City People / 20 Below - It's All In The Groove

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  • We look to Motor City Drum Ensemble, AKA Danilo Plessow, for old records that are new to us. His obsession with US house and disco puts most stateside selectors to shame, but on the first reissue from his own MCDE imprint, Plessow revives soulful deep house tracks straight out of Manchester. City People and 20 Below are projects from Irfan Hussain, the former in collaboration with Rex Leon. Through their Rainy People Music label, Hussain and Leon dropped a perfect run of analog deep house 12-inches in the '90s. Still active, the Mancunian label is more indebted to The Shelter than The Haçienda—as such, it's right up Plessow's alley, landing in the sweet spot between disco and '90s house. You could figure out what's going on in these three tracks just by their titles. "It's All In The Groove" lives and dies through its bassline, a perfect, stepping figure you might find buried in an instrumental break on a Chic or Curtis Mayfield record. It's elastic, harnessing a soulful energy similar to the Peven Everett classics Plessow plays. Electric piano obsessives will find a lot to love on "A Lil' Tribute To The Moody Black Keys," a cut that also appears on MCDE's recent Selectors 001 compilation. The track pays homage to the tonal breadth of the Fender Rhodes, as quivering tremolo chords counter the instrument’s traditional dusky sound. Again, the bassline is busy. It hits a disco breakdown midway through and establishes Hussain as a funky synthesizer man. Plessow's a generous digger. His recorded sets are immediately dissected by the Shazaam-wielding internet posters. This past summer, he broke tracks like Tru Tones' "Dancing," a delightful Caribbean disco tune. Now, he's pressing up his secret weapons for mass consumption. MCDE has done the heavy lifting here but also, hopefully, inspired DJs to get their hands dirty as well.
  • Tracklist
      A1 City People - It's All In The Groove B1 20 Below - A Lil' Tribute To The Moody Black Keys B2 20 Below - Jus' Nite Groovin'
RA