Schatrax - Vintage Vinyl

  • Share
  • House music is full of mysterious earworms, tracks many people recognize but few actually know. Throughout the '90s, a steady stream of these came from the studio of Josh Brent, a producer from the Isle Of Wight better known as Schatrax. In his heyday, Brent released dozens of records under a few different names, but it was his Schatrax white labels that resonated the most. As a whole, the series established a sound that's still fresh some 20 years later, and included a bundle of what you might call "underground classics"—"Misspent Years," "Champagne Dancer" and "Restless Nights" among others. At the end of 2015, the Schatrax label sprang back to life to reissue these and other productions, with a new EP coming every month or two so far. The latest is a mini-collection that shows the duskier side of Schatrax. It's easy to see why "Restless Nights" is one of Brent's most enduring records—dark, dubby and a bit rough-hewed, it prefigured the cold house aesthetic of artists like Levon Vincent. Featured here, "Restless Dub" is an alternate version of that track, the only difference being an ever-so-subtle tweak in its most memorable detail, the catchy bassline, which gets a more stumbling rhythm on this one. "Mists Of Time" has a similar atmosphere—cold and spacey with sonorous low-end—but this one floats where "Restless Dub" jacks. "Aliena's Journey" taps into Brent's melancholic streak, with mournful chords drifting over a chunky, low-slung groove. Like everything in this welcome reissue series, all three show an early blueprint for deep house that's barely been improved upon since.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Restless Dub B1 Mists Of Time B2 Aliena's Journey
RA