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Pressed On Clear Vinyl! To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of UGK's first album, Get On Down goes the extra mile, presenting it for the first time ever on vinyl. AND 2LP clear vinyl at that, giving the strutting, funky grooves the chance to really stretch out on your system. Back in 1992, Southern hip-hop was still proving to the world that it could sustain a fan base that was chiefly raised on rap from New York and LA. The Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew had made strong cases by the earliest '90s, and Pimp C and Bun B were ready to make their own. Most of the trunk-bumping bass comes from drum programs and basic sampling on these tunes - in later years they would build their sound into something even fuller and deeper. Self-produced with additional work from Houston locals Bernie Bismark and Shetoro Henderson, the tracks here are minimal, slow and menacing, which matched their lyrical approach quite nicely. You can hear the beginnings of the group's true greatness in these early lyrical workouts - several taken from the regional cassette-only EP The Southern Way that got them signed to Jive - with tales of street hustles, relationships and self-reliance in a world stacked against them. They may have been done early-on, but that doesn't mean they aren't crucial to UGK's legacy - cases in point being the three singles: Something Good', a charismatic update to Bill Withers' Use Me Up', and Pocket Full Of Stones' (the latter featured on the Menace II Society soundtrack). Beyond the singles, deeper cuts like I'm So Bad,' Feels Like I'm The One Who's Doin' Dope' and Cramping My Style' made it clear to the world that this crew had the attitude and charisma to make even bigger waves in the years to come.

Repress!

The debut album from the I & I Band, originally released in 1981. Excellent British roots, includes the tracks Marijuana,
Jah Made Them All and Marcus Children.

Repress!

"One Step Forward" is the debut album from Brighton based DJ and producer Cut La Vis aka David Lavis. Raised on a healthy diet of 90s hip hop, roots reggae and ska, Cut La Vis debut album for NICE UP! is a melting pot of exactly that - the sounds and culture he grew up around whilst learning his trade. Starting off as the DJ for a reggae band in his hometown of Hereford, he soon gravitated to the turntablist explosion of the mid 90s, competing in local competitions and B-Boy jams. At the same time, his love for dub and roots reggae led him into trying his hand at the fertile reggae mash-up scene, making a name for himself with an array of dancefloor shaking blends of classic hip hop tracks infused with a feel good skank, as well as remixes for for artists such as Blend Mishkin, Dreadsquad and Max Rubadub. Making the transition from mash-up maverick to original producer, you can still expect the same reggae infused bangers, dubwise hip hop and ska shakers complemented by an impressive array of guest vocalists plus a little help from a tight band of session musicians. Following their summer hit "Still Have The Love", London-based reggae/soul singer Maddy Carty appears on a number of tracks, as well as Bristol songstress Eva Lazarus who has been bothering the top 40 recently alongside Etherwood (Hospital Records). Roots Manuva collaborator and Speech Debelle's Mercury-winning producer Lotek blesses the mic on the bouncing "Rinse & Repeat" as well as UK Dancehall legend Tippa Irie who crops up on "Love My Music" pus an appearance from regular collaborator Mystro who opens the album with "Hit Me One Time". Rounding things off are JA dancehall MC Peppery and vocalist from Origin One, Parisa - giving the album a healthy balance of established artists and newer talent. With a cheeky nod to the classic Max Romeo track, "One Step Forward" also refers to this being Dave's debut album and making his first step into the future whilst retaining inspiration from the past.

Umse is back und größer! "Wachstum"

"Warum wie Tausende Deppen ganz plötzlich aufhören zu rappen // die Leute hängen doch an den Scheiben so wie Autovignetten."
"Wachstum"

Umse macht das Rap-Ding nicht erst seit gestern. Shows zwischen Flensburg und Luzern, youtube-Videos mit 300.000+ Clicks, 2 Alben und 2 EPs Alles dagewesen. Trotzdem ist für ihn die Zeit nicht stehen geblieben. Der Titel seines Debütalbums auf Jakarta Records ist Programm: "Wachstum".

