Phonica Records’ recent birthday at Corsica Studios boasted an impressive lineup. But nestled modestly amongst those big and all-too-familiar names (deep house heavyweight Henrik Schwarz and all-time electronica-deity Four Tet), was John Talabot. And to my surprise he played one of the most captivating sets of the night, pushing a slow, insatiably groove that kept people wiggling all the way to the end of his set.
The Barcelonian’s productions are slinky, slo-mo disco numbers, effortless yet meticulous, and stand heads and shoulders above many of the current – for want of a better, less trendy term – ‘nu disco’ producers. For the uninitiated, I recommend Talabot’s epic, string-laden ‘Africa’, found on his 2009 EP ‘My Old School’. For now, here’s a few tasty freebies he’s thrown out in the last few months:
Who needs another remix of The XX, you might ask? To which I’d tut, and tell you to stop talking such nonsense – there’ll never be enough XX remixes. And Talabot turns in one of the better reworks of the sultry band, putting a balearic house spin on things with some hollowed-out beats and plenty of steel-pan goodness. Compulsive listening:
The XX – Shelter (John Talabot’s Feel It Too Remix) {128kbps} [pelski highly recommends]
Talabot remixes the Spanish classic by the female duo Vainica Doble, layering a light-footed flutter of tribal percussion over that exotic, meandering melody. Stunning:
Vainica Doble – Eso no lo manda nadle (John Talabot’s Superedit) [pelski highly recommends]
Next up, the Spaniard gives synth-poppers Tahiti 80 a makeover, working another tropical melody with some rattling drum patterns:
