An essential look at the key years of the Chicago house scene – the time when the city's musicians were carving out a whole new space in sound! Although early house first began as an extension of some of the later modes of disco and 80s club, influences from European post-punk and post-disco work soon crept into the mix, and pushed the Chicago artists to work in a darker, edgier sound that was completely unique! The work from this period is filled with stark, spare electronics – not the cheesy kind that showed up often in New York electro records, but intense analogue bits that had a really dark, dystopic space age sort of quality – laid out over harsh beats and bass, and often presented with no additional vocals at all. For the collection, Soul Jazz do a great job of picking out the best of the early acid house scene in Chicago (the key recordings before the term got picked up overseas, and used to make some very dodgy dance music at the end of the 80s) – and then they go on to pull together some of the best strands of the house revival in Chicago in the early 90s, including key work from the Cajual label. 2 CD set features 17 tracks in all – including "This Is Acid" by Maurice, "Do You Want To Percolate" by The Sweat Boyz, "Beyond The Clouds" by Mr Fingers, "Go Wild Rhythm Track" by Virgo, "Acid Crash" by Tyree, "Dum Dum (part 2)" by Fresh, "Acid Bass" by Roy Davis Jr, "Phuture Jacks" by Phuture, "I've Lost Control" by Sleezy D, "Take Me Higher" by Virgo Four, "Acid Over" by Tyree, "Box Energy" by DJ Pierre, "Video Clash" by Lil Louis, "Explorer" by Green Velvet, "Like This" by Two Of A Kind, "Acid Tracks" by Phuture, and "Downfall" by Armando. (House Music, Funky Compilations) CD

Those are some pretty crabby ladies on the front covers – workers for the Jugoton label, working on quality control – but they're probably not the right audience for the music on this set, which is very cool and groovy – and not the sort that would usually go for the blue-haired set! As you'll guess from the title, the sounds were all created in the 80s – partly following off the British electronic modes of the post-punk years, in both cold wave and new wave styles – then moving into some of the shifting styles as the decade moved on, although still often nicely not really in any sort of too-commercial territory! Given the wealth of Croatian, Serbian, and other talents handled by the label, there's a huge amount going on here – as you'll discover on titles that include "Ti I Ja" by Denis & Denis, "Pocket" by Master Scratch Band, "Kad Je Kraj Blizu" by Parliament, "Palcica" by Mato Dosen & HC Andersen, "On" by Zana, "Devica 69" by Laboratorija, "Zaba" by D'Boys, "Radio Video" by Nicky, and "Harakiri" by Dubravka – plus some short "Jugoton Express" tracks. LP, Vinyl record album