Lazare Hoche & Martin Hayes - LH Edits (Lazare Hoche)

When we think of bomb records to come out of France we here at sleazy HQ are immediately reminded of the immaculate deep house stuff that came out circa 1990s on labels like Versatile, Basic, Basenotic et al. The thought of goodtime funk & disco jams doesn't exactly spring to mind. New Paris-based label named Lazare Hoche (named aptly after an 18th C french revolutionary soldier) aims at chipping away at that stereotype though, releasing chunky edits that have one thing in mind - to work on the dancefloor.

We know very little about the imprint except its run by three Parisian chaps who share responsibility of music and artwork combined, and from the looks/sounds of things it seems they know what they're doing. Now you might be thinking that the whole edit thing has had its day - and you'd be right to a certain extent. But these three cuts they've chosen to spice up are very obvious and deliberate and lord knows the originals are damn good. And surely these guys know that, and are likely taking razors to these trusted gems - if nothing else, to have one hell of a damn good record in the bag to rock a good drunken crowd on the dancefloor. Precicely the type of stuff you want to reach for when playing out after midnight or so when the Heineken's been flowing, erm, or in this case the Kronenbourg.

B1 by Lazare Hoche offers a killer reworking of First Choice's 'Love Thang'. Starting out looping that badass thumping kick/break, strings, and vocal snippets of people having goodtimes at a house party (so good) in the background, the meat soon slams in and sends you packing. Martin Hayes of Rose Records steps up to the plate for an invitation on the B2, and serves up a delightfully welldone edit of 'Why Did You Do It' by Stretch. Those of you who know the tune can attest to it's simplicity and pure funkiness, Mr Hayes has kindly done the needful by prolonging the fat woodclap beat and most important vocal, and added some delicate effects in some spots. Presto, another killer rework that rocks. The flip sees another LH rework called 'Edit A', which sees a well known disco classic refunked and thumped to great result, that should leave them in the palm of your hand.



Rumour has it that Lazare Hoche will be dividing their time between funk/disco edits (be on the lookout for number 2 out soon) and also other housier releases an exactly similar (see what I did there) imprint. As usual - keep em peeled. This first release is superlimited to 300 copies worldwide, so be quick to snatch one up. A killer 12" that's made with a whole whack of love. Love, and loads of polyvinyl chloride.