- The final installment of NRK's nite:life series comes courtesy of San Francisco based deep house DJ and producer, Miguel Migs. Known for his deep house flavours mixing smooth, melodic basslines, infectious percussive grooves and catchy vocal samples, 24th St Sounds is the edition that brings out the summer vibes to the series. As a tribute to the successful releases Miguel has put out on the label, NRK is nice enough to include a bonus CD of Miguel's selected NRK works from 2000 - 2004.
Migs opens up the mix CD with his own Come On featured here as the Deeper Mood Mix. A funky keyboard hook is joined by a catchy percussive rhythm, female vocal stabs and an occasional sax wail. The Funk Distraction mix of Drop The Funk by Primo continues the deep, sexy vibe as it infuses a melodic bassline, jazzy trumpet and a piano melody. One-Two One-Two from the Sydney volume of Miguel's City Sounds shows how a tune with simple elements (catchy bassline, hip hop vocal samples and synth hook) can be stunningly effective.
Crazy Penis offer up the first vocal tune with Give It Up with Faze Action providing a deep, disco influenced remix. Kerri Chandler's Where Is the Love sends the mix down to deeper territories dropping a dubby bassline with latin styled percussion and old soul/gospel vocals.
Montreal based deep house producer Fred Everything teams up with Roy Davis Jr. for the spoken word tune, Next To Me featuring a deep monotonic vocal offering by Roy Davis on top of a slightly dirty and serious deep house beat, dropping hints of electro along the way. Stereo Flavas by Sydney's own Hi-Fi Mike is featured here as the dub mix done by Jamie Lewis which drops the vocals to a minimum and replaces them with a funky jazzed up keyboard solo.
The mix then picks up again with the latin vibes on Audio Whores & Groove Assasin's Sona Unica laying down a funky disco guitar lick, latin percussion (steel drums and bongos), a whispery female and an occasional sax bellowing out a solo or two before the mix (and the series!) comes to an end with the dirty bounce of Trevor Lovey's The Bounce - dropping a dirty bassline with squelchy electro elements and chopped up vocal samples.
CD 2 takes in Miguel's selected works for the label from 2000 - 2004 and features tunes like Petalpushing which features a male vocal sample on high repetition. Bump Selecta is featured on the CD as the Dub Selecta mix bringing out thumping kick drums, ragga man chants and echoey dub effects with Migs bringing out more dubby house flavours on the Big It Up mix of Dub It Up - with the latter tune dropping a catchier bass line melody combined with Carribean styled percussion. In fact there's plenty of dub infused house rhythms on the selected works CD with the last two tunes on the CD being dub versions of Feel It and Make A Change respectively. The latter is the pick of the bunch with its dirty dub bassline, frantic latin drum patterns and ragga calls.
24th St Sounds is a good way to bring the nite:life series to a close, but for those who have heard deep house mixes before will find nothing that really stands out here - it's just your typical deep house outing dropping all too familiar basslines, percussive grooves that just seem to be all too common and vocal offerings that really don't stand out. Of course there are standout tunes to be found in both the mix and the selected works and for that I'll leave the listener to be the judge as I've already picked mine. What's great about the CD though is the nice summery atmosphere it brings about - put this one on and place yourself on a beach watching the sunset sipping pina coladas - it wouldn't be hard to do. This one is definitely one for fans of deep house.