Gherkin Jerks – Stomp The Beat

** Repress of the reIssue ** Ooh if there’s ever a deep house history lesson wrapped up in a 12″ then it’s this reissued Stomp The Beat EP from Gherkin Jerks aka the master Larry Heard. The Gherkin Jerks project originally surfaced back in 1988 with this 12″ on the Chicago based Gherkin Records label, released anonymously at the request of Heard himself who viewed the Gherkin Jerks material as a creative experiment. Later revealed as the work of Larry Heard, original copies of Stomp The Beat rack up a pretty penny on Discogs so it’s good work all round that the producer’s Alleviated Records label has teamed up with Clone to release a digitally enhanced version. From the mind bending stereo panning of opening track «Don’t Dis The Beat» it’s easy to see why the Gherkin Jerks material has been so widely praised – Jamal Moss is a big fan – whilst the general off-key melodics and tough 909 arrangements of what follows still sound futuristic some 15 years on.