Bass Culture Records is excited to welcome a new family member, Velvet Velour.

The Bristol producer is already known for the brilliant music he has released in the past on some key labels and collectives in the underground scene like Butter Side Up, MINDHELMET, Small Hours and Lisbon based Welt Discos.

This debut EP on BC is packed with energy and uplifting feels that will keep you on the dancefloor with a smile on your face.

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When helmets fit like gloves. Release your release.

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The second single-artist EP on Nuances de Nuit comes courtesy of the ever impressive Velvet Velour, releasing four intricately-produced, enchanting pieces of electronic music out into the universe.

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4 in the chamber as X-Kalay first-timer Boss Priester steps up to the plate. A quartet of the toughest joints you’re likely to hear, maximising that dancefloor impact with minimal fuss.

Flexing like a new-skool combination of golden era Todd Edwards and Nathan Coles right from the off. Groove-forward gear accelerated to new levels through the sheer pressure of that drum programming. Proper dancefloor wreckers.

Stripped back with only the most necessary components required, there’s a dreamlike warmth and sensuality to the funked-out chords and flourishes of hallucinatory detail. Heat-seeking tech house rollers and speed garage revisionism serving pure dancefloor propulsion from beginning to end.

Itchy 2-step into piquant, puckered sidewinders, if the Boss is making baseline and groove his hallmark, then this is a case in point.

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Repress!

In dialogue with both past and future, Slapfunk protégé Julian Anthony drops his debut solo EP and touches down with a 4-track invocation of classic 90s house templates.

Tripped out sensibility meets sci-fi tendency as ‘Full Moon Fever’ and ‘Open Minded’ deliver full-bodied exercises in total dance floor immersion. Fractal fuel for the vision quest, they’re sophisticated like the finest dream house while channelling the buoyant, jacking heft of timeless Chi-town material.

Wide eyed but tuff, ‘Stormy Tuesday’ rolls in with more of the groove-forward drive that typifies Anthony’s best work. It’s just the kind of immaculate gear we've come to expect from the Dutchman, and evoking golden era Dream 2 Science, ‘Virtual Reality’ ploughs the same furrow of propulsive, ‘90s-indebted house. Deep space projections radiating togetherness and warmth from the start.

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Minimal don Kepler strikes a balance between dancefloor utility and introspection on his latest record, and debut for X-Kalay. Big house and techno incursions straight out of Yorkshire – Leeds, to be precise. It’s a strong testament to the region’s long standing reputation as a hotbed for late-night minimalism.

Subtle flourishes and details stand out across all four tracks. Uncovering relics from ancient futures, ‘Lowlife’ stimulates the pineal gland with a mescaline-strength take on classic ‘90s tech house. While it dials the trippier elements down just a tad, ‘Control’, like its predecessor, recalls golden era Wiggle or Asad Rizvi under his Silverlining moniker.

No half measures on the next one. Bringing heft in spades, ‘Stranded’ comes hurtling in with swinging, jacking 4 AM NRG. It’s some serious gear, which makes the EP closer such an unexpected left-turn. ‘Need’ offers proper heads-down introspection, complete with widescreen, nebulous chords that ripple out into the vastness of space.

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Qnete’s back in the building for a third X-Kalay release and it’s an anticipated return for the prominent purveyor of prog. Four diverse but coherently related tracks with pit stops in deep house and electro territory.

We open proceedings with a dose of the lysergic sound that has become his trademark since debuting on the label in 2021. Evoking ritual and ceremony, ‘Going Short‘ commences with choral pads that beckon to the altar. A slo-mo exercise in dancefloor hypnosis with trace echoes of bleep.

Where ‘Wrapped’ takes a turn toward mellow, ‘Stepperals’, like its A1 counterpart, recalibrates trance tropes into something more chugging and restrained. Another example of Qnete smudging his third eye on a tunnelling, wormhole flex.

And finally, the Leipzig native signs off with a nod to the American Midwest. Opening cerebral gates in a way that recalls classic Detroit In Effect, closing track ‘Circuit Friends’ taps into the futurist utopia imagined by Detroit electro’s pioneers.

