Scissor & Threads Essential Remixes

Superpitcher Meets Repeat Orchestra

Monks In The Sky

Black Light Smoke lends this remix a wounded, uncertain beauty. Leah Lazonick's voice feels distant and fragile, floating through a veil of distorted percussion and analog gravel. It seems to be a piece of music that breathes on its own. First loose then dense and full of unresolved feelings.  Glory Club is a collaborative project tied to Jordan Lieb, featuring moody, vocal-led productions with artists like Léah Lazonick. The remixer Black Light Smoke is Jordan Lieb’s solo alias, known for a gritty, analog approach to electronic music.

Released in 2014, it still seems like a strange dream that you can't quite place. It's a rare kind of remix that unfolds a lot. A natural pick for our Classic of the week selection.

Glory Club

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Glory Club - Trigger Me Out feat. Leah Lazonick (black light smoke remix)

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Following the success of their EPs released last year on Scissor and Thread, Frank & Tony return with another outing of deeper than deep house with a three track EP including an expansive collaborative exploration with Comatonse recording artist Will Long. 

The title track, Understanding takes a nod to 90s Chicago deep house with a slow rolling groove set against plush pads and euphoric stabs sure to send dancefloors swirling in the earliest of nights and mornings alike. 

We Begin, a dreamy trip of emotive soundscapes, kicks things up a notch with jazzy undertones but a drive meant for peak times as it unfolds in moods and grooves for ages. 

The EP then culminates with a vast rework of the same track in collaboration with Comatonse artist and DJ Sprinkles collaborator, Will Long, pushing the EP to psychedelic lengths as the essence of what we call a house groove reaches new idiosyncratic heights.  Essential.

We Begin (Frank & Tony And Will Long Wide Open Edit)

Frank & Tony - We Begin (Frank & Tony And Will Long Wide Open Edit)

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Will Long is an American artist. He curates and manages the label Two Acorns, as well as producing music since 2005, in various forms under his own name for Terre Thaemiltz's Comatonse Recordings, and as Celer for his own label and many others. 

Here he joins the perfectly aligned Scissor and Thread label of Francis Harris and Anthony Collins for the Too Much EP. 

"Too Much" is a deep cut from the same grooves as the Long Trax series," says Will Long, "a further entry for the downtrodden, the overwhelmed, and those that think change has come. A midnight meditation of intentional simplicity, strained, and on that night train."

The title track is lush, loose deep jam that combines wistful, warm pads with an insistent groove and choice samples.  

Francis Harris steps up to provide one of his signature reforms, adding a little more percussion and drive to the track, while DJ Aakmael (Greg Stewart) offers up another version that takes the track somehow even deeper, adding some additional instrumentation and raw sounds.

Too Much (DJ Akmael Remix)

Will Long - Too Much (DJ Aakmael R/)

Too Much (Francis Harris Reform)

Will Long - Too Much (Francis Harris Reform)

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More about the world has changed than not in the decade since dance production dyad Frank & Tony released their last full-length record, 2014’s You Go Girl. Despite, or perhaps in spite of, this shifting landscape, house music has managed to stay fundamentally reliable (either a bug or its greatest feature, depending on who you ask). Where previously, Frank & Tony have been celebrated for their contemplative, studious approach to the genre, with 2024’s Ethos, the Brooklyn/Biarritz-based duo return amidst metastatic cultural upheaval to prove out those scholarly credentials — with an album that serves to remind listeners why dancefloors and liberatory politics consistently share the language of movements and revolutions. 
"House music has always been an expression of political desire as it often was the only safe space for communities to come together in ways that society at large disallowed,” Harris enthuses. “The same energy in the ‘90s could be found in parts of the punk & hardcore scene. Countercultures exist to create temporary autonomous zones of desire outside of dominant narratives that are roadblocks to creation. We have always been inspired by these countercultural movements and the Frank & Tony project is deeply influenced by it."
Though the project originates from the relationship between house legends Francis Harris and Anthony Collins, the titular Frank & Tony were born of a fictional, happenstance meeting inspired by Harris’s experiences in the more liminal, amorphous dance and punk scenes of the late ‘90s/early 2000s (as exemplified in the early works of photographer Anouk Schneider, whose photographs feature on the duo’s first releases). In a world beyond dialectic, where bodies are simultaneously revered and decentered, Frank & Tony connect for one night on an imaginary dancefloor, vowing to make work together in the future; however, having exchanged no information, and with classic club kid garb obscuring any common identifying characteristics, they turn to the internet in hopes of reconnecting for a collaboration.
This origin myth hones in on the crucial history of the dancefloor as a stage whereupon individuals, regardless of background, enact political and socioeconomic desire to scale, highlighting such locations as the tertiary factor present in intimate relationships of all kinds, brought about when two individuals unite and produce that mysterious third thing that was never really possible without blurring the lines of identity so that collaborative creation can happen. 

