Counter Top Favourites: Jorge Caiado From Carpet & Snares

My first choice is a sort of dream team for house music lovers: Chez Damier, Ron Trent, Derrick Carter, Chris Nazuka and the cherry on the top of the cake, Monsieur Ludovic Navarre aka St. Germain. All of this in one single EP, and all in a single track that was revamped by the French maestro with the voice of the unique Chez as the main hook. This release was part of a short lived imprint in the ‘90s called Blue Cucaracha, as far as I know, created as Prescription sister imprint, operated by Derrick Carter. I’m not 100% sure when I found this record but it definitely had a big impact on me for being such a good example of what I look for in a house track: deep and jazzy chords, swinging drums and a simple but funky effective bassline. This and all the Prescription and Balance releases are part of my base of what House music is, so actually having my first record released on Balance and personally knowing Chez is a joy for me that I can’t really express in writing.

Another record that has to be on the list is this mind-blowing EP from Heidelberg’s finest – Move D. Besides being such a huge inspiration as a person, he is definitely someone I always look up to as a reference in terms of production and also as a DJ. He was one of the few people when I started playing that was both eclectic and true to his house roots no matter what he was doing. It’s hard to say if this is my favorite release of him since I have a couple that could be on this list as well, I just had to choose one and today was this one. All four tracks are winners and timeless tunes. From the deep acid heat of the A1 to one of my all time pleasure tracks to listen to, A2 (Jus House). The B side also features two futuristic and dreamy house tunes that always take me far away from earth when listening. I bought this EP in some of my first years DJing and it got instantly a special place in my record bag.

Kerri is probably the artist that I have the most records from in my collection. During the quarantine I decided to finally organize it since it became completely a jungle after so many years without making that effort and always bringing records home on a weekly basis (and even more since I opened the shop in 2014). Anyway, like Move D, it would be hard to choose just one, but again, lists are lists and I decided to go for his first LP that I was lucky to find a copy of in London a couple of years ago in a second hand records shop somewhere in Soho. It’s a rare record to find and it opens with one his most important tracks, in my opinion of course, called ‘Inspiration’ featuring Arnold Jarvis. This was released on Freetown Inc, a London based imprint from the ‘90s that put out many house stompers from the likes of Eddie Perez, Roy Davis Jr. or Masters At Work.

This release is one of those that I have a serious problem to remove from my selections when I’m preparing a gig. It’s one of those that I could almost randomly choose a track from and be confident that it would smash no matter where or when I was playing. It’s the perfect combo between Cisco Ferreira aka The Advent and the one and only Mr. G (another of the artists that occupies a big part of a shelve in my collection). I got this one as many other ‘90s classics in the last six years, that is through the collections I’ve been buying for Carpet & Snares Records. It’s been a huge learning and discovery process that has been presenting me with incredible records like this one. The best memory I have from this one is from my debut gig at Tresor in Berlin some years ago when I played “Sounds Of The Underground” and people went nuts! It’s a 4 x 12’’ release from 1998 that again is not easy to find. It came out on Metalbox, one of the labels from The Advent (alongside Kombination Research) that mainly puts out 12’’s from him and Mr. G.

A really well known record for almost every electronic music lover, but also one of the most hard records to find out there. I found mine during my tour in Japan a couple of years ago at Disk Union in Tokyo (a paradise for any digger btw), I couldn’t believe it when I saw a copy and in really good quality for a ‘94 release. The whole album is a masterpiece, but the second track “14:31” is for me the apogee of it all. It’s one of those tracks that could be playing over and over for a whole day without tiring my ears. I was lucky to see them performing this album live in a Theatre in Madrid during my Red Bull Music Academy edition and also spent some time in the studio with Mark Pritchard and learned some tricks with him.