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Familiar Strangers founder Remotif heralds the 30th release, complete with a digital-only remix from Youandewan.

The first half finds the Bristol mainstay at his deadliest. Harnessing pure proggy momentum, peak-time scorcher ‘In the Blink of a Cosmic’ comes hurtling out the tracks. ‘It’s Inside U’ then keeps pace with more of that driving, fractal pressure. Tunnelling wormhole torque straight out the nether-realm.

Comparatively restrained but no-less mind-altering, the B-side embarks on a full-blown vision quest. Where breaks-fuelled cut ‘For Love or Money’ nods to early ‘90s bleep, ‘In The Mo¨bius Strip Club’ ushers into a chugging, ritual-ready space. Proper third-eye dilating stuff.

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Maara makes seductively uninhibited, proggy dance music. In fact, she’s quickly becoming one of its foremost exponents. Barely pausing for breath between releases, ‘Spiral 2 the Other Side’ finds the Montreal artist summoning divine feminine frequencies with a hypnotic, ritual-ready 4-tracker.

Some Maara productions are shot through with an almost radiant optimism, but here, darkroom throb prevails. Big on the gated vocals, ‘Spiral 2 the Other Side’ achieves cybernetic sensuality through trippy,

moire´-d electro, while ‘Take the Wheel Miss Sweetie’, with its driving, fathoms-deep approach, provides a direct take on the blueprint.

The Canadian assumes the role of high priestess on the flip. ‘Forget the world’ is a ritual incantation for bridging seen and unseen worlds; prog house magick with shades of ‘90s trance utopia. Rounding things off with a tunnelling electro tripper, ‘Doom Quest’ references the vortex-dwelling atmospherics of early tribal modes to mind-altering effect.

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Next up on X-Kalay it’s fresh heat from one of the finest among a current generation of prog-inclined producers. Guy Contact’s ‘Out of My Head (Into My Body)’ speaks to a sublime, utopian conception of dancefloor utility; dance music primed to achieve ascension through collective physical experience.

Navigating mystic, offbeat zones, Contact sets out his stall from the start. ‘Out of My Head (Into My Body)’ is as pristine as it is expansive, inducing trance states as trippy flourishes oscillate over driving rhythm in impeccable lysergic style. Then, with another dose of melt-on-the-mind groove, a radiant bliss-out arrives in the beautifully buoyant flex of ‘Sacred Mist’.

Taking its name from a part of the brain associated with emotional processes, ‘Amygdala Tongue Wobble’ propels into fractal introspection with dense, insistent pulse. Finally, ‘Optimystic’ finds Contact channelling new age spirits as he assumes the role of innerzone healer - wide-eyed downtempo to close things out.

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The first X-Kalay release of 2022 finds Melbourne’s Escape Artist traversing wormholes, complete with an assist from the ever-prolific Roza Terenzi.

Picking up where a 2019 Salt Mines debut left off, ‘Wanna Dance’ allows proggy tendencies to flourish across some mind-altering electro. Portals to higher planes of consciousness and uncharted star systems fling open as widescreen, celestial pads make way for lysergic climax.

Ramping up the intensity with her ‘Bassbin Mix’, Roza Terenzi jumps on remix duties; another electro workout, but this time more urgent, more propulsive. Bringing the tribal-breakbeat pressure in spades, it’s quintessential Terenzi.

More prog, but leaning further towards cosmic techno percolation, ‘Levitator’ finds mazy arpeggios in seemingly infinite ascent. ‘Time Knife’, on the other hand, is a radiant, beatless highlight. Deploying cascading synth arps to truly mesmeric effect, it sees the Antipodean achieve sublime tension in a rare moment of introspection.

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Lewis “LT” Taylor returns to X-Kalay and follows up 2019’s “Staminize” with his latest effort, “Disc Trail” - two tracks of blistering proggy techno and hazy breaks backed with a remix from fellow label artist No Moon.

