Soft's Current Top....Five

Yes, only five in this lil' chart, as I've been posting all day and I do have a real job I'm supposed to be doing (albeit an insufferably dull one). No filler, all killer - the following are records you need....

V.A. / JEREMY P. CAULFIELD - DETACHED WORKS 2XCD // DUMB UNIT
Double CD that assembles various Dumb Unit sure shots on one disc, and lets the JC loose on the decks for disc two – with gems like Exercise One’s ---- and Italoboyz’s ‘Programmer’ pinging about like nobody’s business, s’all minimal funk par excellence.

V.A. – CABINET CLASSICS 2XCD // PLUS8
Straight-up, stripped-down techno from the vaults of Berlin’s Cabinet, it’s all about the 2nd disc of previously unreleased tracks that mainly plough a furrow of low-slung funk sprinkled with killer acid lines, and sound super-fresh and super-good despite their age and obscurity. Will post some highlights soon.

TORTOISE – MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE LP // CITY SLANG
Carnage’s inclusion of the epic ‘Djed’ in one of his recent Viva Radio mixes made me remember how much I used to dig this album. Fished it out of the childhood bedroom when I was at my folks’ place for Christmas, banged it on the ipod and, woah, fuck me, it’s a hundred times better than I remembered it being and I remembered it being GOOD. Seriously, this is one of the greatest LPs ever. If you haven’t heard it, you best sort it out. I’ll try and help you with this later in the week.

KATHY DIAMOND – ALL WOMAN (INSTRUMENTAL) // PERMANENT VACATION
‘Mad’ Maurice Fulton at the controls, and brushing aside the sonic assaults of his Mu and Syclops work, the Sheffield resident works up a italo-inflected, grainy disco bomb. The cyclical synth drop that kicks in ¾ of the way through has had me walking around town with a strut and a smile befitting of a man who’s just won the lottery and, by as well as rather than because of, got with the girl of his dreams. The reality being that I’m hells skint and have all but given up chasing the (spoken-for) girl of (some of) my dreams. But that’s the power of music for ya…

FERTILE – STEP INTO THE MOMENT (SEIJI REMIX) // COUNTERPOINT
Puffin tends to pop on this bruk belter every time we’re all-a-gurnin’ but a little technoed-out. I always light up when it plays, ask what it is, and then promptly forget all about it. Well, I took matters into my own hands and finally picked up the atrociously-packaged but loudly-cut 12” and it’s barely left my platter since. If you only ever buy one techy-but-soulful broken beat badboy, make it this one.