Marcel Vogel’s Lumberjacks In Hell label has been clocking up some really good house releases over the past eight years, and this compilation celebrates the ‘chopped up soulful tunes’ Vogel and co are so good at. Right from the start there is a bounce to the grooves of Giovanni Darnico’s ‘Even The Stories’, while the consistently strong Seven Davis Jr turns in the funky number ‘Get To Know Me’. Reece Johnson’s ‘Neyt Life’ effortlessly struts its stuff with clipped beats and catchy vocal hook, and then there is Joel Holmes, zipping along with ‘Outer Light’, and Frawl’s reverberant ‘Be Good To Me’, an ideal big room closing track. Each of these productions has a spring in its step that brings back vivid recollections of early Chicago house, and those influences are turned around and used for good on each of the fourteen tracks here. Definitely worth investing in.
Ben Hogwood
