HOUSE

There was a time back when Oasis were a relevant creative musical force, Tony Blair was a politician and it cost less than a month’s wages to fill up your car. And around this time clubbing was myriad of appealing adventures. DJs like Farley and Heller, Andrew Weatherall (or just plain Andy as he was then) plus artists like Underworld were contributing to a new, frightfully English indulgence: Junior Boy’s Own Records.

The label blossomed in the early 90s to provide a platform for some truly tremendous electronic music including the breathtaking early tunes from Underworld. This retrospective doesn’t include any of these, but still brings in some heavy hitters of the age: Ashley Beedle’s Black Science Orchestra, X-Press 2 and Farley and Heller’s Fire Island and Roach Motel guises.

The result is a trip (of sorts) down memory lane (of sorts) bringing to the surface 11 cracking tunes, big, insistent house twangers that might be looking back but remind us just how much fun house music made for the sheer joy of it is. Something worth remembering.