April 2009 Record Pool Picks

Here, only slightly late, are my April picks from the Richmond Record Pool shipment.

Live Progressive Sets:
No suitable tracks in this shipment.

Mainstream Club Sets:
- Matt Samuels & Abigail Bailey, "Killer" (Original Vocal Mix)

Studio Mixes:
- Audiowhores & Haze, "Stay" (Audiowhores Club Mix)
- Kenneth Thomas feat Colleen Riley, "Wish You Were Here" (Zoltan Kontes Remix)
- Vibrasphere, "Isolation" (Hidra Remix)

Warmup Tracks:
- Alex Rellic, "Take Me Higher" (David Ackerman’s Dubbed Out Mix)
- Audiowhores & Haze, "Stay" (Audiowhores Dub Instrumental)
- Austin Leeds & Etienne Ozborne, "Do It With Me" (Dub Mix)
- Benny Maze, "Lucid Dream" (Original)
- Freekers, "Lost Sandy Beach"
- John Orbiter, "Leck Mich Ich Brauch" (Elektro Mechanic Freakz Remix)
- Kimito Lopez, "Unicorn"
- LS Project, "Finally"
- LS Project, "Sunshine"
- Minilogue, "Animals" (Beat Pharmacy Six Feet Under Mix)
- Roddy Reynaert, "Jetstream"
- Shoreliners, "Handelskai" (Human8 Remix)

The April Pool shipment, as you can see above, had a lot of tracks that I’d play in a warmup set – generally non-vocal progressive house tracks with decent drums and production, but not necessarily good in a club during a peak-hour set. Maybe I’ll try to record a ten or twelve-hour set in August when I have some free time. I could call it something ridiculous like, “Bolivia’s Best Beach Background Beats.” Nothing that really catches your ear – just a lot of great non-stop tracks.

This shipment also had some cuts of some classic tracks. However, my pick of the month for April would be the Vibrasphere track, "Isolation."

February 2009 Record Pool Picks

As I write this, it’s early May and I’m sitting on the side of a logging road, on top of a mountain in British Columbia. My internet connectivity in camp is pretty spotty, but I hope I’ll be able to post this to my blog at some point in the next week or so. No matter – these ratings are already three months late. However, now that I’m working on the West Coast again, I usually spend several hours of each day driving around, so I finally have a lot of time to listen to music and to start getting caught up on my monthly record ratings.

Although the shipments from the Pool haven’t been too outstanding for several of the past months, I was extremely happy with this month’s shipment. There were quite a few tracks that I really liked, which I’ll be playing frequently. So here we go with this month’s picks:

Live Progressive Sets:
- Noel Sanger, "One More Time" (Michael Harrington Remix)
- Oko Tek, "Futuro" (Original)
- Starkillers, "Able & Uneasy" (The Unreal Mix)
- Anthony Grant, "Through The Light" (Progressive Mind Remix)

Mainstream Club Sets:
- Reead, "Nobody’s Innocent" (Vertical Smile Remix)
- Shontelle, "T-Shirt" (Bimbo Jones Remix)

Studio Mixes:
- George Acosta feat. John Sindoni, "Manifest" (Chris Domingo Remix)
- James Nelson, "Relax" (David AK Remix)
- P Lion, "Happy Children" (KJ Remix)
- Roy Davis Jr., "I Have A Vision" (The Juan Remix)
- Roy Davis Jr., "I Have A Vision" (Fred Falk Remix)
- Toro Y Moi, "Left Alone At Night" (Pink Skull Remix)
- Anthony Grant, "Through The Light" (Beautiful Remix)

Warmup Tracks:
- DJ Filip, "One Day" (Original)
- P Lion, "Happy Children" (Demy Shine Dub Remix)
- Add 2 Basket, "Budapest" (Snake Sedrick Happy Times)
- Austin Leeds, "I Can’t Get Away" (Dennis D & Patrick M Remix)

There were several tracks this month which could have qualified for my favorite of the month. You can see that P Lion’s "Happy Children" and Anthony Grant’s "Through The Light" both got listed in a couple of categories, but I’ll have to take the Fred Falk Remix of "I Have A Vision" by Roy Davis Jr. as February’s top pick. It’s not a dance floor killer by any means, but it’s the sort of track that I’ll definitely want to throw into a relaxing studio mix sometime, when I get a chance to get back into the studio. I don’t know off-hand who the vocalist is, although I’m sure that I could figure it out pretty quickly if I had an internet connection. However, if I could describe the style right now, it sounds (to me) sort of like the vocalist from Girl Nobody, singing in a style reminiscent of early 1990’s Stone Roses tracks. In other words, pretty unique.

There was no March shipment from the Pool, so I’ll be releasing my April picks in a few more days. In the meantime, I'll just sit on a mountain top, wishing that I had my DJ equipment here.