Spanning the full A side and cut to a crisp 45, “Disc Trail” is an epic 9 minute peak time destroyer. A huge proggy roller complete with trance inducing breakdown, it goes for days and absolutely slaps at 140 BPM.
On the flip, Grain sees Taylor in familiar territory; lush enveloping pads cascade over a finely crafted breakbeat and pulsating sub - the adeptly syncopated percussion perfectly showcasing his first love and talent as a trained drummer.

Topping things off No Moon is on remix duty, reworking Grain into a chugged out 4x4 with some expansive arrangement and jacked up bass >:)

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XK025 sees a fresh label debut in the form of Cloudsteppers - a collaboration between Toronto based artists Ciel and Dan Only. Born out of an impromptu jam session at Dan Only's NDG 208 Studio in late 2019, the pair quickly hit it off. Ciel brought her trusty Korg ESX-1 sampler, and alongside Dan Only's arsenal of vintage synths and samplers, they quickly wrote the first two cuts of what would eventually turn into the first Cloudsteppers EP. After getting great feedback from playing them on tour and sharing with friends, the pair wrote the last two cuts when lockdown restrictions loosened during the summer of 2020.

Both artists are instinctively melodically-inclined producers, so for this release they tried to focus more of their attention on the drums and fx, while limiting the amount of melodic parts in each track. Working within those parameters resulted in what is now their debut EP.

Title track, “The Limit”, is a huge undulating cut of 160bpm energy - it shimmies effortlessly between skittish jungle, breakbeat and techno rhythms, centred around a tripped out sample of Manchester’s finest physicist, Brian Cox. “Slinky Bork” brings a distinctly UK Tech House flavour reminiscent of Housey Doingz, Get Fucked and others of the Wiggle/Euka House era - underpinned by a solid 4x4, subtle rhythms and spacey atmospherics abound.

On the flip, “Diva Loops”goes in hard with a pounding kick, warbling bass and some massive clattering drums before breaking out into a playful melodic refrain. Closing things out, “Trigger Happy” is another functional 4x4 club cut full of skippy tech styles and punchy rhythms. A dreamy melody floats along into a tension building crescendo, complete with massive reese-ish bassline. Big!

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Rising Australian DJ and producer Andy Garvey debuts on X-Kalay showcasing her take on deep and breaksy electro.

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Another X-Kalay OG returns to the label this summer and we couldn’t be happier :) It’s not a huge overstatement to say that Lucas’ first record on X-Kalay, “Ataraxia”, was somewhat of a milestone in the development of both artist and label, and it has been a huge pleasure to see him go from strength to strength since its release just over two years ago. These days it’s fair to say that Lucas is one of the most exciting young artists in the game - with a finely crafted knack for electro, and the 303 in particular, pretty much second to none. We’re super proud to welcome him back with his next effort -“Lifeforms”.

The emotive opener is “Amongst us in Harmony” - steadily building through deep pads and bouncing arps, the now trademark Lou Karsh acid bassline ever present. Coming in over 8 minutes, it’s a truly galactic track. “Internally Vexed”is a more stripped back affair. The breaksy groove is underpinned by the snappiest of snares and shrouded in celestial pads, the masterful use of the 303 demonstrating one of the sharpest and slickest basslines you’re likely to hear this year >:0

On the flip, “Alien With a Subwoofer (Skyline Mix)” is pacey club material built around deep wobs, a seriously wiggly 303, and carefully constructed pads building subtle tension. The sound of aliens redlining straight through your hood. Rounding things off, title track “Lifeforms” is beautifully crafted deep electronica; full of emotion and lush pads, otherworldly atmospherics and yearning synths.

This is a special record, and some of Lucas’ best work without a doubt. Don’t sleep!


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It’s been long overdue but finally No Moon is back on X-Kalay and we are HYPED. A lot has changed in the three years since his debut on the label but Fred’s ability to turn in forward thinking and original electro definitely has not. This latest effort is the work of an exciting producer on the rise.

