Various - Deeper 01.02

Hed Kandi: 2002

I started this kinda'-annual glance into the Hed Kandi legacy with a Deeper compilation, so it's only fitting that I return to it at some point. Having gotten the second collection, Deeper 01.02, I've now completed the entire series! Yep, only two of these were ever released, making Deeper the shortest series the label ever put out. Unless there was some aborted runs later in Hed Kandi's existence, when their popularity had dwindled down to bupkis.

It's funny that despite all the label's early success in cornering the disco, house, funk, and soul market, their stab at prog never caught on. Not that I blame them for throwing their hat into the pile. When the highest paid, most popular, critically hailed DJs in UK clubland are rinsing dark, dubby house music with a tribal edge, you bet your bottom dollar on the punters wanting those tracks for themselves too. Except that's not the sort of audience Hed Kandi had cultivated. When you think of prog, you think of Very Serious DJs posing, not glamour girls sashaying about. Besides, I think the label had their eyes on that burgeoning 'twisted disco' sound (re: electro house). Can definitely milk some saucy cover art with that concept!

So, familiar names and tunes. The Creamer & K rub on iiO's Rapture is here, which is about as obvious a 'prog house anthem fitting with Hed Kandi clientele' tune as you could expect. Honestly though, it's been a lo-o-o-ong while since I last heard this track, and was pleasantly surprised at how well it still held up. B.P.T.'s Moody is also here, by way of a Pete Heller remix, so not quite as dated as hearing it again a few years after Digweed's Bedrock. Other 'prog' favourites include Danny Tenaglia, Satoshi Tomiie, Timo Maas and... Superchumbo? I can't remember if they were fav's or not.

It can't all be a prog love-in though, not if you want to retain some of the Hed Kandi faithful. Thus, there's a little deep house action from Roger Sanchez, Kidstuff, and Puretone, but by and large, it's the prog vibes that dominate. Dubby basslines, deeper grooves, lengthy run-times, and all that good stuff, even from names I don't recognize in the slightest. Well, maybe Miriam Project, I think I recognize that one. Maybe Stylus Trouble too. Not Goldtrtix though. Or Dirty from Dirty.

And, in a move that makes absolutely no sense from any angle you wish to approach from, Deeper 01.02 ends off with Hardfloor's remix of Circus Bells by Robert Armani. What, pray tell, does acid techno from the '90s have to do with a 'prog' collection from Hed Kandi? Mark claims in the liner notes it was included as a summation of Deeper's manifesto, of a track that “builds and builds”. But... lots of tracks do that? I dunno, maybe I'm just perplexed by the fact that, despite it being rather random inclusion, this track always seems to follow me around.

Various - Disco Kandi 05.04

Hed Kandi: 2004

Right, don't need to get deep into this one. I've talked plenty about Hed Kandi, its various compilation series, the rise, the buy-out, the fall, the continued existence. Heck, I've already dabbled in their disco series twice now, so no need to get more detailed about something as self-explanatory as this.

Eh, before I talk the music, you want to know where Disco Kandi 05.04 falls on the grand timescale of Hed Kandi's lifespan? Oh, somewhere in the middle. I think this was one of the last before Ministry Of Sound came along, doing away with the numerical titles after. Disco Kandi became just another yearly DJ mix series, the first track of this new direction a remix of Fedde Le Grand's Put Your Hands Up For Detroit. As if you needed a more perfect example of Hed Kandi's brand losing the plot under the Ministry's 'guidance'.

Not that everything was flying high while still under Mark Doyle's supervision. Even here, one can sense a bit of struggle in filling out two CDs worth of up-front disco leaning house music. Change was unavoidable by the year 2004, most producers chasing that lucrative 'electro' craze, leaving things like 'funk' and 'soul' behind. There were hold-outs, of course, with many regular Kandi contributors featured across these two CDs. The days of finding hot up-and-comers were long gone though, few future hits makers found on Disco Kandi 05.04.

As always, disc one gives us the mid-tempo garage, exuberant Latin, and soulful side of house, with names like StoneBridge, Basement Jaxx, Funkstar De Luxe, and Joey Negro (as The Sunburst Band here) keeping things in familiar Hed Kandi territory. There's also that Axwell kid doing a remix on Mambana's Felicidad, but is more of a standard, loopy French house rub and anything 'Swedish'. The only track I recognize from elsewhere is Seamus Haji's go with Belezamusica's Running Away, though I can't help but think this is a remix of a cover? There's a fair bit of that going on between these two discs.