In practice, it sounds like the record needed by fans of the genre, full of the lightness and space in rooms full of fellow revelators. “We’re only able to make house music because of the vast legacy of producers from New York, Detroit and Chicago who laid the foundation for what we do today,” Collins divulges. “In many ways it can never really live up to that legacy as our art is born out of privilege rather than necessity to create spaces of political desire in the face of marginalization. So what does this mean? We take that legacy very seriously and we want our stamp on this history to resonate with current and future generations as a bridge to the real history behind it."

Undoubtedly, Ethos is tremendously influenced by the multitude of projects originating from, and supported by, the duo and their label in the decade since You Go Girl– releasing records from a vast diversity of artists (including Nadia Khan, Gry, Villete, Darand Land, Alex Albrecht, Dj Sprinkles and CCL), and Harris becoming curatorial voice of Brooklyn’s premiere venue for audiophiles, Public Records, where he continues to amplify work across a global diaspora (and where the duo maintain a residency of wide praise).

By The End They Will

Frank & Tony - By The End They Will

Reworks & Remixes (Pt. 1/2)

Belize (Laefar Legov Sentimental Flashback RNB Dub)

Dream B

No Cliché / Poppa’s Bag shows two sides of the Scissor & Thread aesthetic in its early days. Lightbluemover’s No Cliché stays spacious and controlled, leaning into tension and minimalism. On the flip, Black Light Smoke’s Poppa’s Bagis looser and rougher around the edges, built from dusty samples and a beat that sounds intentionally unstable.

Released in 2012 this EP still stands out as a snapshot of the label’s rawer beginnings.

No Cliché / Poppa's Bag

No Cliché w/ Jason Poranski (Original)

fka boursin is a DJ and producer out of Bristol, UK. 
Previously known as DJ Boursin, he is recognized for his deep, ambient-infused house music that explores political dimensions of clubs and identity politics.

Welcomed into the Scissor & Thread fold, fka boursin shares two cuts of deep and introspective electronic music. 

The original Listless Intertext is a hazy trip through ambient soundscapes, shuffling rhythms and half-caught conversations, drifting across a 12 minute run time that slowly evolves and shifts with time.  

"Listless Intertext is a track centred around the "failed" employment of cheap vocoder software that attempted to process explicit words and phrases across 11 minutes." says fka boursin. "Instead, the vocoder output made any words indecipherable and I was left with thematic vagueness. The final text of the track is simply a submission to its own limitations with some french thrown in."

When label bosses Frank & Tony step up for their Housebeat Dub, they keep the essential mood but introduce a thick, fat groove that works just as well in conveying the mood. 

"Our remix is a strictly dancefloor approach," says Frank, "an extended psychedelic beat rework perfect for late night, early morning vibes".


Listless Intertext (Frank & Tony's Housebeat Dub)

Up next on Brooklyn’s Scissor & Thread is the latest EP from @Snad, aka Shyam Anand (also known as Spandrel), the Berlin-based artist whose discography already spans labels like Smallville, Minibar, 20:20 Vision, Phonica AM, TerraFirm, Running Back, Cabinet, Kimochi and Dungeon Meat with remixes for names including Seafoam and Chez Damier. 

A trusted selector and producer in the underground, Snad has steadily built a reputation for deeply considered productions that balance classic inspiration with his own forward-thinking edge.

The AM Yard EP opens with its title track, a warm, hazy cut rooted in the kind of bassline architecture that recalls Chez n Trent’s Morning Factory but reshaped with Snad’s signature dreamlike touch. 

Anticip8 fanchors the release with a more direct energy, rolling, insistent and focused on the floor, balancing stripped-down drive of dusty samples wrung through his digitakt with just enough harmonic flourish to pull the listener inward. 

On the flip, The Pursuit follows in a slightly different mode, drawing on experimental vocoder techniques and filtered percussion creating a hypnotic push-and-pull that feels as intricate as it is understated.

Rounding things out, label heads Francis Harris and Anthony Collins, under their Frank & Tony alias, reimagine The Pursuit with their Housebeat Remix, extending its atmospherics into an even deeper headspace that glides effortlessly into late-night territory.

AM Yard

Snad: The Pursuit (Frank & Tony’s Housebeat RM)

The Pursuit (Frank & Tony´s Housebeat Remix)

DYSTORTION

Surrounded By Miracles

Guerrilla Bizarre - First Aid For Ukraine - 68 Yard One - Under The Acacia Tree

Sina & The Eel is Samoan myth explaining the origin of the coconut trees. Part of a series of raw unmixed, unmastered projects.

Sina & The Eel (Rare & Raw Series)

mule musiq 214/mule musiq cd 57
2lp&cd
distributed by kompakt
www.kompakt.fm/releases/phase_transition_2xlp
www.kompakt.fm/releases/phase_transition

Lake People - Tomorrow's Happiness

Scissor & Thread is cut from a different cloth than your average dance imprint.

Frank & Tony - We Begin (Frank & Tony And Will Long Wide Open Edit)

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