Next week sees Alex Barck follow up with the third of his vinyl only EPs (Re-Set & Don't Hold Back) that are leading up to his solo album Reunion and it's another highly competent disco house release. This EP works with the theme dictated by the title, Sky High, and in a style that has been typical of Barck's solo material for this Reunion project it's all blue skies and sunshine and ocean horizons.

The release opens with 'We Get High', an disco track that packs in some soft electronic rhythms, bouncy reverb-laden drums, subtle keys and some lovely strings. The soulful vocals tell a tale of contentment and an emotional high - the beat dropping as the vocalist claims "It's enough... To be with you...". I'm not sure what Barck was taking whilst on the Le Reunion Indian Ocean island from which the forthcoming album takes its name but he really seems to have come back rather loved up.

The second original track, 'Skydancing', is a little more playful and upbeat but similarly obsessed with the sky and feeling high. It's excitable and energetic in comparison to the relaxed satisfaction of 'We Get High'. A rude shuffling bass and calypso rhythms give the track a holiday vibe that is hard to resist but doesn't quite pack the emotionally charged punch of much of the rest of Barck's work that we have heard this year.

Finally the EP is rounded out with a remix of 'We Get High' by Kalabrese, who applies his trademark free-form disco funk style. It's thick with atmosphere like it's been left out on the windowsill and started to melt. Heavy and dazed from the sun it has lost much of the peaceful feel of the original to become a dubby tightrope walk - gentle looped keys and a strummed bass line providing considerable tension.

Yet more here to be excited about now that Alex Barck's Reunion album nears...

Sky High is out on 10 June through Reunion, available to order through Amazon.co.uk on vinyl now [affiliate link].

Kalabrese's Independent Dancer saunters in like a lazy lover on a too-hot day - cocksure, smooth and a little hard to resist, turning up late after a full six years have elapsed since his debut. Sacha Winkler's music (to use his proper name) has a little of the warm electronic funk that made Kindness' World You Need A Change Of Heart one of my favourite albums of last year.

The opening track, Purple Rose, is a sensual, bluesy funk track. Cowbells tinker, some country guitar gently strums and sultry confident female vocals from Sarah Palin (presumably not THAT Sarah Palin) form a duet with Winkler's own.

Let The Good Times Roll - another duet, this time with A.C Kupper - keeps the pressure up. It's a dubby disco number, sassy falsetto vocals bumping up along a tidy bass line and sly muted guitar as the listener is implored to get down.

And it's clear, just a few songs in, that Kalabrese can make really good music. It manages to be lean and yet still feels alive and full of detail, applying the focus of minimal to a creative and chaotic funk record.

The moods throughout the album shift, creating moments where the hot sunshine gives way to chilling rain. Stone On Your Back is a troubled acknowledgment of the stresses of ambition and the resentment it can create in those waiting for you by the sideline and it isn't clear which side Kalabrese is on. The music creates a swirling fear, like storm clouds brewing, as a piano melody shifts uneasily.

Unfortunately the album is plagued by it's generosity, straining under the weight of its 13 tracks. Almost half of these are over six-minutes in length and the album totals 80-minutes. It means Independent Dancer peters out rather than crashes to a conclusion. The gentle, jazzy Find A Place is a suitable close - contemplative and surreal - but it follows a section of the album that has a clutch of similar groove-led numbers.

With all the exciting pop numbers up front it just feels like hard work. Why did we get to enjoy Let The Good Times Roll and Palin's other duet, the beautiful Fresh And Foolish, so early and then have to do all the work to earn them without any such pay-off coming?

Independent Dancer has some genuinely fantastic moments, but it's wrapped in a difficult to consume package. It's brilliant and challenging and frankly a little irritating, but a album you should hear all the same.

Independent Dancer is out now on Rumpelmusig, available now on CD and MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].