Oh yes, we get a couple of such tracks on CD2 (the late-night option), including Mr. Haji having his own go with Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. There's also Soul Central doing rather generic cover of Strings Of Life, a tune that I'll never understand the appeal of (those 'strings' always sound like ass). King Britt is here with a decent little acid boogie number in I Can't Wait (Milk & Sugar on the rub). Armand van Helden is still trying to ride that French house thing with My My My. And gosh, is that a touch of the space disco in opener Solaris from DJ Gregory? Sure sounds like it to me.

Overall, Disco Kandi 05.04 doesn't offer much that you wouldn't have heard before. It's just more of the same from the Hed Kandi brand, but as a slice of fluffy, funky house on a rainy day, it'll do the trick.

Various - Base Ibiza 2003

Base Ibiza Records: 2003

As the early Hed Kandi brand grew, the temptation to spin off sub-labels couldn't be helped. Aside from Stereo Sushi, however, these didn't take root, folks content sticking to the label and artwork they were most familiar with. The Acid Lounge tried getting in on that underground downtempo gig, with a grittier, pulpier comic stylee, but only lasted a few releases. Then there's this, Base Ibiza Records, a tie-in with the Ibizan bar of the same name. That's... remarkable, that Hed Kandi never really paired up with any established club for a proper residency, instead letting their brand tour about. It wasn't a long partnership though, lasting just half a decade. Base Ibiza 2003 is smack dab right in the middle of the run.

With my last exposure to the Hed Kandi discography a pair of utterly abysmal World Series mixes from much later in their lifespan, these CDs were such a refreshing reminder of the class once associated with the label. House music! Real, honest-to-God house music! With the disco loops and the soul sista's and the fiesta chants and the club monologues and... the trend-whoring remixes and... the euro anthems (?), and the.. cover songs? Wow, they really couldn't clear the rights to X-Press 2's Muzikizum? That track was everywhere, so it couldn't have been that expensive. Why settle for a knock-off version?

Speaking of, you remember what song got huge around this time? Talk Talk's It's My Life, is what, though thanks entirely to No Doubt's cover resurrecting interest in it. Then radio stations started playing the original version again, and folks realized the O.G. '80s style was better (retro revival sure helped). Thus is the only reason I can fathom hearing a Liquid People remix of It's My Life on here. Cool bassline added though. Speaking of basslines, Junior Jack sure did love him some of Daft Punk's Burnin', but hey, throw some Latin vibes over it, call it E Samba, and no one will ever tell the difference!

As should be abundantly clear, I'm not giving Base Ibiza 2003 that much of a serious critical overview. Nor should I, the music within about as deep as the beach shallows of the Ibizan shores. It is fun music though, at least the first disc wherein the disco vibes and garage shuffles and floppin' funk is felt. It's got a StoneBridge remix in there, mang', and you can't have a proper Hed Kandi outing without at least one tune with StoneBridge at the console.

CD2 aims for the 'later in the night' club outing, but is all over the place as a result, sounding like a mish-mash of left-over tunes that just wouldn't fit in the first CD. Some mild McProg (iiO's At The End), a little tech-house (4Tune 500's Dancing In The Dark), and a nod to the burgeoning 'eurotrash house' sound (Andrea Doria's Bucci Bag). Oh, and all those aforementioned cover/remixes are here too. Yeah, I think I'll stick with CD1 in this outing. It's funner!

Various - Hed Kandi World Series: Miami

Hed Kandi: 2011

Someone must have told the Hed Kandi offices they done fucked up on the London volume of World Series, because is this ever an improvement. It's still not great, mind you, but Miami at least feels like a Hed Kandi release, unlike the generic, soulless Ministry Of Sound bandwagon jump London was. Even a glance at the tracklist shows the music steering back to the tried, tested and true vibes of days gone by. Wally Lopez! Olav Basoski! The Shapeshifters! Funkagenda! StoneBridge! Like, seriously, StoneBridge is one of the stalwarts of Hed Kandi, always getting repped in their compilations, and London had him not. That alone proves how full of fail those CDs were (no offence to Avicii, but c'mon).

All hyperbole aside, I should bring y'all up to speed on what the World Series was all about. Far as I can tell, it was Ministry Of Sound Hed Kandi's attempt at a Global Underground styled globe-trotting DJ mix series, though focusing on top-tier fashion locales as well as clubbing hot spots. Not an entirely daft idea for a series, and the Hed Kandi of old certainly branded itself as something of a trendy taste-maker within that particular scene.

Thus the inlays are filled with spiffy write-ups about hot clubs, cool restaurants, and must-visit boutique shops (why yes, Ministry Of Sound was the first club mentioned in the London inlay, why do you ask?). Again, not a bad idea for extra promotional branding, but it seems the series wasn't long for the world (arf), folding shortly after this volume. Interestingly, Miami is the only locale with a sequel. Just can't beat those Latin jams, eh? Or those WMC perks.