Opening the A side “CPU Limit 99” is full of jungley skittish breaks, acid bass and off kilter rhythms. By the time we hear the voice of Agent Smith creeping out in the first break we could be forgiven for casting our minds back to Metalheadz circa 2002. Next up, “Aoe_Rushin” is the pick of the bunch for us and continues The Matrix theme, albeit less explicitly, via a full on bonkers trip of searing acid, razor sharp drums and smashed up vocals.

On the flip Adam Pits switches up “Aoe_Rushin” into a pacey 4x4 club joint utilising some expansive arrangement and lovely speed garage-esque bass. Closing things out, title track “Set Phasers to Stun” winds things back and rounds up with a deep and meditative cut of melodic electro.

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Second repress of CoastDream’s debut X-Kalay release and now cult record, Soft Moon. With the title track now racking up 1.2m views on youtube (and counting), and both the original and first repress priced at £40 on discogs, we expect this fresh pressing to sell as fast as the first two.

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Kask returns to X-Kalay with an EP of deep and raw house. Features a remix from Rudolf C and plenty of nostalgia.



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Repress!

Pinchy & friends is delighted to present the latest offering from Kaifeng-born and raised, Vancouver-based musician Yu Su.

In her first major release of original music since 2021’s acclaimed “Yellow River Blue” LP, Yu Su says elements for the EP began to form during time spent in the deserts of Ojai, California and the fertile coastal areas around her home in British Columbia. Of the new release, Yu Su says the ideas are thanks to “the objects around (colors, reflections of light, wood burning in the fireplace, and material rhyme with the sounds in the room) the desert and valley plants, the ground where citrus grows, and the flood a rainstorm created.” She notes that “the golden earth is the changing point of the matter, earth centers, stabilizes, and conserves, nurtures, and seeks to draw all things together with itself.”

Likewise, the four varied pieces of the EP match four very different landscapes: Earth-of-water (Wet/Cold Earth) Earth-of-Fire (Arid/Hot Earth) Earth-of-Metal (Dry/Hard Earth) Earth-of-Wood (Loose-Fertile/Warm Earth).

Additional guitar and bass were provided by Scott Johnson Gailey and Aiden Ayers - who also play in Yu Su’s live band.

The vinyl release comes on 180g vinyl in a full-colour sleeve by Seoul based Lobde Kim, with OBI STRIP.

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another repress coming mid/end of january 2025.

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Ltd. Turquoise Vinyl Repress.

Barker makes solo debut on Ostgut Ton with new experimental dancefloor EP Sam Barker has had a long ongoing relationship with Berghain and Ostgut Ton, having released two LPs and various EPs as one half of Barker & Baumecker and hosting regular nights at the club since September 2008 as co-founder of the label Leisure System. 2017 marked the beginning of his solo residency, 2018 sees his first solo release with Ostgut Ton. Both as a musician and label owner, Barker operates on the fringes of techno, balancing experimentation with functionality. On Debiasing, he takes a hard look at the musical elements often considered necessary to maintain dancefloor momentum, with four distinct tracks of morphing synth stabs and paired down metronomic rhythms in varying time signatures. While there is no kick, snare, or clap to be heard, the result is not experimental techno deconstructions but driving, hypnotic and unlikely dancefloor tools. Inspired by the psychology underpinning relationships between producer/DJ and audience, Debiasing is an exercise in creating alternative paths within a techno framework. In Barker’s own words: “If you have ever sat down with a drum machine and tried to elude the rules of dance music, you will find at whatever tempo, and however you arrange the rhythms of each sound, you inevitably end up somewhere. I’ve generally tried to get away from that, but you always hit against this problem of an all-encompassing taxonomy and the baggage that comes with it. For a long time, music only seemed to show me how deeply locked into our habits and patterns we are.”

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Two stone cold, all time classics, from two undisputed legends, re-edited, extended and repurposed for the modern dancefloor.

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It took a village to create Le Motel’s Odd Numbers / Só Lé. Beneath its pulsing, shimmering tones, the record is alive with the sounds of everyday life—purring mopeds, idle whistling, the din of kitchens and whisper of rain, voices joyful and contemplative, scenes of bustling cities and domestic intimacy.

