If This Is House I Want My Money Back

01. Roots Unit - Mabonda
02. 6th Borough Project - McLovin
03. John Talabot - Naomi
04. Walter Jones - I Am Loved
05. Mugwump - T-Goy Jelly Drops
06. Neville Watson - Let Me Go
07. Precious System - The Voice from Planet Love (Dixon Edit)
08. Hunee - Standin' High
09. Zwicker feat. Olivera Stanimirov - Oddity (John Talabot Remix)
10. Jacob Korn - Grosskariert

As their recent placing in RA's top 20 labels of 2009 would suggest, Munich imprint Permanent Vacation have gained themselves a captivated audience. It would be difficult to dispute their credentials. Last year alone saw the release of Swedish starlet Sally Shapiro's My Guilty Pleasure, the impressively deep pocketed Selected Label Works #1 compilation and the anthemic "Reckless (With Your Love)" 12-inch from new Canadian talent Azari & III. And as if to further brandish their knack for ticking multiple boxes, we now have If This Is House I Want My Money Back to contend with—a ten-track unmixed selection of blossoming production names, with a couple of cuts licensed from elsewhere thrown in for good measure.

Although the word "house" appearing in its title would appear to give a conspicuous nod towards its stylistic course, If This... is more of a tip-toe across the peripheries of the genre. Take album opener "Mabonda" by UK duo Roots Unit for example: Its gradually uncurling filter and pitter-pattern percussion camps the track out in a lost city somewhere between early New York and Chicago, yet somehow smacks of contemporary European disco at the same time. Graeme Clark, AKA The Revenge, has been positioning himself as one of the flag bearers for this type of creeping four-four approach in recent months, and appears here along with Craig Smith under their edits-obsessed 6th Borough Project cloak. "McLovin'" rides its source sample all the way into the sunset by expertly coaxing an emotive glow from a single, gently repeated phrase.

The first 40% of If This...—which also takes in the duck and pump, "The-Field-gets-stoned" goodness of John Talabot's "Naomi," and the busy beaver bass of Walter Jones' "I Am Loved"—leaps from one stepping stone of quality to another, but a slightly uninspired mid-section allows things to stumble into the stream. Belgian pair Mugwump are able only to tentatively imprint a groove upon "T-Coy Jelly Drops"; Neville Watson wears his old school influences a little too overtly on his sleeve for "Let Me Go"; and "The Voice From Planet Love"? Obviously it did serious damage over the summer of '09, but inevitably feels a little worn down at this stage in the proceedings. Breakthrough Berlin-based force Hunee unfortunately can't match his efforts for W.T. and Retreat on "Standin' High" either, which leaves it up to John Talabot and Jacob Korn to do a spot of day saving. The former gets to work on Zwicker's hook-laden "Oddity," which originally saw the light of day on Compost last year, while the latter shows why talk of his latent talent is indeed justified, thanks to the wonderfully oddball "Grosskariert."

Despite its occasionally flat passages, If This... continues to prop up Permanent Vacation's esteemed reputation as purveyors of high-grade house and disco. Hell, if you're tackling the thing digitally, simply pick and choose your favourites—no need for any refunds here...www.residentadvisor.net

Best of Hearts of Space, No.1: First Flight

01. Kitaro - Free Flight
02. Irene Papas & Vangelis - Neranzoula
03. Thomas de Hartmann - The Great Prayer
04. Michael Stearns - In The Beginning
05. Michael Stearns - Life In The Gravity Well
06. Michael Stearns - As The Earth Kissed The Moon
07. Deuter - Haleakala Mystery
08. Paul Lloyd Warner & Steve Kindler - Prisms
09. Charles Lloyd - Pathless Path
10. David Darling - Cycle Song

The nationally syndicated radio show, Hearts of Space celebrated it's 25th anniversary in 2008. After ten years as a local Bay Area program Hearts of Space emerged in January 1983 with syndication to 35 non-commercial radio stations. The program is now syndicated on over 200 NPR stations and XM Satellite Radio and boasts the second largest footprint of any current show on NPR.


From the beginning, the program's success has come from consistently high production quality and sensitive, knowledgeable music programming. The program has defined its own niche a mix of ambient, electronic, world, new age, classical and experimental music. Artists and record companies around the world recognize Hearts of Space as the original, most widely heard, premiere showcase for "contemplative music, broadly defined."


The Best of Hearts of Space: No. 1 First Flight is the first show aired from January 1, 1983. The show features what are now premier names in the format including Academy Award® winner Vangelis with Irene Papas, Grammy® Award winner Kitaro and Grammy® nominated David Darling. Other artists include Russian composer Thomas De Hartmann, instrumentalist Deuter, and pioneering ambient musician Michael Stearns...www.amazon.com

Liars - Sisterworld

01 Scissor
02 No Barrier Fun
03 Here Comes All the People
04 Drip
05 Scarecrows on a Killer Slant
06 I Still Can See an Outside World
07 Proud Evolution
08 Drop Dead
09 The Overachievers
10 Goodnight Everything
11 Too Much, Too Much

The follow-up to Liars’ eponymous fourth album is entitled Sisterworld. The press release claims that the album delves into “alternate spaces people create in order to maintain identity in a city like LA ... where outcasts and loners celebrate a skewered relationship to society.” So, another concept album from Liars, it seems. The opening track, “Scissor”, is now available for free download on the album’s website.

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

01. Hyph Mngo
02. Wet Look

Dance music trends tend to move in such quick arcs that we rarely think of the involved artists as "craftsmen"; there is merely time to define a genre and then advance it. It's a little bit surprising, then, that the most trenchant, relevant thing to say about Joy Orbison's* "Hyph Mngo" (first mentioned here by Martin Clark) is that it's a spectacularly well-crafted dubstep song in the same manner that, say, Spoon writes well crafted rock songs: shaping familiar, predictable ingredients into a unique, easily identifiable whole.

The product of 22-year-old South Londoner Peter O'Grady, "Hyph Mngo" finally sees release after months of streams and samples (that its lock-job successfully kept it out of the hands of chatty internet dance geeks for so long is itself a marvel). High-strung and tense, "Hyph Mngo" relies heavily on a distorted, two-chord organ progression that trails the beat by a half-step. The hook is supplied-- and supplied and supplied and supplied-- by a popping, looped soul vocal, a woman feverishly repeating, mushmouthed, "I do," her near-indecipherable syllables justifying the track's oddball title. O'Grady lets the track build naturally, foregoing any discernible crescendo for sturdy, quick repetitions spiced with increasingly space-y synth noise. The track is self-contained, simple, and weirdly uplifting. If you ever thought claustrophobia could feel triumphant, "Hyph Mngo" is your floor-filling jam...www.pitchfork.com