To be critically honest though, both discs are filled with big builds and anthems and all that rot I bitched about in the London mixes (different local DJs handle each disc, but their styles are so similar, it's a moot point who they are). The difference is how they deliver though, how many of the peaks actually thrust forward with enthusiasm, not drop into a plodding anti-anthem. Oh, this build lasts over a minute? Don't matter, 'cause that peak with the bellowing diva is gonna' have you flailing like a junglist! Okay, maybe not that enthusiastically, but more than whatever those dopes on ketamine are up to.

Granted, it's not all forward-momentum goodness all the time. There are stretches where the builds are too gratuitous or don't deliver what they promise or don't serve any purpose other than having a build for build's sake because you gotta' have a build in every single track in a Ministry Of Sound mandated release. In a way though, it almost works, the lesser builds highlighting how good the great builds are. Plus, the fact it all sounds like Hed Kandi music (except that one McProg track, wha'da'fuq?), shameless and shallow but disco-y and fun, that's good too. Look, after the abysmal showing in the previous World Series collection, I'll take it.

Various - Hed Kandi World Series: London

Hed Kandi: 2010

I've heard the tales of Hed Kandi's turn toward shameless bandwagon chasing so often repeated that I couldn't help but repeat them myself. Surely the folks that were following the label since its inception would be knowledgeable in those matters, such that I could trust their opinions on it. Still, always that lingering doubt in my head, wondering if it was a classic case of a fandom growing jaded as their favoured thing drifts from that which they so initially enjoyed. I know I've been guilty of such notions, and while the Hed Kandi brand wasn't a super-underground franchise, it did carve out a particular niche in the clubbing consciousness by adhering to a certain aesthetic that appealed to a certain demographic: classy, funky, soulful disco and house for those who liked classy, funky, soulful disco and house.

So I can imagine with great sympathy the pain and sense of betrayal the Hed Kandi faithful felt upon hearing a triple-CD outing such as this. Like, I get why the label would take such a turn, the allure of big festival fuck-off money too tempting to resist. And sure, Timothy Berg had hit upon a successful formula that was super-easy to copy and paste for others to capitalize on, such that you could whip up your own Avicii clones to fill out a CD or three. That was never really Hed Kandi's M.O. though, was it? Yeah, their brand of disco house was commercial at times, something you'd hear in boutique clothing stores at the mall. Never the main mall speakers though.

CD 1 of World Series: London is all anthem house (re: 'big room EDM'), all the way through. And while Avicii only appears a few times in this set, his impact can be felt throughout. It's utterly banal and tiring and the sort of stop-start nonsense you'd have expected from the eurotrance scene. Nope, this is now what house music also is, and what Hed Kandi's pushing, so fuck all those who held the label with any sort of regard for class. Funk and soul is dead.

“Hey, now, Bitter Boy, that's just CD 1, the clubbing fodder used to lure impulse buyers in,” some may claim. “CD 2 is where the real tunes are, right?” Sure, if you fancy yourself anthemic 'deep' house – a bunch of big builds, but crashing out into monotonous tech-house anti-grooves. You can hear flashes of Hed Kandi of old, little pieces of singing soul sista's and booty-shakin' rhythms, but come off like teasing nostalgia triggers to remind you of what once was, but no longer is.

Honestly, were it not for the unmixed third CD, with awesome names like Tiga, Peaches, Röyksopp, and Silicone Soul included, World Series: London would have been a total write-off for yours truly. This was the sort of music that caused my 'crisis of faith' back in 2010 (among others), and I wasn't even a Hed Kandi follower then! Those poor, unfortunate souls...

Various - A Taste Of Kandi Summer 2007

Hed Kandi: 2007

It's generally agreed upon Hed Kandi's decline occurred when Ministry Of Sound bought the brand in 2006. That doesn't mean it happened all at once, I'm sure a few decent selections coming out before that decade came to a close. Ah, this looks promising enough, a tidy, single-disc sampler mix highlighting peppy, summery house jams, and but a scant couple years after the Ministry buy-in. Surely this will prove it wasn't all rubbish immediately after.

And you know you're in good hands when a set opens up with Miguel Migs. He's one of those producers where you know what you're gonna' get, so if you've already gotten his stuff, there's no rush to get more so long as you're sated on what you got. That don't mean he's a welcome addition to any collection of house music though. Migs sets the tone for a large chunk of the opening: soulful disco house that brings to mind glitzy clubs serving glitzy people drinking glitzy drinks. Nothing revolutionary, but it doesn't need to be, music knowing exactly what its purpose is. No one's getting a Hed Kandi mix for intuitive underground sounds; sometimes you just need a quick fix of vanilla sundae with rainbow sprinkles.

