Suche:love decade

While Soul Togetherness' on Expansion continues to feature the best new floor fillers of each year, Soul Festival' is here now with a collection of music reflecting the label's love of 70s soul.
    
Soul Festival' spans the period from when new soul music took influence from the Northern soul we enjoy here at UK clubs and events. As the decade progressed, records became more lavish in their arrangement and grander in production, always with that essential soul feel, and that's what you will find here on this compilation.

Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London



Originally released by Theresa in 1981, this frequently exquisite set features the McCoy Tyner-inspired piano of Joe Bonner on four originals, Cal Massey's "Quiet Dawn," and "Lush Life." Bonner and a rhythm section are joined by a string quartet, trumpet, trombone, and flutist Holly Hofmann (the leader provided the arrangements) for music that is both lyrical and often passionate. Bonner is an underrated talent, and this is one of his finest recordings. by Scott Yanow



Bonner is only the second-most famous pianist born in Rocky Mount, N.C., behind Thelonious Monk. It’s indicative of Bonner’s lack of fame and appreciation that Monk is listed as a notable resident on Rocky Mount’s Wikipedia page, but Bonner is not.

But the pianist Bonner was most often compared to was not Monk but McCoy Tyner. Scott Yanow’s allmusic review of Impressions of Copenhagen said Bonner’s piano playing was “McCoy Tyner-inspired.” Bonner’s admittedly biased drummer, Tom Tilton, even felt Bonner surpassed Tyner. “Joe Bonner has all the power of McCoy, he has all the capability of McCoy, but he’s so much more romantic,” Tilton said, according to westword “I mean, I’ve been there time after time where there were tears running down people’s faces when he would play a ballad. He could captivate a room like nobody I’ve ever experienced before.”

Bonner did most of his playing over the last two decades in Denver, where he was beloved and appreciated. Even Gov. John Hickenlooper was a Bonner fan. “He was without question, the most talented piano player I’ve ever heard,” the governor told the website heyreverb in a remembrance of Bonner. “… I want people to know that I loved Joe Bonner.”

We are back on Boogie Butt with a soul track just like back in the days, this time with a Lord Funk & Samm Culley collaboration. We’re bringing back to your ears this giant artist, who crosses decades of music with its great personality and many groovy songs.

Samm Culley is an R&B, soul & funk keyboard player and a dope songwriter. His music career started within the band Tiny Tim & The Hits with Tom Price & Bill Collier. This trio soon left Tiny to form their own group The Diplomatics with Irving Waters as the lead singer. They later on became the legendary Skull Snaps.

Over the years, Samm co-produced and/or played with many unforgettable famous artists such as Hot Chocolate, The Fatback Band, George Kerr, Patrick Adams, Vaughan Mason, Reggie Griffin, De-De, Van Mc Coy, Lloyd Price & even later in Hip Hop music with Marley Marl or Freddie Foxxx.

“Let It Go” brings you back in 1970 with a great killer dance floor track for Bboys and soul lovers: the dru break is hot and on the same time, the guitar hook and bassline make you feel James Brown on the scene. Close your eyes and easily imagine John Shaft dancing on “Soul Makossa”.

The B side is the instrumental reworked by our well-known Lord Funk, with Samm on bass. Enjoy & play loud!

Cameroonian Joe Bisso's earliest musical influences didn't come primarily from his homeland, but more from the neighbouring Congo, where the kind of early 60's Congolese Rumba played by the likes of Franco / TP Ok Jazz, and Tabu Ley Rochereau was establishing itself as a musical force in the region.

Alongside this exuberant, swinging, jazz influenced sound, the growing impact of the all conquering US soul titans became inescapable, and sprinkled with a bit of Johnny Halliday & Co's smooth chanson over the top, we get a snapshot of where Jo Bisso and friends post school musical experimentation was headed in the late 60's.

As that decade drew to a close, the single minded Bisso headed off to France to begin his quest for the future, and by 1972 could afford the journey to the US that he'd long dreamed of.

Enrollment at the Berkeley School of Music in Boston soon lead to a new band coming together, and by 1974 the all conquering, multi faceted approach that marks Bisso's musical career, meant he'd written, produced and sung on his debut single for the mighty Decca Records. 'Flying To The Land Of Soul' drew heavily from James Brown's propulsive dancefloor funk, whilst wearing it's African colours loud and proud via 'African Express' chants, and drums front and centre.

At the same time, Bisso and friends had started to immerse themselves in the fast emerging disco sound pulsing outwards from Downtown NYC into the Boston nightclubs, and by the time his debut album 'Dance To It' was released on France's influential Le Disques Esperance in 1976, it was the driving, 4/4 floor power of disco that was to define Bisso's sound on that, and the following two albums.

Whilst Bisso's immersion in Disco was based around it's energy and musicality (rather than any associated hedonism), 'African Disco Experimentals (1974 to 1978)' paints a picture of an artist dedicated to the underground club side of the scene, rather than focused exclusively on the fast emerging pop potential of the sound at the time.

The album's tone is set by 3.20 mins of building, tribal percussion and rolling rhythms of the opener 'Love Beat', a 'strictly dancefloor' approach mirrored in the near 11 mins of 'Love Somebody', building from soulful keys to deep bass funk, extended percussion breaks, joyous squelchy Moog licks, breathy vocals and more (interesting footnote : Bisso is credited as Producer / Writer / Arranger, but 'Recorded by' is attributed to Joe Chiccarelli, better known in recent years for his work with The White Stripes, Shins, and Broken Social Scene.)

Still clocking in at a healthy 6 mins plus, "The Mystery With Me" (1978) makes a nod towards more radio friendly waters with it's hooky, floaty choruses and tight structures (a then 22 year old Arthur Baker is credited as sole writer on Discogs - Bisso himself doesn't seemed convinced by this idea, but that's another story...)

