Bargrooves casts a celebratory glance over more than a decade of bar culture with Bargrooves Classics, a selection of the finest ever Bargrooves music.

The origins of Bargrooves lie in the mid-nineties growth of bar culture and the birth of the DJ bar. Superclubs began so promisingly yet by the turn of the millennium, things had changed. Through the emergence of style bars a new branch of DJ culture was able to grow and club music could be enjoyed in a new refreshing context.  Imprints such as Bargrooves became boutique house music labels for the discerning bar clubber and DJ connoisseur alike.

Bargrooves Classics Deluxe by Defected Records

Bargrooves Classics is a celebration of the music of that scene, featuring tunes that were made for the dancefloor but work equally in more intimate surroundings. It’s music for your head, as much as for your feet, and captures the intimacy and warmth of your favourite bar in one cherry-picked package.

As with the Bargrooves Deluxe format, there are three musical themes to contend with and as with any Bargrooves evening, we start people moving with a little disco flavour. Jean Jacques Smoothie’s ‘2 People’ was an original bar anthem and the brand new DCUP remix is a nu-disco re-styling that brings a classic right up to date. With string-laden versions of Bob Sinclar’s ‘I Feel For You’, DJ Meme’s mix of ‘The Cure & The Cause’ and two Dimitri From Paris edits featured with Marc Evans’ ‘The Way You Love Me’ and Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Prinicple’s return to form, ‘I’ll Take You There’, there’s something of a Philly disco influence throughout this set.

Two Jazz-N-Groove mixes for Soulsearcher’s ‘Can’t Get Enough’ and Capriccio’s ‘Everybody Get Up’ represent vintage disco house whilst one master producer of the disco groove, Joey Negro, serves an updated take on the Carly Simon masterpiece ‘Why’ from another legendary disco production outfit, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic fame.

The second set captures the second pillar of bar culture, funky house. The biggest tracks on the scene were often funky house tunes and here are some of the very best ever recorded: Djaimin’s ‘Give You’ and Johnny Corporate’s ‘Sunday Shoutin’’ contain all-time classic house riffs whilst songs like ‘Diamond Life’, ‘Don’t Lose The Magic’, ‘It’s Yours’ and ‘That’s How Good Love Is’ show how intrinsic soulful vocals from the likes of Julie McKnight and Jocelyn Brown are to the whole sound.

The third and final pillar of Bargrooves is a more driven, peaktime house sound. Even in more intimate surroundings, the best house sessions must have space for the crescendo as well as deeper or tougher rhythms. There is absolutely no shortage of either with a well-balanced third set that includes Sandy Rivera and Rae’s rendition of ‘Hide U’, a brand new mix of Human Life’s ‘In It Together’ from ATFC, Redroche’s uplifted take on Olav Basoski’s ‘New Day’ and a remix of MK’s seminal ‘Burning’ from James Talk & Ridney.

Lastly, three updates of stone-cold party records take us over the finish line: Chocolate Puma’s reworked ‘I Wanna Be U’ to make it sound even bigger for 2011, Copyright remixed the Todd Terry / Gypsymen favourite, ‘Babarabatiri’ with its signature trumpets brought to the fore in their trademark Latin/tribal style which continues through to The Good Men’s massive Brazilian drums of ‘Give It Up’.

Bargrooves Classics Deluxe is out 5^th December - listen & pre-order