A run of big disco anthems ups the tempo some, featuring tunes from the likes of Frank Ti-Aya, Justin Michael, Asbo, with guest vocalists ranging from Katherine Ellis, Jocelyn Brown, and Yardi Don, plus remixes from Soul Avengerz, Born To Funk, Deep Groovers, and House Brothers. Uh, sorry, but I'm drawing blanks on these names. Punters and DJs well entrenched in the Hed Kandi brand are probably familiar with them, but many of these appear like factory productions, churning out fodder for the DJ pools to be rinsed out for a season, then tossed off in favour for another round a few months later. So it always goes in clubland, I guess. The tunes are all fine for the time they're playing, but they don't really stand out from the disco house glut either.

Then Eddie Thoneick throws down a remix towards the final stretch, and you can always tell it's an Eddie Thoneick remix because few did big, punchy electro-house anthems like that chap did in the mid-'00s. Following that is a... cover? Of Big Fun? The artist credit goes to D.O.N.S., with a remix done by Beaver & Jones, but aside from giving the classic Detroit anthem some (then) current production punch, isn't much different from the original. Oh well, at least Steve Mac's rub on Bryon Stingily's Get Up (Everybody) is a fun disco anthem to end things on.

But then the mix has to keep going and let The Creeps from Freaks literally fart all over everything. Ugh, that was already a lame-ass flatulent tune jock-riding the Satisfaction craze when it was new, and it sounds utterly shite among so much upbeat disco action. Forget the last track's tribal-drum action, The Creeps ruined everything with its odoriferous stank rubbing on the CD.

Various - Nu Cool 3

Hed Kandi: 1999

A Very Important compilation, this, for without Nu Cool 3, there would be no Hed Kandi. Okay, label founder Mark Doyle almost certainly had the brand percolating in his head for a while. This one though, this one kicked it all off as its own entity, paving the way for future staples of the compilation racks like Disco Kandi, Back To Love, Serve Chilled, and many, many, many more. Then the brand would grow too big for its own good, branching out from its lounge origins into gaudy mega-clubs and decadent pools parties, forced into Ministry Of Sound servitude to handle all the bloat. Eventually the easy-cool vibes it peddled would pave way to desperate trend chasing, just to keep pace with a rapidly changing clubbing environment, a once respected franchise mutating into a parody of its former glory. Gosh, thanks, Nu Cool 3, for all that.

“But wait!” you say, “How can Nu Cool 3 be the start when it's clearly the third in a series? What happened to 1 and 2?” Uh, haven't I touched upon this before? Well, an ultra-brief recap: Hed Kandi got its start on the jazz 'n' soul print Jazz FM Records, where the first two Nu Cool compilations appeared. They soon after got the backing to launch Hed Kandi proper, with this particular item. And, uh, that's it. We sorted, then? Good, let's get going.

It's quite the timewarp going this far back into the Hed Kandi canon. Their earliest releases were always known for skewing towards the soulful side of dance music, but some of the tunes on this two-discer sounds like it could have come direct from The Garage of the early '80s. I had to sleuth through Lord Discogs checking all these acts and remixes were (then) current. Lots of Masters At Work productions, plus plenty o' contributions from soul-jazz house mainstays like King Britt, Kevin Yost, Rae & Christian, Sylk 130, and Francois K. The Latin side of things gets repped by Cesária Évora's Sangue De Beirona and an Ashley Beedle run on Airto's City Sushi Man. Moloko's Sing It Back is also here, because you just gotta' have at least one big anthem in a collection like this.

Overall though, Nu Cool 3 serves up as fine a dish of house, garage, disco, funk, and soul as you could expect from that scene in the late '90s, providing well-worn tunes while shedding some shine on a few lesser known cuts. A fine way to kick of a-

What the...? Why on earth is Ooh La La from The Wiseguys on here? Sure, tacked on the end of CD2, but holy cow, talk about a tonal whiplash! That tune's always been regarded as big beat, hardly what I'd deem as the 'new cool'. A couple examples of acid jazz action follow, which is a bit more on brand, but still rather rough an' tough compared to all the smooth action that came before. Weird end to this compilation.