Le Motel—who runs the Brussels-based record label Maloca—gathered sounds, photographs, and videos while traveling in Vietnam in 2023. From Hanoi he ventured to Hmong communities in the mountains near the border with China, building out a network of contacts gathered from friends and friends of friends. But Odd Numbers / Só

Lé—which takes its title from traditional Vietnamese numerological beliefs and customs—is wholly unlike the extractive product typical of exploitative modes of Western tourism; the album’s final shape was deeply dependent upon the participation of the people the artist met in Vietnam.

Back in Brussels after his travels, as Le Motel began working with his materials, he sent early drafts to his contacts, inviting their input. This back-and-forth eventually yielded a dynamic collective effort in which nine of the album’s 15 tracks feature multiple composer credits. Among the album’s diverse collaborators are Yvonne Qu?nh-Lan Duon, an educator and ethnomusicologist; Chi Chi, the daughter of a Hmong shaman; and Phapxa Chan, who contributes three poems inspired by landscape and Le Motel’s own music (and, in one case, psychedelics).

The result is an album that is not about making sound, broadcasting it as a one-way communication, but instead about the empathic practice of listening—about listening as an integral and even ethical part of musical creation, even (especially!) when that music is created on a computer, rather than conjured by a group of players sharing space in real time. It’s an album that adopts many of the traditional trappings of ambient music while reminding us of the importance of intentional modes of creation. Brian Eno famously said that ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting, but Le Motel’s Odd Numbers / S? L? suggests, to the contrary, the richness of experience available to us should we make the effort to open our ears.

Complementing the album, Le Motel’s Odd Numbers / S? L? also takes the form of a multimedia exhibition including photographs, video, and text-based works created in collaboration with Belgian designer and programmer Antoine Jaunard and Vietnamese poet Phapxa Chan. The exhibition is on view from January 23 until March 2, at Brussels’ 254Forest gallery, as part of Photo Brussels Festival 2025.

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For their final release of the year, The Trip release their sixth EP 'Spiritually Tessellate' on their in-house label Tessellate. 'Funky Q Nice' takes techno and tribal influences and adds them to a classic house vocal. 'Do You Feel', is an end of the night track which is as good for the club as it is for listening at home. On side B we have 'Delightful Funk', which takes an iconic diggers organ anthem and flips it on its head. Finally we have 'Original Sound', which sees the duo dig back to some of the UKG and tech house sounds that they explored last year. The EP launches on Friday 13th December.

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Repress!

With an intrigue for a particular niche of old UK hardcore which takes cues from Sheffield bleep ambience, heady rave futurism and soft, almost new age synth pads, Blank Mind presents ‘Lost Paradise: Blissed Out Hardcore 91-94’. Though the records gathered for the compilation span a short three-year period and bridge the gap between scenes, the collection manages to find a sweet spot where the influence of Warp’s Artificial Intelligence, back room chill out sonics and the nascent jungle boom meet with elements of Italian piano house and slower breakbeat cuts.

Opting to focus on atmosphere to highlight shared connections; in this case the duality of often serene and calming soundscapes with frenzied breaks and bass (see Hedgehog Affair’s ‘Parameters’ and Luxury’s ‘Twirl’ respectively); Lost Paradise is a formidable collection of tracks plucked from a thriving time for British dance music experimentation. The general themes of ascension and escapism channelled through digital samplers are also inescapably linked to a turbulent time in politics, beginning in the post-Thatcher years and culminating in the year the harshest anti-rave Criminal Justice Act came into force.

Initially building the compilation around DJ Mayhem’s track ‘Inesse’, Blank Mind label founder Sam Purcell and Amsterdam based producer Tammo Hesselink began a process of swapping favourites and deep cuts to spread across this 2x12” doublepack. The compilation avoids any obvious centrepieces through masterful sequencing, allowing for moments of refrain and tempo changes in a way that helps add to their overall vision of what this music is and can be; “We wanted to frame hardcore in a different light, looking at this idea of ecstasy through the traditional meaning of the word and exploring that symbolism”. By drawing from what some might consider the softer edges of the movement, the pair offer a look into the relevance of these tracks in the contemporary era, where the past years have seen both an explosion in popularity of old ambient/new-age music and a certified jungle revival.

