Deep house boyband Hot Natured looking suitably sultry
Stop the press: deep house playboys Hot Creations have announced that they're now the sun-drenched home to not one but two dance supergroups. Joining Hot Natured, their clubland boyband, will be a new project that sees Lee Foss and Marc 'MK' Kinchen tag-teaming with vocalist Anabel Englund to become, wait for it… Pleasure State.Given that the three scariest phrases in music are "ska-punk", "Q Magazine Album of the Year" and "supergroup" you'd be forgiven for not spontaneously combusting with joy at the news. The supergroup brings to mind dismal images of hoary rockers clomping on stage for a masturbatory, self-celebratory jam before the assembled audience of brown loafer'd dads get to witness the nosebleed highs of the rhythm guitarist from Free trading chooglin' boogie riffs with someone who was in Thin Lizzy for a bit while Deep Purple's second vocalist tries to hog the limelight.The supergroup phenomenon is understandable: we all like the idea that amassing talented people into one coagulated heap of raw hot talent is going to produce something far more than the sum of its parts. That idealised notion of unity and creative progression is usually derailed by rampant egotism and vast heaps of cocaine. It's like thinking that pouring Coca Cola, freshly squeezed orange juice and ice cold San Pellegrino into a pint of crisp Stella will be like drinking an orgasm because all the components are so sensational solo. It'd probably taste like sick.The supergroup isn't the sole preserve of the back pages of Mojo, dance music is littered with collaborative efforts that combine the traits and tricks of a variety of acts merging and melding into a newly cohesive whole. The supergroup has, in recent years, swapped Ally Pally for Allez-Allez and back again. Think of the stadium smashing success of Swedish House Mafia or Magnetic Man's brief period as chart sensations.Since the Pleasure State single is actually decent, we thought we'd celebrate the finest amalgamations of talent to drop hot 12"s into the rails of record shops everywhere.THREE CHAIRS
Here's the official list of the greatest things known to man: walks down out-of-season seaside town promenades on overcast autumn afternoons, chip butties, long baths, new socks and dusty Detroit house and techno. Ergo, the Three Chairs, aka Kenny Dixon Jr aka Moodymann, Rick Wilhite, Marcellus Pittman and Theo Parrish, should pretty much be the most stunning act in the history of recorded music. That they aren't quite that good isn't a slight on them. They're still capable of dropping solid gold tracks that combine together Dixon Jr's ear for sentimental grooves, Parrish's cosmic thud, Pittman's downtempo Detroit classicism and Wilhite's propensity for the grittier edges of funk.BACK TO BACK TO BACK
There's no new material involved in this hook up between Scouse-baiting funster DJ Sneak, dog-and-moccasin loving big man Derrick Carter and acid jazz progenitor Mark Farina, which might explain why it's not the heinous crime that most of these things are. Instead of knocking about a studio ploughing thousands and thousands of dollars into a techno concept record about the pressures of fame or whatever, Back to Back to Back is three house luminaries standing about behind the decks at big festivals and intimate clubs playing track after track of Chicago stompers.MORITZ VON OSWALD TRIO
Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus are one of the most undeniably important pairings of musicians in the entire history of electronic music. From the game changing hyper minimalism of Basic Channel, Rhythm & Sound's spooked out excursions into the hinterland of dub, the Main Street Records 'Round' series of utterly astonishing deep house classics and the desert dry techno perfection of their material as Maurizio, the pair are responsible for a veritable glut of insanely good records. Ernestus is now putting out avant-African jammers and von Oswald thought 'fuck it' and formed a minimal-dub-techno-cosmic-jazz trio. Not just any trio though: his accompaniment comes in the form of shapeshifting supremeo Vladislav Delay and tricksy techno don Max Loderbauer. Together the threesome make diving bell deep stuff, space age bachelor pad music.UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE
They've got the best logo in all of music. Their ranks have, over the years, boasted the following: Robert Hood, Jeff Mills, Claude Young and DJ Rolando. The name is synonymous with brutalist, steel lashed, unforgiving and uncompromising Detroit techno with a militantly political accent. Underground Resistance is a free flowing experiment into the power of multiple personalities sharing a group identity in an attempt to perpetually radicalize a scene that often shys away from anything remotely political or intellectually motivated. And that's the joy of "Mad" Mike Bank's ongoing project: UR is more than a dauntingly massive back catalogue of transcendentally good techno records: it's a supergroup with a purpose other than ensuring some old bastards get a final paycheck.Follow Josh on Twitter: @bain3z
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Here's the official list of the greatest things known to man: walks down out-of-season seaside town promenades on overcast autumn afternoons, chip butties, long baths, new socks and dusty Detroit house and techno. Ergo, the Three Chairs, aka Kenny Dixon Jr aka Moodymann, Rick Wilhite, Marcellus Pittman and Theo Parrish, should pretty much be the most stunning act in the history of recorded music. That they aren't quite that good isn't a slight on them. They're still capable of dropping solid gold tracks that combine together Dixon Jr's ear for sentimental grooves, Parrish's cosmic thud, Pittman's downtempo Detroit classicism and Wilhite's propensity for the grittier edges of funk.
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There's no new material involved in this hook up between Scouse-baiting funster DJ Sneak, dog-and-moccasin loving big man Derrick Carter and acid jazz progenitor Mark Farina, which might explain why it's not the heinous crime that most of these things are. Instead of knocking about a studio ploughing thousands and thousands of dollars into a techno concept record about the pressures of fame or whatever, Back to Back to Back is three house luminaries standing about behind the decks at big festivals and intimate clubs playing track after track of Chicago stompers.MORITZ VON OSWALD TRIO
Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus are one of the most undeniably important pairings of musicians in the entire history of electronic music. From the game changing hyper minimalism of Basic Channel, Rhythm & Sound's spooked out excursions into the hinterland of dub, the Main Street Records 'Round' series of utterly astonishing deep house classics and the desert dry techno perfection of their material as Maurizio, the pair are responsible for a veritable glut of insanely good records. Ernestus is now putting out avant-African jammers and von Oswald thought 'fuck it' and formed a minimal-dub-techno-cosmic-jazz trio. Not just any trio though: his accompaniment comes in the form of shapeshifting supremeo Vladislav Delay and tricksy techno don Max Loderbauer. Together the threesome make diving bell deep stuff, space age bachelor pad music.UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE
They've got the best logo in all of music. Their ranks have, over the years, boasted the following: Robert Hood, Jeff Mills, Claude Young and DJ Rolando. The name is synonymous with brutalist, steel lashed, unforgiving and uncompromising Detroit techno with a militantly political accent. Underground Resistance is a free flowing experiment into the power of multiple personalities sharing a group identity in an attempt to perpetually radicalize a scene that often shys away from anything remotely political or intellectually motivated. And that's the joy of "Mad" Mike Bank's ongoing project: UR is more than a dauntingly massive back catalogue of transcendentally good techno records: it's a supergroup with a purpose other than ensuring some old bastards get a final paycheck.Follow Josh on Twitter: @bain3z