Various - Hed Kandi The Mix: Summer 2004

Hed Kandi: 2004

As I continue my curiosity-sating plunge into Hed Kandi's prime years (cheap used CDs help), one issue I've had with them is their unmixed nature. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having full tracks for my own music collection, but when you're dealing with double-disc compilations of very similar music throughout, it grows monotonous hearing all those obligatory DJ-friendly intros and outros over and over and over. And honestly, this is only an issue on collections like Disco Heaven or Beach House, where the selections are about as homogeneous as this genre can get. It all works well enough in mix sets, but the stop-start nature of unmixed tracks calls for variety, capitalizing on the freedom of breathing space between tunes. The more I listened to Hed Kandi compilations, the more I wondered why they didn't offer them in the form of DJ mixes.

Well lo', they did! ...after a time. There were occasional single-disc 'samplers' released, but by 2003, the demand was high enough that Hed Kandi officially dove into the overstuffed multi-CD DJ mix market. Only they kept things in-house, curator Mark Doyle doing the business, no major spotlight on some superstar mercenary jock stealing the shine from the real heroes of a DJ mix: the artists that make the tunes!

The Mix: Summer 2004 was one of the label's earliest forays into the DJ mix medium, and let me tell you, all those nitpicks about Hed Kandi I highlighted above, instantly solved here! Sure, there's no technical wizardry out of these sets, but who'd ever buy something from this label expecting that? You're first and foremost buying from Hed Kandi because the catchy cover art lured you in. Then, maybe distant second, the music selection intrigued you further. So long as there aren't any horrid transitions or tonal clashes, you're gonna' have a good time.

The two main mixes of this 3CD set remains consistent with Hed Kandi's breaded butter, CD1 featuring the garage and disco house, and CD2 getting in on those clubby anthems and *shudder* trendy 'electro' schlock. Yeah, Ferry Corsten's Rock Your Body Rock is here, and sounding way out of place even in track list consisting of Junior Jack's Stupidisco, Armand Van Helden's “I cans Daft Punk too!” Hear My Name, and Cicada's “Stadium Remix” of Deepest Blue's Is It A Sin. Can you tell I prefer CD1?

Of course, CD3 gives me the most endorphin tingles, an almost obligatory 'classics' collection of tunes. Well, 'back in the day' compared to the year 2004 – the upfront tunes of this release are now older than some of the classics were then! And while some may roll their eyes at seeing tracks like Ce Ce Peniston's Finally, Robin S.' Show Me Love, and Aftershock's Slave To The Vibe trotted out again, I bet you haven't heard them arranged in this order! Oh, you have. Well, I just have a soft spot for oldies from Morales, Humphries, and Knuckles, so there.

Various - Disco Kandi 05.02

Hed Kandi: 2002

Time munches on - *chomp, chomp* - and CDs that were once silly-costly on Vancouver shelves continue to drop in price across the globe, including the unstoppable Hed Kandi machine. This doesn't mean I'm interested in gathering up all the Hed Kandi compilations, but for an occasional fiver, what harm is there in a steady indulgence of early-'00s club house and disco dance? None I say, and let's be honest: no matter how corny or cheesy you think the music might be on these, it's neigh impossible resisting a tempting glance from the cover art alone. So slick, so supple, so seductive, so... oh my!

Hed Kandi may have started more on a deep house tip, but the label knew where the the real money was: the chill-out market! After they covered that angle, they branched out to the next most lucrative scene, establishing the Disco Kandi series, and hoo-boy howdy, were they quick to flood the market with sequels. 2001 alone saw three entries, capping off with Disco Kandi 5. For some reason though, they ditched regular numerical conventions after, and tag each subsequent volume as a decimal. In fact, they did this with most of their series after 2002. What sort of sense does that make? And why settle on whatever arbitrary number they did in the first place? Like, Beach House stopped at 04.0x, Winter Chill stopped at 06.0x, and Disco Heaven didn't even get past 01.0x. They'd eventually just revert to yearly tags, but this period does remain one of the quirkier aspects of the Hed Kandi legacy.

Anyhow, we're diving into Disco Kandi 05.02 (re: Disco Kandi 06), because it was the cheapest I found on a recent hunt. Also, I seem to be finding a lot of these .02 compilations over their sequels; strange, that. The concept of Disco Kandi is straight-forward enough: CD1 offers the more vintage sounds of disco, including nods to garage and diva soul, though all in a modern context. CD2 brings in the tougher disco house tunes, treading closer to French house's loopy domain, though as this is a 2002 release, we're not quite there yet.

Namedrops are about what you'd expect of a Hed Kandi release too. StoneBridge is here! Mousse T is here! Full Intention is here! Joey Negro is here! Tim Deluxe is here! Danny Howells.. is also here? Plump DJs? What are you doing here? Remixing War's old-timey Galaxy, is what.

