The Legendary Strictly Rhythm Records is making a return… and Digitally.

After a four year hiatus the label that helped defined house music throughout the 1990’s has announced it’s return following the re-acquisition of the brand and catalogues by former owner Mark Finkelstein. Strictly Rhythm has struck a deal with Simon Dunmore of Defected Records, who will assume the role of creative head for the re-launched label and will also arrange for Defected to market, promote and distribute the imprint in the UK.

Mark Finkelstein said.. ‘I can’t think of a better person to help reactivate Strictly Rhythm than Simon Dunmore’. ‘He has an ear for the music, has worked with many of the producers and artists who have released records on the label and we’ve been friends for 15 years.’

Established in 1989 Strictly Rhythm was one of the pivotal labels back in the early days of house and was truly experimental in many of it’s releases. Some vocal some deep some techy and some completely off the scale!! Feeding both the US scene and the UK scene not all the releases that were put out on the label made a very good impact over here as they were reflecting a sound that was big in some of the US clubs but not over here. Most of the releases were consistently as all long time house lovers and followers will know were massive and led the way for today’s producers and DJ’s.

My earliest memory of buying Strictly Rhythm records was in London’s Groove Records, I had a limited flow of cash then so could only buy few records at a time! I walked out of there with three Strictly Rhythm 12”s having been taken in by the sound, it was so refreshing to what I was playing at the time. The diversity of a lot of the releases was apparent too as you had the club DJ’s and the likes Grooverider and others on the Rave Scene playing Kenny Dope (Untouchables) & Todd Terry plus many more besides, the crossover was there and was working in all scenes!
Strictly’s reputation has remained firmly intact as the worlds most respected house music label, establishing the careers of some of Dance music’s biggest icons. Now it’s back with a vengeance and has already muscled in on the Defected website forcing a take over for one week. There you’ll be able to find the most up to date information, news stories, interviews, mixes and downloads that will all be focused around Strictly Rhythm, all from Jan 29th.

The biggest feature of all will be that it will make available 20 of the biggest Strictly Rhythm releases as digital downloads for the first time ever. These are available exclusively for 7 days before they will be available on other third party music sites. Each track is 99p and will be delivered as DJ quality, 320kbps downloads that will drop crisply wherever you play them.

After the initial 20 releases we will be releasing a further 10 per week for 12 weeks, so any track that you have specially ear marked can be part of your collection.

See below for a list of the first releases all available soon on www.defected.com


Underground Solution 'Luv Dancin'
The Believers 'Who Dares To Believe'
Aly-Us 'Follow Me'
Black Magic 'Freedom'
Photon Inc 'Generate Power'
Code 718 'Equinox'
Wink 'Higher State of Consciousness'
Logic 'Blues 4 You'
Armand Van Helden 'Witch Doktor'
Lil Mo Yin Yang 'Reach'
Session no.9 'Welcome To The Magic Sessions'
George Morel 'Morel's Grooves 4'
The Boss 'Congo'
Mone 'We Can Make It'
Hardrive 'Just Believe'
Phunkie Souls 'Tha Music'
Robbie Rivera 'Feel This'
Michael Moog 'That Sound'
Erick ‘More’ Morillo 'Dancin'
South St Player 'Who Keeps Changing Your Mind?'

Prepare for Strictly Rhythm fever to take hold once more and to rediscover some awesome gems from this special label..