Troy Pierce continues his mission up river into the heart of darkness, with arguably his most accomplished collection of tracks to date. Made up of music composed almost exclusively on the road, the ‘Gone Astray EP’ is driven by choices and ideas that would not normally have surfaced in a typical studio environment. It’s an innovative, ambitious project, not least because it tackles so many abstract themes in one sitting, often taking more than one mix to fully explore the hidden pathways that disappear off into this dense catacomb of sound. More

Detroit based multi instrumentalist Jimmy Edgar brings his unique electronic vision to Items & Things for the label’s keenly anticipated fourth release. Edgar’s versatility is well documented with influences ranging from jazz, funk and R&B through to Chicago house and of course Detroit techno. For this outing he puts his distinctive R&B tinged electronica to one side, laying down some timeless acid house grooves that pay homage to the founding fathers of the genre. The sublime techno soul of the title track Funktion House kicks off the 4-track EP with sweet chord stabs and laid back laser sweeps dominating the intro. A gentle yet infectious background melody that’ll pull bodies to the dancefloor like bees to honey completes the summertime vibe with each element effortlessly evolving as Edgar applies subtle ring shifts and delays to the down tempo groove. The tension gradually builds with some acidic tweaks eventually emerging to complement the squelchy bassline but the track never loses sight of its soulful origins, keeping the floor ticking over and soothing the collective spirit in a wash of old school nostalgia. Dark acid tones abound on Young Thing with its dirty, scratchy vocal parts posturing over a sparse, razor sharp 808 groove in a return to the days of Phuture Fantasy Club and Fast Eddie’s Acid Thunder. The nervous tension resonates back and forth between the liquid acid and the pitched down vocals creating the perfect late night dancefloor moment that’ll turn the most innocent of clubs into a heaving sweatbox, maintaining the high standards and left field agenda set by the label’s previous three releases. The beats get nasty as another of Detroit’s next generation, Thrill Cosby aka Seth Troxler goes to work on reforming Funktion. The mood is relentless from the off with another twisting acid line accompanying a host of peripheral bleeps, efx and reinterpreted retro synth stabs from the original version. The groove pushes forward urgently, cloaked by freaky pitcheddown vocals that repeat hypnotically into a full-on electro funk breakdown that disorientates and seduces in equal measures. Edgar’s own acid remix of Funktion offers a more toxic take on the original theme. It’s raw, stripped down with urgent snare rolls, machine gun claps and cavernous reverberating vocal efx. The jacking bassline becomes embroiled with the splayed hi-hat pattern before a complimentary second bassline fleshes out the sequence. The powerful acid rush continues to ebb and flow, teasing the floor constantly before he finally drives it to point of climax, tweaking the controls to oblivion until the track dissolves into a sea of delay. More