Yeah, there's a few updated rubs of old tunes here, though not as many as I was expecting. Mousse T's go with T-Ski Valley's Catch The Beat sounds almost as pure as the 1981 disco-rap club it spawned from. Full Intention's go with Aly-Us' 1992 hit Follow Me wouldn't sound out of place in New York City that same year. Meanwhile, Hi Fi Serious turn The Beatles' Believe into ...wait, THE Beatles? *checks Discogs* Well sonofa'.. Turn The Beatles' mellow ditty Because into a disco house number. Cheeky mudder fuggers.

Various - Disco Heaven 02.02

Hed Kandi: 2002

I mentioned that 2002 is generally agreed upon as the year that Hed Kandi's quality peaked out. The following couple years weren't too bad, though a definite dip in consistency was settling in. This here Disco Heaven compilation is indicative of the problem. “Wait,” you probably think, “the label fashioned itself after appealing, uplifting house music, and disco's got that in spades. Hed Kandi would be out of their mind not to create a compilation series celebrating it!” And you're right, they did create a series, almost from the outset. It was called Disco Kandi. This, on the other hand, is Disco Heaven. That's right, Hed Kandi was finding so much success in the compilation market that they doubled their disco house options. By the next year, they'd set up a third series called Twisted Disco, and more recently a Nu Disco series. Plus don't forget the one-off Destroy The Disco. I'm surprised they haven't done a Disco Classics yet.

Point is, Hed Kandi's covered a lot of disco house in its day, probably spreading the choice selections out too thin in the process. They might have handled it okay in the early going, as label head Mark Doyle remained passionate of his pet project, but no one could maintain so many compilations with any regular consistency, especially if the franchise kept growing and growing with new series every few years. Small wonder it got sold off to Ministry Of Sound.

And for what reason did Hed Kandi see fit to create Disco Heaven in the first place (beyond muscling in more Hed Kandi covers in record stores)? Mark Doyle's liner notes state “we just thought it would be better to have a new title instead of hitting Disco Kandi 37 sometime next year!” Alright then.

Near as I can figure it, Disco Heaven offers up one disc of your standard uplifting, soulful garage house music – the stuff you'd find on Disco Kandi - and a second CD with clubbier tunes that feed off that loopier French filter funk. Like, I have no idea whether the Disco Kandi dabbled that way too, but I don't recognize any tracks of that sort in those CDs. Meanwhile, Disco Heaven has Junior Jack's Thrill Me; aka: that tune that apes the bassline from Daft Punk's Burnin'. I honestly thought it was some remix of Burnin' when I heard it here, only because I'd totally forgot about Junior Jack's version.

Anything else? Names I recognized from a glance included Kings Of Tomorrow, Full Intention, DJ Antoine, Kenny Dope, StoneBridge, Francois K, Jamiroquai and Shawn Christopher. Names you might recognize include Indigo, The Lab Rats, Shakedown, Kim English, and DaYeene. Really, name-dropping feels pointless with this collection. Disco Heaven is rather all one-note (and one-BPM) throughout, and does get weary hearing Yet Another House Beat unmixed over and over and over. It's still fun in spurts, but a little more variety would have broken up the monotony too.

Various - Beach House 04.02

Hed Kandi: 2002

I reviewed a couple Hed Kandi's Winter Chill compilations while it was still technically summer, so it's only appropriate that I tackle one of their summery collections as winter is settling in. Yeah, we're still in the autumn months, but the fact the West Coast got a white dusting already – the West Coast! - tells me winter is getting a head-start on its yearly shenanigans. I must combat it, then, with fun-in-the-sun Balearic beach music. Funk music for frolicking in the briny waves, soul music for sashaying through the blistering hot sand, and house music for hiding in the shade lest our pasty-asses get burnt by unforgiving UV rays. Man, beaches are kinda' terrible, when you think about it.

But hey, never was there a marketable concept that Hed Kandi couldn't exploit, and Beach House was quickly established as the upbeat companion to their summery Serve Chilled compilations. It's proven to be one of the brand's most successful series, enduring to this day, even dipping into the 3CD option in recent years. Man, considering the label's drop in quality control post Ministry Of Sound buyout, not to mention what's thought of as mainstream 'classy' house these days, I couldn't handle three discs of such waffle. Maybe others couldn't either, hence a return to the two-disc format in 2017.

Beach House 04.02 is the fourth in the series though, released back in Hed Kandi's peak years. Can't argue that based on the track list, some real classics mixed in with the less familiar tunes. I mean, we get Ashley Beedle's Mahavishnu Remix of Bent's Always, one of the best European deep house singles that emerged from the year 2001! There's also X-Press 2's Lazy, Beth Orton's Central Reservation (with a rub from Spiritual Life and Ibadan), Nick Holder's Sumer Daze, and Kaskade's It's You, It's Me (when Kaskade made good music). And that's just the closing stretch of CD1!

