Name: First Love by Dave Aju in Selected Discography w/ notes
Duration: 6 min 3 s
Description: Taken from my debut album Open Wide, this is a direct breakdown of my personal musical history, spelled out in chronological poetry by album/song/track titles from the earliest recollections of music I fell in love with up until my favorite cuts at the moment I had written this piece, around the summer of 2007. You never forget your First, especially with so much endless Love to draw from.

Selected Discography w/ notes

Mark Hand - Take Some Chances
Platform 001 - The Last Letter
G-Prod - Horizon
Leo Gunn - Aheeoo

From the UK, South Africa, France and Australia, Inner Shift Music presents their Collective Continents II release, with Mark Hand, Platform 001, G-Prod and Leo Gunn. The Ep starts with Take Some Chances which has Jazz influenced pads, chords and changes with an addictive hook, by Mark Hand who has recent releases on Soul Print and Apollo. Next comes The Last Letter by newcomer Platform 001 - a deep house track with some funk style house chords and an inspiring spoken word poem, which holds the listener's attention throughout.

On the B side we have the Gaugain brothers G-Prod (who have releases on R&S and Nightflight), with their track Horizon which has a more techy feel with its moody pads, melodic lead and subtle but driving bassline.AAThe EP is complete with a whole other level of head-nodding deepness and warmth, with Aheeoo which you would come to expect from Leo Gunn, who is noted for his multiple appearances on Deep Explorer. 

Deep, jazzy, techy, warm and diverse, this EP is everything there is to love about deep house.

Register interest here: https://www.juno.co.uk/products/mark-hand-platform-001-collective-continents-ii/813778-01

Pre-order here: https://innershiftmusic.bandcamp.com/album/collective-continents-ii

Collective Continents II

ISM-014 - Mark Hand/Platform 001/G-Prod/Leo Gunn - Collective Continents II

Artist: Dubbyman
Title: Dinero Fácil EP
Cat.: SAFTXØØ4
Label: saft
Format: Vinyl 12’’
Release date: September 2021
Style: Deep House
Note: Details Soon Available

The SAFTX series is back: spanish deep house buccaneer @Dubbyman unearths new treasures after a three years hiatus. FIT Siegel on remix duties completes the package.

SAFTXØØ4 - Dubbyman - Dinero Fácil EP (+ FIT Siegel Remix)

The Warehouse resident and member of Half.Half, Cong, takes us deep into his collection with a rich tapestry of house, disco and citypop jams.

Interview: https://www.stampthewax.com/2022/02/10/diggers-directory-cong/

Diggers Directory: Cong

H2H - Tempo of Love (Saison Remix)
Easy Peelers - Chekov's Gun
El Kazed - For A&S
Mike Berardi - Sharp Accent

HOC1 - Various Artists - Identity of our Sound

Smallville 58 
Amir Alexander - Love Notes To Brooklyn

In loving memory of Nathaniel Jay

Smallville 58 - Amir Alexander - Love Notes To Brooklyn

LIXTP, the collaboration between Love International Recordings and the Test Pressing website, yields its second release following 2021’s label debut from Fantastic Man.

This time it falls to Test Pressing founder Paul Byrne AKA Apiento to open 2023’s account with the simmering ‘Escape Reality’ EP.

Having carved out a prestigious career over the years, as A&R for Junior Boys Own, International Feel and Test Pressing labels, and releasing his own Apiento productions on Music For Dreams, World Unknown and World Building, Apiento goes in deep across six tracks of esoteric electronica and transcendental dance.

The influence of Detroit techno can be found in the complex drum work and dreamy synths of tracks like ‘Those Busy Circuits’ and ‘Axis’, whilst hedonistic dance vibes are served up on ‘Everything Move’.  Presenting a broad palette of moods and tones, Apiento delivers an all-encompassing release for lovers of the real electronic groove.

