Review : Tokyo Disco
Friday, May 12th 2006, 4:20 pm
If funky house music is your thing then look no further than the latest compilation, Tokyo Disco, from ex-Hed Kandi supremo Mark Doyle. I received a copy of it the other day and it’s awesome. Under his new Fierce Angels guise, Mark has yet again licenced three CDs full of quality house music.
On the first CD you’ll find some awesome string laden house music filled with the piano and rhodes harmonies that you’ve come to expect from the Tokyo Project stables. Featuring such house and garage luminaries as Eric Kupper, Juliet Roberts and Martin Solveig you’ll find that the quality stays high throughout. Although you may have heard some of these tracks in your favourite house club, you’ll find that they mostly stay on the underground side of house music. The exception to this is possibly the excellent Richard Earnshaw club mix of Martin Solveig’s “Jealousy” but you’ll still find that it’s a great track. You’ll also find a great mix of Silsonic’s “Something To Make You Feel Alright” by two relatively unkown Australians: Buzz Kitchen. I played the original on one of my earlier podcasts and this mix pumps it up a little to great effect. My personal favourites are Denis The Menace’s “Time To Turn Around”, a massive tune for me over the past six months, and the Disco-tastic “Loves Just Found Me” by Montanas.
A Tokyo Project/Fierce Angels compilation wouldn’t be complete without Eric Kupper showing up on at least one track. The ex-Degrees In Motion superstar producer and DJ shows up on two of the tracks on this CD. All of them show why he’s a much in demand producer, remixer and keyboard player.
CD2 begins with a new artist from San Francisco called Samantha James and her lovely summer builder “Rise”. Eric Kupper is on the mix again so we’re obviously talking about quality house music here. The 2nd CD then starts pumping things up a bit more with some heavy hitters from Full Intention, Michael Gray (who is actually one half of Full Intention), Danny Howells and The Freemasons. My personal favourite is the Hott22 track “No Promises” featuring the vocal talents of Bonnie Bailey. Hott22 always produce quality tunes and remixes and this has a classic piano led bassline with some awesome strings. I’m loving it!
Finally, the third CD takes us into tougher late night territory. If you like your house music deeper and dirtier then this is the CD for you. Gone are the electric pianos, pianos and strings and in come the dirty saw-tooth and square wave synths. It features older classics like “S.O.S.” from A-Studio (as featured on my last podcast), Strike’s “U Sure Do” on a Tall Paul remix (ok, so the pianos aren’t quite gone yet!) and Tall Paul’s “Rock Da House” with a Soulseekerz remix. The latter two tunes are probably the cheesiest on the compilation but they’re old favourites with fresh remixes which will work on todays dancefloors. The quality of the rest of the compilation is so hight that you can forgive Mark for including them.
In short, this album will provide you the perfect start to the summer. It’s full of house music brimming to the top with summer vibes and Ibiza flavours. I’m looking forward to the sunnier months, which are just starting here in the UK, so I can stick the CDs in my car as a pre-club warm-up or pump it out when having a BBQ. Rush out and buy Tokyo Disco NOW
Footnote
You have to admire Mark for putting out another awesome compilation as the sleeve notes point to the fact that since leaving Hed Kandi he’s had many problems keeping his new company, Tokyo Project, afloat. Protracted legal battles and the loss of major investors left the fledgling company fighting for its life. This culminated in Mark making some of his close friends redundant. Never a nice thing to have to do as I have experienced personally. Thankfully for the house music lovers that we are, he’s decided to raid his piggy bank and start his Fierce Angels project to release more quality house music. As I often say in my podcasts, the only way people are going to continue to release quality house music is if we support them. There are enough legal music download sites (see my links section) or online music stores to be able to get hold of this compilation at a reasonable price. Is almost 4 hours of house music worth buying? I think so!
10:11 pm on May 12th, 2006