Chiwax Germany Vinilo y CD

Review: D'Julz is a vital veteran of the European underground who continues to serve up the sort of irresistible grooves that both DJs and dancers need in their lives. The Frenchman heads up his own Bass Culture label but here lands on Chiwax with Raw Toolz 1. 'Murky' kicks it off with a sleazy and percussive house cut denied by its unrelenting lead synth sound. 'Ruff' is a physical and gritty tech house cut and 'Jackie' then explores an old school Chicago sound with trippy vocal fragments and plenty of filters. 'Raw' is a pumper with literal bells on for backrooms who want to get sweaty.

Review: One of Detroit's finest, Lauren Flax aligns with the Chiwax label for a debut offering of ultra-rough, juking, retrofuturistic daydreams in four tracks. Like a rose blossoming from a thorny stem, this EP starts out raw and slowly fans out into the subtler tricks of multilayering and accoutrement. 'Jack The Haus' is the tweezy, 16-bit hardware jam; then there's 'The Cheeky Whistle Song', which, compared to the first track, betrays a contrasting taste for cascading arps and subtle melodies in the surround mix. 'D-Troit' returns somewhat to the initial Detroit bounce mood, while Lis Sarroca's remix rounds things off with a softer, out-your-face breaks-house beeper.

Review: It seems like Iron Curtis has been around forever now - always in the underground, never getting the acclaim he deserves but never falling out of favour either. This latest outing takes him to Chiwax for four more finely tuned and club-ready offerings of seductive and deep tech. 'Schweben' is a nice elastic rhythm with slowly undulating chords that melt the mind, while 'Push Push' (live At Passagen) is a more steamy and intense bit of cosmic deep house with drive and intent. 'Factory' (Sheffield Danse mix) is a warehouse-ready tune with bright strobe-lit chords and 'Weather Report' closes with more deny acid and melancholic chords that get you in a daze.

Review: With a name like Chiwax you surely know what you're in for right? The German label serves up another Windy City classic by the legendary DJ Skull here - under his birth name Ron Maney - with the 2 Entities EP, originally released back in 1996 on the seminal Relief Records. A classic for those that know, it's got the spooky and minimalist shuffle of "Bring It Home" and the heads- down stomper "Reborn Souls" which is classic DJ Skull all the way, complete with its heady loops underpinned by skipping rhythms. On Side B, "Reconstruction" also has more of a mid-90's Chi-town techno sound, only this one's even more driving and nasty - a proper basement jam to be experienced under the strobe lights.

Review: Daniela La Luz is no stranger to Rawax's stable of labels - she's previously released on most of them at different points over the last decade- though Global Transformation marks the first time she's appeared on any of them as Vanilla. The Berlin-based artist sets her stall out with the raw, punchy and occasionally sparkling title track - all woozy keyboard riffs, weighty electro-meets-house beats, tipsy chords and heavy bass - before opting for a deep, druggy, acid-fired and percussively propulsive vibe on 'The Last Window of Time'. Elsewhere, 'Animal Queendom' sees her wrap echoing, dubbed-out and reverb-laden synth riffs around a tough and locked-in beat, while 'All Together' is built around the twin attractions of sturdy, slightly off-kilter machine drums and jazzy electric piano motifs.

Review: Chiwax are back this week with a more than welcome reissue of Wax Fruit's one-and-only release Whispers from 1994. This was one of many aliases sussed by Toronto-based producer Ron Allen, who some of you may know for his seminal work as one half of Psyance (with Hayden Andre Brown) who released on Plus 8, as well as his work under the names Aztech, The Apache Project and The R.A.S.E. The late night mood music of the title track is a true zeitgeist from the period in which it was released, while the looped-up disco sampling deep house of 'Just A Party' or 'Mindgames' over on the flip were equally as trendsetting as anything fellow Torontonians like Nick Holder or DJ Sneak were making at the time.