Citrona Recordings has a great record on their hands with the latest 3-track single from First Floor Brothers entitled "The Chi-Town Strut". Heavy with cosmopolitan, deep house freshness and rare groove swing, the Brothers deserve your attention.

1. The Chi-Town Strut (All Good Funk Alliance remix)
2. The Chi-Town Strut (original)
3. Apples And Pears

The strongest track here is the All Good Funk Alliance remix of "The Chi-Town Strut". Although the original holds its own, with deep sub-bass kicks, funky basslines and guitar licks, jazzy keys, and flirty electronics, the Funk Alliance take "The Chi-Town Strut" to a whole new boulevard. Pulling in all the vital elements of the original version, they restructured it, added horns and synth stabs to nice effect, along with a few blues-edged vocal verses that simply make this song irresistible. Citrona definitely called it right when they gave this mix the A-side.

"Apples And Pears" has a slow-flowing rhythm that keeps instrumentation and layering of sounds to a minimum, in a combination of soft, jazzy keys, light synths, and a slow, fat bassline, over contrastingly bobbling bass kicks and snares. While the song keeps a steady pace throughout, it moves into a long, sweeping bridge that breaks it all down and puts it back together with an inspired, drifting, synth solo. You may not get "Apples And Pears" stuck in your head, but you'll enjoy hearing it.

(release date shown is tentative, it reflects Citrona's March release date for this record)

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