Drei Jahre hat Umse an seinem neuen Album zusammen mit Hausproduzent Deckah geschraubt, aber "es brauch halt seine Zeit bis die Soundästehtik reift", denn etwas "zu verfassen was bleibt heißt eben ackern und schaffen". Das heißt nicht, dass Umse alles anders macht als in den vergangenen Jahren. Es gibt weiterhin "kein Strassendrama mit Handschusswaffen", kein Hipsterrap, keine Dubstepremixe, "keine Sandys und Mandys für den Chorus". Stattdessen besinnt sich Umse auf insgesamt 14 Tracks auf das was ihm "einfach so liegt: Nice Rhymes auf en Beat": zeitlose Musik ohne Redundanz, dafür gewohnt frisches, intelligentes Wortspiel - zugleich aber auch kein "90ties Revival sondern ein Style Überbleibsel".

Das Album wird auf allen Formaten erscheinen, die ersten 150 Kopien der Vinylausgabe auf farbigem Vinyl.

Ultra rare JAN remixes & edits

Two excellent Revolutionaires cuts..Sly and Robbie at their best.
These early tracks were recorded at Channel One and produced my Bunny Striker Lee.
Respect....

This Autumn, Nicole Willis rolls out with her third album made together with The Soul Investigators "Happiness In Every Style". It is bound to send shivers through backs all around the world. As the name suggests, the new album will offer variety and tilt towards a more positive note after the murky "Tortured Soul" from two years back.

This means Nicole and the boys have made things a bit more soothing for the listener, offering upbeat modern soul and even embrace more sophisticated melodies alongside their highly evolved raw funk sound. To get a taste of this, one only has to put on "Let's Communicate" or "One In a Million" to have their hands clapping and toes tapping in no time, or respectively, witness the dance floor explode. From minor key ballads such as "Thief In The Night" to the unapologetically poppy "Angel", the new album is bound to bring to the hearts of humans in every shade and style.

Whether you know Nicole Willis from before or not does not hold any weight here. After hearing her with The Soul Investigators on this new album, you will know they are for real, and out to offer you everything you need to fill up your soul supply. With Nicole's insightful lyrics and the band's hard-hitting music you are in good care.

2022 Repress purple vinyl

2022 Repress

During the 80's dancehall era a number of record producers claimed to be the real authentic sound of downtown Kingston but Ossie Thomas' Black Solidarity label, operating out of Delamare Avenue in the heart of the ghetto, was the real deal ....

This was the start of the 70's when the political rivalry got heated between JLP and the PNP, - also the shots start fire ....
I said to myself if you're going die, you're going die ... from that me not scared of Kingston' Ossie Thompson.

This album provides an insightful glimpse into life in these unforgiving Kingston neighbourhoods describing not only the poverty and desperation, but also how at times, styles, fashions and the cathartic joys of music, and the dancehall could transform this harsh environment into one of joyous celebration ...

'Hear what happen now! We used to punch the juke box lunchtime... Me and me friends had a kinda thing like the juke box was our sound system and we'd use our lunch money to play the baddest tunes on the juke box.

We were aided and abetted by a kinda dodgy little shop keeper cause we were kids and we were in the rum bar punching the juke box when we weren't supposed to be allowed! So we were breaking all the rules... punching the juke box and taking turns to play the wickedest tunes in the juke box...' - Ossie Thomas.

Breaking rules from the outset Ossie Thomas had furthered his childhood fascination with music while still attending Oberlin High School and many more rules would be broken when together with Phillip Morgan he set up the Black Solidarity label in 1979 on Delamare Avenue deep in the heart of the Kingston ghetto...

'I used to tell people that dance hall was like styles and fashions, if you have a wicked style and you have the fashion you go make it in the dancehall... You understand... - Ossie Thomas.

