Eli Escobar is a New York City legend building his career over the past decade, hosting the city’s hottest parties, and nurturing the city’s vibrant pool of talent.
He has built his unique sound on his diverse tastes. A culmination of all of his musical influences, from hip-hop to disco, electro to pop.
With a refined taste, and professional ear, we at Magnetic Magazine were proud to invite him to curate this month’s best, hottest, and most ear-catching vinyl releases that you need to hear this month.
But before we dive into the chart, make sure to check out Eli’s long list of upcoming gigs as he is, without doubt, New York’s most sought-after DJ.
Check out all of Eli’s upcoming gigs
Top Records You Need To Hear This Month
This is a promo only, and, in my opinion, it’s one of the great remixes of the last 20 years. Maurice Fulton is such a singular talent. He’s got the most unique sound. He’s so prolific and never comes out with anything whack.
This remix is just superb.
It builds and builds and builds and then finally her incredible chorus comes in. He strips it back down using parts of her vocals; vocals that you almost wouldn’t notice in the original version.
It’s exactly the perfect remix. It’s everything a remix can be, as far as elevating and transforming a song to something completely different.
This is a promo only 12 inch.
I always loved this record, it’s really warm and beautiful and jazzy. A bit different to the disco Ashford and Simpson would make after this for themselves and Diana ross. It’s more melancholy but has a super sick break in the middle.
It reminds me of the very very early days of buying records on the internet. I bid on it on eBay and got into an intense fierce battle with another person. The record is so rare and hard to find.
This was before Discogs and even before you could set the price on eBay. But I won and I was really proud of myself for winning!
It’s just a beautiful sounding record with a super warm mid 70s sound to it that I love.
I’m a really big collector of the Razormaid series and this is my absolute favorite one. It’s got really cool packaging and the records are yellow; it’s got this pretty cool arty situation going on with the cover too.
The song on here that I absolutely adore is called ‘Hassan’ by the artist Fatima. It’s a very mysterious record, it never came out on any other format and, as far as I know, was only really ever played in Chicago in places like Medusa’s.
I discovered it sometime in the 2000s when I started collecting Razormaids.
It’s kind of a sad song. I really like sad songs incase you haven’t noticed. I think this one’s synth pop kind of thing has the best vocal melody. It’s one of those records that I find if I play and people aren’t familiar with it, it still really resonates with them and they love to dance to it.
Okay this is kind of conceited, but the next record I’m gonna pick is my first full length album, Up All Night, which I released on my own label Night People NYC.
This record was a labour of love. It was just a bunch of tracks lying around that didn’t make sense to me as singles, but worked together as an album.
My friend Woody did the cover art, which was a comic strip insert. The album ended up doing really well for me. It was the most successful thing I’d ever released up to that point, and people still tell me it’s their favorite.
As someone who is constantly second guessing themselves, and not always filled with huge amounts of confidence, I actually feel great about this album. I can look back on it and it brings back tons of memories. I’m happy with the music on it. It’s pretty hard to come by these days and it’s pretty expensive on Discogs so maybe one day I’ll do a re-issue.
The next record I’m picking is really special to me. The particular version I have of this record is a 45 where the cover opens up to a poster.
This record is really special to me for two reasons. One, the song itself reminds me of being a kid in New York City and being obsessed with music. Pop music and dance music and rap and new wave and synth pop, and Madonna, especially.
Also, this particular physical copy is important to me because it was a gift from my friend Justin Strauss. It was a present during a really sad time in my life, when I had just lost one of my best friends to cancer.
He came over to visit to check in on me and brought me this as a present. It meant the world to me, so I love this record so much for that. When I see it, it makes me think both of my friend who passed, and Justin and how generous he is as a person.
This to me is the ultimate bootleg disco edit record. It’s First Choice ‘Let No Man Put Us Under’ and his edit is the blueprint for house music as we know it.
Just taking one little section of the record and repeating it and pounding it out until you can’t take it anymore. Then when he lets it play and it gives off this huge release.
It solidifies to me that he’s the greatest ever and I really treasure this record. I actually feel like I need to get another one because I’ve played it so much it’s starting to sound pretty bad.
This particular version came out in the late 80’s. It’s a white record and has a really nice picture of him in the middle.
This is another record I got before Discogs and something I’ve never come across. I knew it existed but could never find it and, when I did, the burst of excitement I felt just being able to hold it after hearing about it and being able call it my own was the biggest rush. I still think about that when I look at it and it still feels very special to me.
It is also my favorite Sylvester song and one of my favorite songs period. It has just the most beautiful piano, melody and background vocals. It’s probably the record I play most at the end of a night if I’m really feeling it.
My last choice is this. It only came out in Mexico on a 12 inch & no other exists.
It’s like a Diano Ross deep cut for the heads and it’s from the album, ‘The Boss’ that Ashford & Simpson wrote & produced. I don’t know if I’d say it’s the best song on the album, but I think it’s my favorite. It’s just so good and this 12 inch is pressed so loudly.
I treasure this record and I’ve never seen it ever in my life. My copy is the only one I’ve ever seen so I feel very lucky to own it. It’s just the best song!
Stream Eli Escobar’s Debut Album From 2015 Below
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