Pre-Order

Apiento - Everything Move (LIXTP002) [clip]

Australian label Lunatic Music’s second release (LM002) comes from London-based, Tokyo-born producer, DJ Himitsu. The first EP from Himitsu, Three Acid’s A-side offers up percussive dance tracks entangled with solid acid lines - a generous offering perfect for the party’s deepest hours. When it’s time to relax, the B-side delivers with a balearic track full of looping organic samples. Complementing the release is renowned lunatic, Dexter Gregg, going hard with his take on B3 - Squid Friends (Solid State Remix.)

A1 - Acid File

Nattmusic, Shauni - Times

Terrace x Phonica Wednesdays

Terrace x Phonica Wednesdays #1 - Jonny Rock

This was my very first collaboration with the elusive and almighty Invisible Art Trio project - and started it all in terms of this new space and direction in dance floor music for me. Equal parts rooted in the past and future, with a potent simplistic groove and message, the world rightfully felt the energy right away and collectively acknowledged this tribute to the power of our true source of heat, light, love, and life spirit.

The Love Always

Be Like The Sun

Taken from my debut album Open Wide, this is a direct breakdown of my personal musical history, spelled out in chronological poetry by album/song/track titles from the earliest recollections of music I fell in love with up until my favorite cuts at the moment I had written this piece, around the summer of 2007. You never forget your First, especially with so much endless Love to draw from.

Open Wide

First Love

Also from the Open Wide debut, this album closing track oozed so many influences of mine at the time, there isn't room to list all of them - some clearly obvious, some not so much - but many thanks, love, and respects to the teachers and predecessors. Also to those not afraid of some sugar in contemporary song in the right dosage, and to my pops who gave me my first direct production props for this one. Big moment. Always with you too.

With You

This was the first remix I did that felt like a true lesson and musical undertaking. Dflex was a side project of Darren House aka Diesel and Felix Hopkins on the Tiny Sticks label, and the sound stems were a pure thing of beauty, full of live instrument recordings including some lovely piano and synth work, it was an honor and blessing to have the chance to rework it, and the result was eventually a proper meeting of the minds, bodies, and souls. As always, I used only the sound set from the original track, except for finger snaps and backing vox, but in this special case it was more than enough great material to endlessly work with.

Waltz (Remixes) - Single

Dflex - Waltz (Dave Aju Remix)

This was my first musical adventure with the Sol Percussion Ensemble outfit, whose manifesto was simple: to create other-worldy dance music compositions using only one chosen percussion instrument per track, in this case the Flexatone. The resulting pulsating poly-rhythmic voodoo vibe-out here still gets mad love in many a DJ set to this day, and the S.P.E. project is alive and well, due for a return release real soon.

Flexa

Remix of @iron-curtis - "Werc Werc Werc", taken from his album Upstream Color and released on @ripperton's Tamed Musiq last year.

The remix is available on a Tamed Musiq compilation entitled Ripperton presents Zendama, out on Nov 11 alongside music from Lord Of The Isles, Matt Karmill, DJ Nature and more.

Respect.

Iron Curtis - Werc Werc Werc (Andy Hart Remix)

Brand new Soundcloud van damn page fam!

Bookings/Inquiries: contact@elbowgrease.la

Dave Aju started out as an alias for a San Francisco experimental techno night in the early oughties. It has since become a name synonymous with a distinctive, unique blend of dance music styles - Aju was raised by a Bay Area jazz head father, an early peer of Pharaoh Sanders, then became an avid young B-boy and MC in the local hip-hop scene before eventually finding his niche in the deeper left-field corners of the global house music scene, channeling all of these influences. Having released three full-length concept albums praised and award-nominated for their originality with Parisian family Circus Company and a variety of special EP releases for labels including Matthew Herbert's Accidental Records, a history of DJ and live performances at renown international venues such as Fabric, Panorama Bar, and the Sonar and MUTEK festivals, as well as guest spots on tastemaker radio programs like Gilles Peterson's BBC Worldwide show, Dave Aju now finds himself in an accomplished and satisfied creative zone at home in Los Angeles, working behind the scenes on a variety of new projects, launching his mix series Greasy Listening that promotes warm futurist sounds for the headphones and floor, as well as his own label and fourth solo studio album coming soon.

First Love

Dave Aju

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