"Favourite tunesThe tunes are like my children....there is a whole heap of them !! Iwant to tell you this though...some of them i never released properly but 'A Class Girls' through it was the first one me love that, the rhythm! I don't know how the song never hit in Jamaica but listening to it back now its like you are branding the girls A and B so (perhaps) the girls weren't happy with it.But it was a good tune,wicked tune.
Tony Chin wrote it ,but it was Tony Chin and Chinna who taught me these thingsso I have to lovethose men forever"
Ossie Thomas

Triston Palmer was born in 1962 and grew up in Waltham Park,Kingston.
Triston knew from a very early age that he was destined to become an entertainer and his first visit to an recording studio at the age of 16 was with Ossie Thomas.
Their initial release was 'A Class Girls',which was a hit in England and Triston's subsequent releases on their Black Solidarity label laid the foundation for his rapid rise to dance super stardom.
As the 80's progressed and Dancehall began its inexorable rise to ubiquity the popularity of Triston Palmer who had 9 songs in the top forty was unstoppable.
So sit back and enjoy this selection of killer tunes.....

2022 re-press, 180g vinyl

A monumental force firmly rooted in the soul canon, Willie Hutch is most notable for recording two of the best Blaxploitation soundtracks, The Mack and Foxy Brown. Yet his legacy is much greater. Outside of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, Hutch was arguably Motown's top male solo artist of the 70s. Prior to his association with Gordy et al, Hutch crafted his opening statements for RCA, two vital LPs that Be With Records is honoured to present today.
Often-overlooked, his second album Season For Love (1970) is a must for all deep soul fans and has been sought-after by collectors of different stripes for decades. Whereas his debut featured thundering, gritty numbers, Hutch treats us to a mellower soul here - sumptuous, warm and string-led. He compared his approach to that of Otis Redding and there are definite parallels, from the raspy, rough-hewn vocals that tend to roam between sweet and deeply impassioned to the horn-heavy, emphatic sonic backdrops.
With flawless originals presented alongside a few well-chosen classics (his stunning cover of "Wichita Lineman" arguably bests the original's splendour), it's easy to see why sample-based musicians have been falling over themselves to plunder from this album. Witness the sweeping strings that grace "The Magic Of Love" and the heartbreaking "Walking On My Love", the mellifluous guitar work on the contemplative instrumental "The Shortest Distance" and gorgeous single "When A Boy Falls In Love".
Whilst the arrangements and playing are subtly jaw-dropping throughout, Hutch's uncontrived voice has a certain warmth to match a Nat "King" Cole and a purity of tone that even recalls the great Sam Cooke. Indeed, a few numbers are almost in a jazz vocal territory reminiscent of artists Lou Rawls. That's not to say that others lack the righteous energy and undeniable groove of Willie's later sound.
Remarkably consistent throughout - a rare commodity for many 70s soul albums - the lack of one signature song likely hindered its progress. Regardless, it deserved to make more of an impact and now, paired with the majestic debut, Soul Portrait, these recordings shine a new light on the early work of a soul legend.
Original vinyl copies of this album are extremely rare - and correspondingly expensive - so we're thrilled to present the first ever vinyl reissue of a true lost classic. This release is officially licensed and has been remastered for vinyl by our esteemed engineer Simon Francis. It has been pressed on audiophile 180g vinyl for the first time and features the original, rarely seen artwork.

