More stuff from Nathan G and Australia's Volume Records unearthed on Empty Archive.
After hearing a number of incredible and intriguing productions from his debut album, now we hear a promo cut that was also released on small press CD with vocalist Lilia Auzou.
For those playing along at home, Auzou seemed to be a sought-after vocalist in the Melbourne house scene at the turn of the millenium, she was also the vocalist for The Genre's Just You And Methat I uploaded a few weeks ago.
This Volume release was a summer promo, for which summer I can't work out, but probably before Nathan G blew up and started making cheesy house. This one has the beautiful pads we often heard in Sun-Day Sessions, just enough breakbeats and a sweet violin solo from mysterious feature Daniel Palamara.
Nice to find another gem like this while searching for an upcoming appearance on Noods Radio for Vitamine FM. Can't wait for you guys to hear it!
Through one of my many frantic Discogs deep dives, I came across Nathan G, a producer who had releases on some big Australian labels like Dance Pool and Tinted, he also had success overseas with UK's Kinky Vinyl and Waako Records in the US.
I became particularly interested with his only album, The Sun-Day Sessions Vol.1: Dysfunktional Moments. It looked from a distance like a wholly unseen house album from Melbourne's club scene at the turn of the millennia. After managing to track down a cheap copy, I wasn't disappointed.
I have chosen to upload a number of tunes, all incredible deep house gems in my humble opinion. These tracks feature some beautiful ambient pads, intriguing and varied production, and some eyebrow raising solo breakdowns.
The best way I think to sum up the mood of the record would be with the poem that features on the CD insert, featured here as it appears on the CD and maybe even written by Nathan himself:
our saturday night plays it's last tune>the rush of the peak hour continues>sunrise hits the city>another sunday is upon us>resistance? irresistable>so again, we let the wilder sides of the creatures inside us, come out to run around on this day that awaits>with an injection of funk and a filter on the groove, our mind penetrates our spirit and we shift to the highest frequency>in all the madness though, we forget to realise the sunday soundtrack we hear is controlling our mood>music, sweet music again takes over and we find ourselves sinking in an ocean of fun>sunday>chillin' deep in the sun.
All these tunes would now be sought-after if released elsewhere on other labels, but for some reason the small CD only release on short-lived Volume Records seems to have faded into obscurity.
I guess I am grateful that I am able to share these truly remarkable gems of the Melbourne house scene, but I can't shake off the feeling that these tunes might need more than just a boom in the YT algorithm.
Twisted 1995 New York deep house from multi-instrumentalist Robert Aaron now up online.
I first came across Aaron's work through Eight Ball classic Sax In The Ozone. After taking a look at his discography I quickly realised the Canadian was a prolific session musician, featuring on big time records from David Bowie, the B-52s and Blondie, scores of strange Compas records and even some highly sought-after improvisational jazz.
Along with this incredibly broad catalogue, Aaron also had a number of house releases on classic New York labels, like this one from Kult Records. The a-side has some classic house showing off Aaron's skills on the saxophone and Eleanor Mills on vocals, but this b-side remix really interested me.
DJ Henry Hall and Kenny Macon, regular Kult collaborators, twist the classic house sound into something tribal and strange. There's off-kilter bongoes, tiny vocal stabs and later some beautiful chords.
Ironically this mix has no saxophone at all. It's a testament to the experimentation and some of the unique interpretations of house music that can be hiding on dusty US 12s from the 90s.
Unearthed acid house makes it's way to the internet via Adelaide label Bark Bang Records.
You'd be forgiven for thinking this the work of someone like Mike Dunn or Paul Johnson, with some classic drum machine programming and sexy vocal chops, but it actually comes from the minds of Adelaide's Tim and Gavin Carter.
As The Carter Bros, they put out releases on a number of varied labels, including cult imprint Melbourne Deepcast, Monty Luke's Black Catalogue and Amsterdam superpower Rush Hour Records.
This release from 2007 however, never seems to have received as much recognition. I found a copy in the back of a bin on the floor of Rathdowne Records, and was taken by the fact that Adelaide was the biggest piece of text on the label.
This torch might have been lost for a little while, but hopefully now can help shine a light on a period of South Australian house music after the likes of DJ HMC and Juice Records. Feel very lucky to have it up on the channel.
One of the artists, Damian Matthews, featured on a few small Australian labels in the early 2000s.
He appeared on this Millenima compilation, the label's only release, as Damo Diggler with a track called Ho Down.
Nothing from the release was available online, but fortunately there was a seller who was travelling to Melbourne regularly and I managed to grab a copy from him in the car park of a mammoth warehouse in Campbellfield.
He bought a friends collection and had no real idea about the record, but clearly his friend had given it a good run as its riddled with BPM and key stickers. He also explained the label was blacked out because his friend used to colour in his records so that others couldn't tell what they were.
Ho Down turned out to be a boring edit of Boz Scaggs classic Lowdown. But Just You And Me is a tasteful, distorted, disco deep house gem.
The Genre, aka Enzo Pannazzo, aka D-Genre, also released a version of this as Just You & Me on their 2002 album Leisure Play, which has undistorted and sometimes autotuned cheesy vocals at the front of the mix. This rip seems like an elegant and understated dub version, even if it was released so much earlier.
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