On PWSL Vol.1 , the equally well tuned ears of Dave Aju and Tavish DJ come together to curate a tip top selection of contemporary Los Angeles dance music sounds, released on the Elbow Grease label. Unifying the compilation is a sense of physical geography and location. All twelve pieces were put together at Los Feliz (that’s the happy ones to non-spanish speakers) in Point Winona. It’s audible from start to finish, that connectivity, the sense of collaboration and community that comes through as one throughout. At times deep and moody, then joyful, acidic and euphoric, very much funky and always with a groove. There’s no misses here.

BPS’s ‘Within Reason’ is the perfect opening of the night track. Its dreamy piano line pulls in the attention as the beat slowly builds with a rumbling inevitability. ‘A Dub Called Mondo’ is deeper still, for that early hours eeriness and mood, throbbing away with restrained energy and power. Scott K does the spoken word thing on ‘Tighter and Tighter’ talking us through a night to remember, all with a killer horn and wobbly acid line to keep things low down and dirty. Gryph’s ‘Winona at Sunset’ gets a little crunchy, layering up the keys and harmonies with a nicely rolling rhythm. One thing all great comps need is variation and this one absolutely has it, SSRI drops in a more robotic electro touch complete with vocoder and marching Italo beat. Scotty Coats has been at this for a while, and knows his stuff, check his Rong releases for the evidence, and comes in heavy with the deep and dark ‘Be Work Zone Alert’.

Side B flips the emphasis, starting off with Gold Code and Dave Aju taking a more abstract breakbeat angle with ‘Yolo Jungle’. Warehouse Preservation Society’ ‘Data Bliss’ is all about full on dancefloor energy - are you ready? Stacy Christine then jacks things up with ‘Smart Move’, a twisted up and downer of a track that is really a lot of fun in its pure, vital simplicity. It’s not done yet though, SOS do the closest thing to a straight up acid track on ‘Obsesion Romantica (Free Winona Dub)’ which is not a bad thing whatsoever. Dave Aju & Moniker start to close things out with the more spacey d’n’b leanings of ‘Chuy Luis’ before Vastir’s ‘Turnpike’ provides the suitably climactic end game, all soaring sweeps and rushes and dramatic vocal snatches. Twelve tracks, all essential, all LA.

Available now via Bandcamp.