Actually, that's about it for recognizable artists, at least where I'm sitting from. Miguel Migs shows up for the dancier CD2, and I spy an Axwell remix on that disc too, but it's mostly blanks for the likes of Rawsoul Orchestra, Jetlag, Jon Cutler, Octave One... two-thirds of Beach House 04.02 really. Not that they're bunk artists or anything, just that there's so much house music out there, keeping tabs on everyone's a difficult proposition. I feel if I'd dug into these Hed Kandi compilations more often, I'd start seeing several repeated contributors, but alas, my exposure remains but a sampling, as only indulged when I spy an eye-catching discount price.

So the music's all fine, but if I must make a quibble, it's that this Beach House compilation only feels properly 'beachy' some of the time. Like, these could just as easily be played in lounges or a terrace, though during daylight does remain optimal. Whatever, I'd prefer a solid selection of tunes that sometimes fits a theme, than a mediocre selection of tunes that struggles to fit a theme.

Various - Winter Chill 2

Hed Kandi: 2000

Something funny happened in the year between the first Winter Chill and its inevitable sequel: chill-out music as a commercial juggernaut became a thing. For sure it's always had a marketable undercurrent within club culture, dating as far back as when The KLF specifically made an album to chill out to called Chill Out. Whether it be ambient dub, Balearic jazz, trippy hip-hop, or whatever trendy, laid-back vibe was currently circulating, mentally exhausted punters could always rely on a few selections in the music shops to ease their frazzled brains. Then someone in the high towers of record labels realized there were more folks out there who could use a little downtime music in their lives than the Ecstasy Generation, and chill-out compilations suddenly exploded upon the scene with several CDs featuring the same songs you already had in a different order. Sure as shit Hed Kandi wasn't immune to this trend.

Think I'm exaggerating? Second track on Winter Chill 2: Moby's Porcelain. Third track: Chicane's No Ordinary Morning. Fourth track: Delerium's Silence. Tenth track: Thievery Corporation's Lebanese Blonde. CD1 also features songs from Bent, Goldfrapp, Dusted, A Guy Called Gerald, and The Beloved. You getting a sense of familiarity yet? Hell, CD2 opens with Paul van Dyk's Vega! Yeah, it's a nice enough chill tune, Mr. Van Dyk having a stab at jazzstep, but these are all darn obvious names to have on a chill-out collection, even for the year 2000 when the concept still had a fresh fragrance. The series did course correct in later volumes, though Winter Chill itself only lasted six volumes before Hed Kandi was bought out by Ministry Of Sound, save a one-off return in 2012. You bet your bottom dollar its got nothing to do with 'chill-out' music!

Back to Winter Chill 2, even Hed Kandi head-man Mark Doyle knew including the likes of Moby, Delerium, and Paul van Dyk was little more than a shameless commercial tactic to lure in the impulse buy, and thus ignores such artists in his inlay notes. Instead, he once again big-ups his label's own talent like the jazzier Afterlife and Urban Dwellers, which is fair play if you're having them rub shoulders with chill-out's newest stars.

If all this 'suburban downtempo' music isn't cutting it for you, there's always CD2. Vega aside, this is where most of the trip-hop and acid jazz vibes are hiding out, many tracks care of the rising Studio K7! that Mr. Doyle was quite eager in hyping. Thus you find Tosca, Terranova, Smith & Mighty, Handsome Boy Modeling School (Dan The Automator!), and... LTJ Bukem? Well, he did have a debut album out that same year. And yeah, CD2 is definitely more of the downtempo vibe I prefer in compilations of this sort, with plenty of smooth, smokey rhythms, soulful strings, dubby atmosphere, and sultry vocals throughout. As a means of introducing music on a proper deep tip to soccer moms who bought this for Silence, I'd say Winter Chill 2 does right.

Various - Winter Chill

Hed Kandi: 1999

The nice thing about a lot of old Hed Kandi CDs is how cheap you can find them now – ironic, considering how pricey they were when fresh on store shelves. It was that ridiculously expensive entry point (especially as an import) that always made them an easy pass when pursuing the shops for new music, but I can't deny seeing that super-slick cover art would give me pause regardless. Now one can find these things for a quarter the original price, and sure, may as well take in a couple if I see an intriguing one in the used market. They did have a reputation for having good music as well, at least before being absorbed by Ministry Of Sound.