Additional notes:

All tracks licensed to Blank Mind by licence holders

All tracks remastered from original DATs, with the exception of Sleepwalker (A1) which has been professionally ripped and cleaned

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Almost exactly a year since since ‘Felt Cute’ debuted on Kalahari and Blu:sh is back in the building. But this time around, it’s with a record evoking the muggy closeness of a dancefloor suspended somewhere between peak-time elation and wide-eyed vision quest.

Tweaking the blueprint to rapturous ends, the latest offering from this Blu:sh project propels itself forward with a muscle-bound groove. Six robust, deadly club trax replicate the breathy seduction of its predecessor, but this time, with added velocity.

Pinky Promise is full frontal and deadly while channelled through the same explorative prism characterising Benoit’s best work. Probably the toughest material the prolific shapeshifter has put out to date.

Nods to Eurocentric styles shine through with particular emphasis on the sexy and trance-inducing. It goes straight out the traps with a big dose of fractal fuel and stays murkily psychedelic to the very end.

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Tracklisting
A1 Steve Bicknell - Basic questions
A2 Steve Bicknell - Magnitude of such
B1 Steve Bicknell - Construction of thousands
B2 Steve Bicknell - Mobile terminals
C1 Steve Bicknell - A single process
C2 Steve Bicknell - Accelerating others
D1 Steve Bicknell - They speak
D2 Steve Bicknell - Adverse effects

Sales Note
RE-ISSUE / RE-MASTERED / RE-PRESSED
Steve Bicknell - Lost Recordings 1

This is a seminal double LP consisting of 8 tracks by Steve Bicknell (originally released in 1996)
from one of UK's most influential techno / electronic labels Cosmic Records - to introduce the incredible series LOST RECORDINGS

Rich, raw and unpredictable - every single one of these tracks sounds FRESH as ever!

In the 90/00's in London, Steve Bicknell was at the forefront of techno as a producer and DJ but also as a promoter (of the event series LOST)

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Repress!
We are honored to announce the next 12" in Dark Entries Editions is one of the all time Italo Disco club classics: My Mine - ‘Hypnotic Tango’. My Mine were the trio of Stefano Micheli (vocals, keyboards), Carlo Malatesta (vocals, keyboards), and Danilo Rosati (drums, keyboards) formed from the ashes of Italian New Wave group Ipnotico Tango in 1982. They shifted focus from the experimental post punk sounds towards something more commercial with which to try and enter the market, namely to make a record. At that time Carlo was studying in Bologna and he had heard about producer and arranger Mauro Malavasi famous at that time for the many hits produced for Macho, Peter Jacques Band, Change, Luther Vandross, Ritchie Family. The group handed Malavasi a demo tape and four days later they were invited to Fonoprint Studios to record their first single, “Hypnotic Tango”.

Utilizing new electronic instruments like the now legendary Roland TB-303, Danilo improvised a simple but effective synthesizer bass line and passed it through the Roland Echo until something magical came out. “Hypnotic Tango” was released on Progress Record in 1983 and became an international hit across Europe and US dance clubs in New York, Detroit and Chicago, capturing the imagination of House and Techno producers. In 1987 the legendary Frankie Knuckles remixed “Hypnotic Tango” at Seagrape Studios in Chicago, with assistance from studio engineers Tommy White and Brett Wilcotts. Originally released on Danica Records as the “Powerhouse Mix” paying tribute to the Windy City club atmosphere and adding his own "sighs" in the track as well. The Hypnotic Remix This reissue presents 4 mixes of “Hypnotic Tango” including the “Hypnotic Mix” only appearing together once before in 1990 on Rams Horn Records. All songs are remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl comes housed in a jacket with original artwork and includes an insert with photos and liner notes by Stefano Micheli. “Look on the floor and all is spinning round, Someone told me this was just a dance And take a chance I ain't met before..Do you think I really have a chance??"

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