1st solo album in 5 years, recorded, produced and written by Richard H. Kirk, founding member of Cabaret Voltaire, the album was constructed at Western Works, Sheffield, over a three-year period. Work began with recording on midi and analogue synthesisers before guitar and vocals (Kirk's first use of vocals in 10 years) were added. Kirk explains, A lot of time was spent on post-production, editing and then living with the material and I think it benefited from stepping back and then revisiting after doing other things.'
Although not an overtly political album, it's hard not to hear a reaction to recent years' world events in the overwhelming urgency of 'Nuclear Cloud' or '20 Block Lockdown' or in 'New Lucifer / The Truth Is Bad'. When questioned Kirk admits, It's not really a political album, but over recent years - during the recording - all manner of horrorshow events have cropped up and now we seem to be in a rerun of the Cold War with Russia back as the Bogeyman.' The album's title, Dasein (a German word meaning being there' or presence', often translated into English as existence'), is a fundamental concept in existentialism. Kirk explains culture succumbs to nostalgia in much the same way that an individual looks back wistfully to adolescence or childhood - the nostalgia is partly for a time when he or she wasn't nostalgic, just lived purely IN THE NOW.' In 2014, during the recording period, Kirk began work on Cabaret Voltaire live and so the two projects coexisted in tandem. Although Kirk's varied projects have always existed separate to one another, says Kirk, in the past some solo works served as a blueprint for what I did later with Cabaret Voltaire'. Billed as a performance consisting solely of machines, multi-screen projections and Richard H. Kirk, Cabaret Voltaire recently announced the first UK performance in over 20 years at the Devil's Arse Cave (aka Peak Cavern) in Castleton, Derbyshire on Saturday 29 April. Kirk will perform entirely new material for a performance relevant to the 21st Century with no nostalgia. RECENT PRAISE FOR RICHARD H. KIRK One of the UK's pioneering electronic agitators' - Electronic Sound In five decades of key-bashing and knob-twisting, Richard H. Kirk has remained at the vanguard of electronic music' - FACT ...decades of electronic innovation, forged in Sheffield' - Uncut
Kirk was toying with distorted realities from 1970s onwards' - Record Collector

Super Rhythm Trax's sister label Bleeper welcomes Snuff Crew for 3 tough cuts of jacking Techno fit for dark warehouses with smoke and strobes. Off kilter gurn-drones and the wonderfully suggestive 'Where's the Bad' sample take over the A side while the ear-worm strings and bounce of 'Naughty' meet the pacey yet tongue in cheek 'Warehouse Boy' on the flip.

A rare example of a 'jazz opera' The Real Ambassadors was an innovative concept when first released in 1962. Heading
an all-star cast, Louis Armstrong was at the peak of his popularity and still playing magnificent trumpet, while Dave
Brubeck was hailed as one of the most creative and successful musicians of the age. Enjoy this incredible LP, including
"Cultural Exchange", "Summer Song" and "Since Love Had Its Way"

'The inventive record producer and vocalist Lee 'Scratch' Perry was involved in every musical shift of note in his native Jamaica, from the rhythm and blues that pre-dated the arrival of ska in the early 1960s through the slower and more spacious rocksteady style that appeared middecade and, of course, the frenetic sound of reggae, which he helped to birth as an independent producer during the late 1960s. Operating as 'The Upsetter' from his base in a downtown Kingston record shop, Perry found his greatest success with instrumental music during this phase, the organ and saxophone re-castings of standard vocal issues proving exceptionally popular overseas.

'Scratch The Upsetter Again surfaced early in 1970 as a largely instrumental set, but with dreamy reverb a hefty feature and keyboards veering away from standard organ motifs. Dave Barker, who was soon to hit the pop charts as part of Dave & Ansel Collins, tackles The Shirelles' 'Will You Still Love Me' in soul reggae mode, only for Perry to shift things towards the emerging dub spectrum with 'Take One.'

'As Perry inched ever closer to the dub experimentation he would turn into an art form at his own Black Ark studio later in the decade, Scratch The Upsetter Again shows him moving away from the standard approaches of his competitors in his quest to test the very limits of recorded sound. And reggae was all the richer for it.'
—David Katz (excerpt from the liner notes)

25 Years after it was released, the 16x platinum selling Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell is to be repressed on vinyl for the first time since its initial release. Featuring the classic #1 single 'I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)'.
 And following on from the hugely successful Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, Welcome To the Neighbourhood is to be repressed on vinyl for the first time since its initial release in 1995. Featuring the hit single 'I'd Lie For You (and That's The Truth)'.