Motor City

Smokecloud Records has long claimed to be the World's only imprint dedicated to Detroit Beatdown style reworks of funk, soul, disco and boogie gems. Whether this is true or not, there's no denying the consistent quality of the imprint's output. This latest release features contributions from two label stalwarts; owner and A&R man Osmose, and New Yorker The Silver Rider. The latter kicks things off with "I Wanna Be", a rolling, soft touch head-nodder that fuses elements of a tactile soul cut with hypnotic, pitched-down house beats and filter sweeps. It's rather good, but nowhere near as inspired as Osmose's "Trust", which turns a classic Motor City soul cut into a smooth, toe-tapping Beatdown shuffler.