Cowboy Rhythmbox - COWBOYS ONLY (2024)

Approaching a decade in existence at Phantasy, ‘Cowboys Only’ is a new compilation celebrating Cowboy Rhythmbox, the fundamentally dancefloor oriented partnership of prolific pop visionary Richard X, working alongside DJ and raconteur Nathan Gregory Wilkins, and featuring a previously unreleased track finished off in collaboration with Erol Alkan.

Having founded a town more than big enough for the both of them, Cowboy Rhythmbox mine a shared love of esoteric popular culture spanning from Dance Mania to eighties video arcades, broken hard drives and obscure TV theme tunes, transforming the luminous debris of their crate digging passions into club music of diverse tempos and musical persuasions.

A twelve-track capsule, this extensive digest of the Cowboys’ roadmap includes proven hits long optioned in the record boxes of a wide range of DJs including Seth Troxler, Lena Wilikens, Dixon and Gerd Janson, with all 5 singles originally issued on vinyl with colour-coded artwork by Will Sweeney.

‘Rattle’ promises to shake down any self-respecting party with hissing, fizzing expertise, stuttering percussion and an ecstatic Greek vocal chant. ‘Mecanique Savage’ confidently hammers out an industrial beat alongside all other available bells, whistles and even the occasional yelp, while ‘Soda Jerk’ explodes with frothy filter house pleasure, like menthol in cola. 'Tanz Exotique’ throws down an equally powerful bassline and expands towards a culmination of all that’s good and granular in the Cowboys’ stable, where Kraftwerkian programming meets Morriconiesque guitars.

Also present and correct is ‘We Got The Box’, the first Cowboy Rhythmbox single on Phantasy, hailing from 2014 and prying open the lid on an equal measure of slower-crawl, haute-tension curiosities, perfect for adventurous selectors attempting to conjure the great tempo reset. Mystery serials for heads-down dancers, the likes of 'Hands Inside The Car' and 'Children Of The Monolith' each ooze with offbeat ideas that extend far beyond mere chug.

Bolstering - and opening - this fine collection is ‘Rock Music (Erol Alkan Rework)’, a previously unheard track cut for shapes and purpose by none other than Alkan himself. Originally a demo, left tragically languishing on a hard drive for years, who better than the Cowboys’ foremost ally to hop in the saddle and deliver a worthy addition to this canon of psychedelic dance pleasures?