All the Moodymann comparisons aside...this is very nice deep house. Both cuts shine on this platter and IMHO are equally as groovy or as good as anything Moodymann ever produced (Here come the angry replies!). Who cares if they were made ten years later, good deep house / disco is good whenever it was made. Daniel Plessow clearly is a house music head and if any of the MCDE EP's pay homage to someone as good as Moodymann, I say knock yerself out and just keep making tunes that groove. Both Raw cut 3 and 4 have that late night feel about them, the soft and subtle play between night and day. They are spacey and deep but with a good and nicely mixable kick. This is house music for the house music head.

The A side is ridiculous acid house mayhem...and available only on glorious vinyl to this point! Banger.

Marilyn's Gold really jumps off the decks here. Nice tribal conga intro followed by a deep bassline, some handclaps and whistles and shouts makes this a great peak track. This could end up being a space disco anthem if it wasn't so immediate and it cries for a Robert Owens vocal IMHO. Great effort from JR.

Stereolab deliver great records over and over again. Here with 'Dots and Loops' they deliver a slightly more electronic and experimental record than the previous and oft lauded 'Emperor Tomato Ketchup'. While 'Dots' may not be as immediate as 'Emperor' it is a far more interesting record IMHO. It blends stuttering electronics with smooth melodies and soft vocals that leave one with that 'drifting away on summertime clouds' feel. Stereolab suffered with the 2002 death of the wonderful Mary Hansen in a bike accident and the loss seemed to rob them of some creativity and is not until most recently that they seem to have fully recovered. Dots and Loops captures the band at their peak. Highly recommended.

Before Sting was a colossal douche...or at least before anyone else knew it, he, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers made an excellent and classic record that defined the 1980's. Sure they borrowed from Reggae and dub influences and quickly became limited by their style, but for a short while they were at the top of the heap. Too bad no one ever told Sting it was over...

Before the whole disco-house thing there was this little bomb. It tears along with a very funky baseline and breaks down into one of the fattest flute loops ever. It is that fluttering disco flute and the horns break that send many an old school raver into orbit and then throw in a "wooo" and a primal scream sample and you've got the jam! Awesome track!

OK...If you haven't heard this stunning work yet you are truly missing out. I consider myself a pretty jaded listener these days and find a lot of newer music missing something. This is missing nothing. Massive Attack have this innate ability to make electronic records that sound timeless...like Mezzanine for one. Heligoland weaves the dark with the light seemlessly. Love songs with darker messages and without missing a beat. There may not be any kitchy coolness or intentional underproduction to create a 'sound' (see Passion Pit) and why....because this is that good that each track is stand alone good. So good that they drip with class and stunning top-notch production. It never feels dated. It never feels forced. It feels like it fits into a pre-arranged space in your brain that has always been there waiting for it. But make no excuse, it isn't predictable. This record is straight up smack. Download it, buy the wax, the cd...it's meant for your brain.

This record has tremendous memories attached to it.

Picture the nascent stages of the american rave scene in a sleepy little college town in Upstate New York. A dj who can't even mix records drops this to a crowded bar of alternative rock heads only to find them going mental on the tiny dancefloor, spilling beer and screaming. Out of the crowd comes a girl dressed in a brightly colored outfit with beads around her neck. "Frankie Bones says peace and love" is what she says putting beads around the DJ's neck and then quickly disappears into the crowd.

ps. The record was a landmark, though quite dated by today's standards and was played to death from 91-92. It still makes me smile and remember those days.

A lot of people dis JB3's funkier discofied sound. In fact this is really pretty hard stuff. 4 to the floor hard disco funk. Not some soft filtered house throwaway. While it may not be as elusive or hard hitting as something like the excellent Calibre EP or the 'return to form' of Shaking Trees, it is still interesting and pushed the boundaries of techno. Techno purists often get too wrapped up in what is a pure techno record and shy away from anything disco or 'feminine'. JB3 really shows here that he is not afraid to grapple with any kind of funk, be it hard machine funk or discofied filter flare funk. For this much I respect him.