Milton Jackson, Vas Floyd, Kate Simko, Jimpster
I listen to a lot of deep house, it’s been my favorite sub-section of house for the past couple years. There’s nothing I love more in a house track than the bass absolutely permeating all aspects of the track– drums, pads and synths, are all very deep, very heavy, very sexy. You can weave in many other aspects of other house styles as well, as you’ll often hear aspects of tribal, tech house and of course, soul/R&B. The one deep house label I absolutely worship is Freerange Records, a UK-based label co-founded by living legend Jimpster. You can’t be into deep house and not hear tracks from this label.
First up is Milton Jackson, a young upstart producer from the UK, who just released the Crash LP on Freerange. I’ve been hearing a lot of Milton as of late, most recently on the February Freerange podcast, he’s found his way onto the the tables of more than a few DJ’s out there. While his tracks are solid, they have an almost formulaic tendency, which in this case isn’t bad at all– he’s taking an age-old equation on how to get people moving and filling it with the above-mentioned deep house tones. What I’m excited to see is where the 21-year old producer takes it from here. I’m also including his video for Crash, you either like this or you don’t, I think it’s funny for the sole purpose that Freerange framed it on their front page.
I came across this Spirit Catcher remix on a Vas Floyd track on Beatport and I had to buy it. Vas Floyd is a producer and DJ living in Dubai (the lucky bastard). His newest EP Kiss The World Away Part 1 has a nice, eclectic bunch of remixes, released by the promising German label Night Drive Music. This Spirit Catcher remix had me at hello, it’s got a glitzy almost vintage twist with those keys and bass. Spirit Catcher is Jean Vanesse and Thomas Sohet of Belgium, two self-proclaimed “european wierdos” who were “born into the sounds of the seventies” and went on to create some really catchy tunes. They have a great free mix on Spirit Soul Mix Archive, Pure.fm Organic Sessions 037. I first heard them on Satoshi Tomiie‘s Renaissance series, another deep house legend and my spiritual guide to deep house.
Kate Simko is more minimal and tech house, but I can’t help but be inclined to lump this into a deep house post. A Ghostly International artist signed to their dancefloor arm Spectral Sound, I picked this track up on a then-free Spectral promo on Beatport, which I believe is no longer free, it’s a part of her She Said EP, which released last March in 2008. I’ve had this track for a while, but it’s still pretty fresh every time I listen to it. I love the pace and the beat she comes up with here, it’s great to see not only a female producer but a female producer who’s background is music technology and happened to be in the right place (Detroit) at the right time (the midwest rave wave of the mid 90’s). The cover posted above is by Mike Cina, who runs YouWorkForThem, blows me right away…gotta love how Ghostly promotes their visual artists too! It even looks good enough to sit atop this post and throw off readers who might know the difference between Simko and traditional deep house!!!
Finally, to close out the post, I can’t speak of deep house without giving you a Jimpster track to listen to. This one is a remix of Kurd Maverick’s track Let’s Work, which appeared on a collection of Jimpster remixes from 2004-2008. The original Kurd Maverick track is straight tech house, and we see an excellent example of the point I made above, where Jimpster takes aspects of this tech house track and re-works it into a driving deep house track. The result is much more appealing to my ear, but unfortunately the freakin cover art for this remix collection made my eyes bleed. There’s a blaring typo right there, I can’t imagine that was intentional, even if it was, it would make 0 design sense. Jimpster, my man, if you ever read this, if let me do a cover for you, I promise it won’t have !
Milton Jackson – The Rhythm Track (Original Mix)
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Vas Floyd – Kiss The World Away feat. Sara Shevlin (Spirit Catcher Remix)
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Kate Simko – Dulce
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Kurd Maverick – Let’s Work (Jimpster Remix)
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Milton Jackson – Crash (video mix)
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on 08 Oct 2009 at 12:46 pm # Floating Points, Nick Holder, Steve Bug, Milton Jackson | Blog.H34 : Music, Design, Culture
[…] see the name Milton Jackson everywhere I look when it comes to deep house, just as I had predicted many months ago. Between his involvement with Freerange and Tronicsole and his own Bear Trax imprint, it’s […]