The label also built its rep' on deep house on a slightly commercial bent, but they were all about that downtempo vibe too, releasing at least two such compilations per year. Serve Chilled first came out in summer, and when that proved successful, Hed Kandi head-man Mark Doyle decided a winter companion just made good artistic sense (not to mention mighty profitable as a Xmas gift option). The basic idea behind Winter Chill, then, was music that was best played while cozying up indoors with a hot beverage as brisk winds and dour weather beat against your patio windows. And what better music to supply such a setting than good ol' trip-hop (mostly CD1) and acid jazz (mostly CD2), the most dependable (and commercially viable) of the downtempo genres.

Anyone worth their salt in this scene should know a tonne of artists in this tracklist. Nightmares On Wax. Mr. Scruff. The Herbaliser. Peshay. Rae & Christian. A Man Called Adam. Morcheeba. Innerzone Orchestra. Hell, this is looking like a Ninja Tune collection. Even d'n'b man Omni Trio can't help but stay jazzy-chill with Native Place. Smartly, Mr. Doyle mixes in a number of fresh faces and obscure acts too, letting names like Santessa, Eyedentity, 45 Dip, and Guardians Of Dalliance get a little associative rub from the main draws on a CD like this.

The most 'mainstream' names that crop up are Hybrid and The Wiseguys, but even then we're not dealing with well-known tunes from them. We get the trip-hop bounce of We Be The Crew provided by The Wiseguys, and the French-rapping cut Sinequanon from Hybrid. Wow, never would have thought I'd hear the same French-rap tune in such a short amount of time, especially when my exposure to French-rap is basically nil.

As for all the other recognizable names, I can't confirm or deny whether tracks like Survival, Pacific, So Long, The Sensual Woman, or Moog Island are obscure offerings from their respective creators, in that I don't actually have albums from them. Yeah, funny that, me having so much downtempo music, but almost all of it in compilation form. All I can confirm is I don't have many of these songs anywhere else, making Winter Chill an ace collection for rounding out my collection.

Various - Hed Kandi: Deeper

Hed Kandi: 2001

With deep house getting commercial love again, I felt an itch. Not a deep itch, mind you; one nestled just under the epidermis. Still, a casual finger flick of a scratch would not suffice, a small amount of digging required. I tried and tested brand, catering to pop ‘n soul sensibilities without getting ultra-submerged in scene purity. Tunes suited for lazy-relaxin’ home times, lounge club wining and dining, nightmarish clothing boutique shopping, or soundtracking a promotional gentrified enclave vid’. A light vibe, a stylish vibe, a name you always know what to expect with just a glance of the track list. Unfortunately, there were no Naked Music or Om Records CDs in the used shop that day. Ah well, guess I’ll give this Deeper from Hed Kandi a shot. About time I got something from that label anyway.

For those who’ve never ventured into a CD shop before, Hed Kandi carved out a distinct identity on the compilation racks, with super stylish cover art unlike anything else on the UK market. When the label first appeared at the turn of the century, said market was primed for a label like this one, capturing the interest of a maturing clubbing audience just coming off the first throes of superclub ecstasy bedlam. They were moving on from hard house and trance, thus sexy house tunes coupled with sexy artwork were an easy sell for the casual consumer. Flood the market with multiple series of various takes on your musical manifesto (Nu Cool, Disco Kandi, Beach House, Winter Chill, Twisted Disco), and you’ve cornered the compilation corner in every music chain store for years to come. Heck, I probably would have picked one of these up back in the day too, if it weren’t for those outrageous import prices (forty bones for two discs of decent house? Pass).

Deeper was Hed Kandi’s stab at getting deeper with their house offerings, which probably seems redundant on the surface but then the label wasn’t one to let any potential angle go untapped. CD1 sticks to deep house, with names like The Rurals, Miguel Migs, Lisa Shaw, Kevin Yost, A:xus, and New Phunk Theory getting repped. There’s more, but I honestly know nothing about Silent Poets, Aquanote, or Laid, though they do hold their own with the recognizable artists here. Predictably, the vocals are soulful, the rhythms groovy, and the piano/organ/saxophone solos tasteful. It’s exactly the sort of deep house I was expecting from this set, perfectly worth the used shop price I paid for it.

CD 2 was what initially caught my eye though – well, after the striking cover art. The deep vibes go a little tribal and proggy here, including a Deep Dish rub of Dusted’s Always Remember To Respect And Honour Your Mother (aka: lovely Rollo side project). Masters At Work show up too, as does Kings Of Tomorrow, Steve Lawler, PQM, and, um, Rui Da Silva (no guesses on which track of his). Not as consistent as CD1, but definitely more fun.