday. Salute!

Ekstravaganza with Prins Thomas and Lindstrom (Buy Tickets)

If you still can’t bare to look at the walls of Room 1 from the 10th birthday then how about looking at the four walls of Corsica Studios? Featuring is Scandinavia’s 5th most popular export after Ikea, Volvos, Lego and liberal sex; it is of course Scandinavian Cosmic Disco! Prins Thomas kicks off the second coming of his bi-monthly London residency Ekstravaganza with close friend Lindstrom. The pair have been known to go nuts and play well into the night, so having the pair together in London is certainly a treat. Label friend Magnus International provides some support, whilst the Horse Meat Disco guys have trundled along the river from Vauxhall to prop up room 2. Expect lashings of camp cosmic disco sure to make December open with a smile.

Mulletover Xmas Party with Prosumer (Buy Tickets)

Too Scandinavian? Fair enough… There’s still plenty more Berliners coming in on the bus. The ever delightful Prosumer is supplying the Worthers Originals for the trip. He’s dropping records and toffees at Mulletover’s Xmas party at the Bocking Street warehouse. We thoroughly enjoyed the venue when we were there at Disco Bloodbath the other week. It’s sure to be a winner with Prosumer on the decks, however it’s a bit tenuous calling it an Xmas party in November.

GetPhysical and Phonica 6th Birthday with MANDY (Buy Tickets)

Occupying the back row of the Mega Bus from Berlin will be those naughty GetPhysical kids MANDY and Thomas Schumacher. They’ll be causing mischief at Cable along with the Phonica boys and girls who are celebrating six years of selling records.Heidi, Hector, Anthea and Simon Rigg are all on board.

matter with Vitalic, Black Strobe and Morgan Geist (Buy Tickets)

Finally, if none of that takes your fancy, then matter doesn’t look too shabby. Vitalic live, Black Strobe DJ Set, Mero Area’s Morgan Geist and Guido Schneider for Very Wrong Indeed in Room 2.. A great mix of artists which should drop a mix of electronic sounds, house, techno, disco.. basically the works. Not sure what Black Strobe are doing these days Smagghe-less or what Vitalic have been producing, but going on past experiences they have always been good quality. Failing that there’s Morgan Geist!

Fuck me that was a mouthful to reel off. Hope you have fun!

I normally struggle to think what tunes have been and gone in the last month, so trying to remember what I was listening to back in January is a mountainous mission in itself, which is probably why I’m going to write this avoiding any specifics and will talk around the subject pretending I know what I’m talking about like any good politician would do. But from what I can recollect “minimal” became housier (or maybe I became housier?), Dubstep collided with Techno and Disco has undergone a massive revival

So lets start with the shift towards the housier sounds. We noticed a lot of DJs ditching the repetitive and bland “minimal” sounds that were starting to stagnate and instead nudging more towards the house end of the spectrum. This meant a bit more funk and soul embedded into tracks, more vocals and jazzier samples. It may sound like we’re harking back to the funky house days circa 2000-02, but this was slightly different, it was more an amalgamation of what came out of the “minimal-tech” sounds which dominated ’05-’07 with older house music sensibilities as seen from the Chicago deep house days. A perfect example of this is probably My My, their remix of Djuma Soundsytem’s Les Dijnns ’s typifies where the sound was during 2007 whilst their latest release Everybody’s Talkin’ is a glimpse into the house sound doing the rounds at the moment. The same goes for Josh Wink’s Stay Out All Night and Matthew Styles We Said Nothing, both distinctly Chi-town influenced numbers which bebop’s to a fun and funked up skipping rhythm. In a similar vein who could forget Johnny D who’s had a fantastic year. His track Orbitallife was causing raucous everywhere through the summer not to mention all his other releases.

But then it wasn’t all fun funked up house, this year saw a lot of dub style house and techno music with heavy basslines at a relaxed pace. Tracks like Trus’me’s W.A.R Dub particularly stood out as did a lot of the output from Gedde’s new label MurMur which had artists like Bearweasel pumping out deep and hypnotic house. One of the best tracks of the year for me was the highly elusive Wax1001. There was no artist or label, just this white label containing the rawest house track ever. A simple track with clunky beats, classic hi hat patterns and a dark raw bassline made Wax1001 show how less is definitely more.

Amongst all of this was another return. Afrobeat house started reappearing in a heavier form predominately coming out of the Innervisions camp but also a whole host of producers. This house sound brought a lot of energy through African rhythms, chants and tribal beats. Henrik Schwarz’ I Exist Because of You was a prime example as was Dixon/Ame/Schwarz’s effort on D.P.O.M.B and to a lesser extent Laurent Garnier’s return to production on his Afrodiziac mix of Back to my Roots. Away from the Innervisions folk, Osborne’s Afrika had a not surprising African feel making it a firm favourite for many including EarPipe and was part of an incredible year for the Michigan born producer who’s self titled album received critical acclaim. The other big African influenced house but probably more so house influenced African music came from Afefe Iku and his track Mirror Dance. The heavy tribal beats and highly infectious glockenspiel hook were an instant success made apparent when every one would always poorly attempt to vocally imitate the glockenspiel hook.

Aside from genre nit picking, house and techno came out with some pretty good gems. SIS was a massive mover this year mainly with his track Nesrib but there was also Orgasa, Clarinete and that annoying but quite fun Trompeta. Truly a stellar year for the young producer. Another trend for 2008 was taking samples from old scratchy foreign records and working it into restrained house beats a la Italoboyz style. Stimming’s Una Pena and La Pena’s A1/Davino Canto were particular highlights of this trend and pushed massively by the Lucianos and Villalobos’ of the world. Radioslave also continued his world domination with a new direction through Eyes Wide Open not to mention his more ambient and down tempo project with Joel Martin as Quiet Village. But that’s not to say Radioslave’s dark technoness didn’t continue on. Dubfire’s remix of Grindhouse Tool was making a right mess on most techno dancefloors right through the summer. It was fun at first but it has become a bit dull.

Whilst many were disputing what house and techno had become there was an alchemy experiment happening behind the scenes where Dusteppers were blending Dubstep with Techno in an attempt to produce gold. Their attempts have been pretty successful Shackleton returned the favour by remixing Villalobos’ acclaimed Vasco EP, whilst Appleblim and Peverelist topped many charts with their track Circling as well as pushing their Skull Disco label to new nether regions in the Dubstep world. But it’s probably Appleblim’s RA podcast which helped to break down Dubstep/Techno/House barriers for many people.

But the most interesting development for EarPipe has to be the recent Disco revival. Its been bubbling away since the start of 2007 and properly came to attention when the James Murphy and Pat Mahoney FabricLive 36 release came out in October 07. From there Disco has gone from strength to strength in the capital. New night Disco Bloodbath and Horse Meat Disco have been busy throughout the year, whilst Fabric, Secretsundaze and Mulletover have all jumped on board with Disco backrooms. One of the biggest developments for the Disco revival was the release of Hercules and Love Affair’s self titled debut album. The album hit the charts and was widely respected by the critics putting this new Disco come House sound in the spotlight. Across the North Sea our Scandinavian friends Lindstrom and Prins Thomas continued pushing their cosmic disco sound on Smalltown Supersound and Metro Area’s Fabric 44 gave us a reminder of where disco came from.

So that’s what we at EarPipe can remember from the year in music. It has been fun, there has been some rubbish, but then there have been some delectable moments and no doubt this will continue into 2009.

If we’ve missed something out then do stick it in the comments!

You can catch our review of clubs, festivals and parties here.