JOAQUIN JOE CLAUSSELL Vinilo y CD

Review: Following the success of Joaquin Joe Claussell's sold-out edits of Crowns of Glory's 'Lord Look at Your People' from his Praise - Gospel Music According to Joaquin Joe Claussell series comes another 12" release featuring two more of his masterful edits. Side A offers 'Jerusalem,' a rework of a gospel soul rarity by Bishop Jeff Banks and The Revival Temple from Master of The Mind. The original version is also included while over on the flip, we finally get the much-anticipated vinyl version of Claussell's edits of The Gospelaires' 'God Helps Those Who Help Themselves,' which is yet another gem in his long line of innovative gospel edits. Hallelujah.

Review: Spiritual endurance tester Joaquin "Joe" Claussell returns for another topup for the Yellow Jackets series. Volume Eight is yet another heliotropic hummer, with the two ingenious progressive, naturalisti-house cuts found thereon (two new versions of 'Erratic Telepathy' and 'Who Do You Love', the latter by Josh Honeycomb) bringing much tweezy and brain-furthering motif to the two-side mix form. The first track is especially impressive for the counterpoint set up between the right-panned marimba and the left-panned filter-synth, the latter of which dances like a magic firefly against the former's lemni-spatial mallet-bed. The B-sider is much more soulful, bringing interspersive vocals and subtle hat layering to a an all-out funky freakout.

Review: It's not often that jazz guitarists and bandleaders double up as DJs and producers, but neither is Nicola Conte the kind of person one often encounters. Here the Italian multi-talent proffers a new version of his latest spiritual jazz-house opus, Umoja. This record first came to be as a full-length 4x4 dance LP of serene, danceable tropicalias and sports-whistly whorls. They now come reincarnated, karmically re-endowed with the thermal force of an eagle, by way of an album's worth of reworks by the veteran producer's vim of fellow spiritual house height-scaler and abseiler, Joaquin Claussell. Whether invoking the exquisite voices of Stefania Dipierro or channelling the patent inspirations of Lonnie Liston Smith of Gary Bartz, Conte Conte-nues to propose endless Conte-nuations of his sound; all it takes is a little help from one's friends to evoke a sacred dance, a sonic world-spirit.