Various Artists - Om Summer Sessions 2, mixed by DJ Heather & Onionz

Well respected west coast house label Om brings us the second installment in their Summer Session series, and this time we have Chi-town goddess DJ Heather and NY tech/house junkie Onionz taking over the duties. DJ Heather’s Picture Of You was the Chicago house record of 2005, playing the world over, whilst Onionz has a list of releases longer than my arm. Each DJ presents some quality music in their respective genres resulting in two entirely different mixes.

DJ Heather’s artist line up is a who’s who of the Chicago persuasion: Lawn Chair Generals, Greenskeepers, Inland Knights etc. The jazzy piano sounds of Groove Federation’s The Beat Goes Doom shows Heather’s hip hop background coming through. Ken ECB’s I Heart Bougie continues this great jazzy vibe as we get down to the cheeky sax of Hustle & Flow’s Win for Life. Before we get too caught up in the swing area of house, Heather takes another turn and steps things up with Diem’s Chuggin. Things start really jumping with the uptempo RnB infused What You Say from Marko Militano. Oliver Desmet and Oriental Funk Stew’s Drunken has a great filtered disco feel to it, for some reason Desmet records always sound warm and inviting and this is no exception. One my favourites across the album is Letlow & Ice feat. Rob Jones’ Free Your Mind, great feel-good times on here.

In true New York style Onionz smashes it from the word get go on his disc, opening with the dark and dubby mash up of Blaze’s Lovelee Dae and Funkd’Void’s Home. If you dig your electronica in house then look no further than Opus Ink’s Resonator, synth heavy in a good way. One of the highlights on this disc is Deetron’s Let’s Get Over It with vocal work from Justin Chapman, solid beats and synths support the camp vocal track. Amongst the four of his own productions that Onionz includes on the disc is Woman Of The Sun, featuring a dubby vocal performance from El Feco, this track just keeps building. Great stuff.

This is a rocking summer (or winter depending on your hemisphere) album, DJ Heather’s mix is incredibly tight and touches on a groovier lighter side of the house spectrum whereas Onionz goes the other way providing a darker techier mix of music. Whatever takes your fancy, I was definitely more impressed with Heather’s efforts but in the right mood Onionz would be rocking it for me too.

In a word: Hot.

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