Honest Jon's Vinyl & CDs

Review: Serial collaborator DJ Sotofett pops up on Honest Jon's with a typically excellent doublepack built around a quartet of studio hook-ups. Aside from Versatile boss Gilb'r (here lending a helping hand on some African-influenced ambient house), most of the collaborators are new additions to the eccentric Norwegian's out-there audio universe. The two tracks with Phillip Lauer and JKS - an intergalactic ambient affair and a chunk of early Fila Brazillia style deep house - are particularly potent, while there's something deliciously warm and evocative about the Norwegian's explorations with Finn Jaakko Eino Kalevi. Best of all, though, are the two tracks with African vocalists Karlolin Tampere and Maimouna Haugen; "Nondo Riddimix", which boasts deliciously dense drums and sparse, exotic melodies, is arguably the highlight.

Review: Not content with dropping the delirious "Deadman", Sam Shackleton offers up another must-have release in the shape of this expansive double pack. Lead cut "Fireworks" is classic Shackleton - a skittering dubstep/dub techno fusion that makes delicious use of echo-laden congas, foreboding noises and distant, Middle Eastern melodies. It's utterly spellbinding. T++ remixes, delivering a ricocheting dub take. On the second disc, Shackleton reveals "Undeadman", a kind of bizzaro universe mix of "Deadman". It's pleasingly creepy, working odd samples and strange found sound around a solid, dancefloor-friendly rhythm. Flip for an excellent remix from Mordant Music, which makes brilliant use of a live dub bassline.

Review: Shack is back! The master of intricately layered drumming, who has long been twisting our melons with his dark and intriguing experimental sounds, returns to Honest Jons here for some more mind-melting workouts. These feature drums the man himself played in Dakar in February 2020 across three layered and enchanting excursions. The first is a real awakening, the second is more twisted and tight, with toms and echo and bass and hand drums all jumbled up while the third is full of intrigue and mystery, ancient drums run through with modern synth sounds to make for something scrambled yet transcendental.

Review: Based in New York City and famed for his sonic experimentalism, Madteo is back with another alluring three tracker on Honest Jon's. The music is all about rugged machine funk, busted loops and lo-fi house grooves that recall the greats like Moodymann. 'Str8 Crooked' is the most loose and clattering of the lot with its knackered bassline stay down low. The amusingly titled 'Build Back Better Sweatshops' is scuffed up deep house a la STL and 'Episcopi Vagantes' is an epic 16 minute tune with spinning hi hats, wonky synthesis and plenty of cavernous soundscapes to explore at 5am on a darkened dance floor.

Review: Ahead of the release of his sophomore solo full-length on Honest Jon's, the much lauded London imprint has served up this three-track teaser 12". Predictably, Mosse is in fine form, with A-side "Chilazon 1" offering a near perfect fusion of acid house wiggle, German techno hypnotism, and trippy, late night funk. "Chilazon II" offers a wilder, weirder take on the same track, with Mosse mixing up loose, broken techno rhythms, dub techno style distortion, and razor-sharp cymbal hits. Finally, the Workshop head honcho serves of "Lanthanum", where off-kilter drum machine rhythms are joined by spaced-out percussion hits, occasional dub-flecked riffs, and copious amounts of tape delay.

Review: Honest Jon's assembles a crack team of dub heads here for an experimental foray into the outer edges of the genre. Holy Tongue kicks off with three versions of 'Dey Sey' with its darkened electric and soot black dub sounds echoing through a desolate urban landscape in the dead of night. Beatrice Dillon's '2020' then takes a totally different approach with icy and glistening synths over more stripped back and crisp rhythms and percussive patterns and then there is a tribal approach to Caprices mix of Lamin Fofana while Itinerant goes for something more cosmic and airy. LABOUR's 'Etu Keur Gui' closes out with a pair of clattering reworks to cause real dance floor destruction.