'Let's Keep it Together' (1977) loops the song title over a slower groove, with free form electric guitar licks adding new textures, whilst 'Disco Madonna' (1976) showcases Bisso at his most playful, combining spoken word Hispanic vocals, rattling percussion and more of the always welcome Moog, switching up keys at the end for an unselfconsciously camp finale.

And if anything sums up the ambition of Bisso's work in the field at the time, 'Play Me' (1978) can lay claim to being the magnum opus. It's presented here as a continuous 16 minute extravaganza (as opposed to the 4 parts it came in originally) : lush strings, hypnotic vocal sections, irresistible basslines, crisp drums, the odd Barry White style interjection, disco moans, the occasional nod to a chorus vocal. None of it seeming in much of a hurry to go anywhere in particular, choosing instead to joyfully revel in the expansiveness of the form.

Mort Garson’s road to cool cultural caché and the sublimity of Plantasia meant a decades’ long journey through an underworld of sophisticated, international, string-laced dreck (i.e., your great-grandparents’ record collection) to arrive at Music from Patch Cord Productions, this set of queasy-listening you now hold.

Music from Patch Cord Productions shows that Garson’s knack was to exist in both worlds, super-commercial and waaay out. He cut delirious minute-long blasts for commercials (as to whether or not they were actually ever aired remains unknown) and spacecraft-hovering études. Were there really account managers out there in the early ’70s that gave the greenlight to these commercial compositions which seemed to anticipate everyone from John Carpenter to Suicide? What were these campaigns actually for, Soylent Green? Regardless, Mort’s jingle work laid the groundwork for the future. As Robert Moog himself noted: “The jingles were important because they domesticated the sound.” Via Garson’s wizardry, the synthesizer transcended novelty to ubiquity and dominance.

Other curios and questions abound. How did Garson’s arrangement work for Arthur Prysock’s satiny body worship album This Is My Beloved transmogrify into the body-snatcher pulses of “This is My Beloved”? Are the two pieces even related? What is the IATA code for the airport of “Realizations of an Aeropolis”? What denomination is the “Cathedral of Pleasure”? If “Son of Blob” sounds like a hallucinatory melted ice cream truck theme, what on earth does Blob’s father sound like? Every sound wrangled out of that Moog by Garson pushes things further and further out.

Of course, these are all questions that may never get answers, as Garson wasn’t the most organized modern day composer, busy as he was conjuring strange new realms with his circuit boards and synths. He worked and wrote right up until his death in 2008, his daughter and Sacred Bones still going through all of the material left behind. He wouldn’t live to see it, but his renaissance was just around the corner, the seeds that had been scattered in record bins around the world suddenly coming to bear fruit. Take a bite!

Long sought after by collectors, DJs and lovers of hard salsa and boogaloo alike, 'Yo Traigo Boogaloo' is now lovingly reissued in replica form with the original cover art, remastered from the studio tapes, reproducing that magical MAG studio sound for today's aficionados to enjoy like it was 1969 all over again. Alfredo Linares is a globetrotting pianist, composer, bandleader and producer from Peru with a long, prolific career in latin music. His long sought after by DJs and collectors of hard salsa and boogaloo alike, 'Yo Traigo Boogaloo' is now lovingly reissued in replica form with the original cover art, remastered from the studio tapes, reproducing that magical MAG studio sound for today's aficionados to enjoy like it was 1969 all over again. Details: Alfredito "Sabor" Linares is a globetrotting pianist, composer, bandleader and producer from Lima, Peru with a long, prolific career in hot Latin music spanning more than half a century. Though Linares has come to recent international fame through his work with William "Quantic" Holland, he was already quite popular and famous in his adopted countries of Colombia and Venezuela in the 1970s and 80s during the salsa boom. However, his career began in Lima, backing timbalero Ñico Estrada at age 17 in 1961, and Alfredito's first notable recording as a sideman was a few years later on the now legendary 'El Combo de Pepe' album for IEMPSA/Odeon. Subsequently Linares would advance his career by recording two fabulous records under his own capable leadership as Alfredo Linares Y Su Sonora at the end of the decade for the MAG label. These releases capitalized on recent developments in New York Latin music, namely Latin jazz, boogaloo, descarga (jam session) and what would later be marketed as "salsa" with roots in the Cuban guaguancó and guaracha genres. One can hear direct inspiration coming from Joe Cuba, Ricardo Ray, and Eddie Palmieri, especially on the first album, 'El Pito', and yet by the second record, there are plenty of original tunes as well. More importantly there is a 'swing' and assertiveness to the playing (and arrangements) that prove every bit as authentic, tough and danceable as their New York inspirations. As Linares himself recounts, "In that era, we fought against a generation that was half-blind, because the people who understood what we were doing were few. We had to fight hard for our space in Perú, that's where the swing comes from." That special 'swing' also emanated from Linares' ace backing band, which happened to be a talented stable of MAG studio musicians who all understood Cuban and jazz music: percussionists Mario Allison and Coco Lagos, bassist Joey di Roma, Kiko Fuentes and Carlos Muñoz on lead vocals and Melcochita on coro (vocal chorus). According to Linares, the studio band was "open-ended, some musicians came some days, others on other days_Nilo Espinoza on saxophone, Betico Salas and Tito Chicoma on trumpets. Otto de Rojas played piano, and so did Charlie Palomares, who played vibraphone. Another good musician was guitarist Carlos Hayre." Though the recordings were cut "live in the studio" and many were basically composed on the spot, the intrinsic strength and maturity of the performances on 'Yo Traigo Boogaloo' stand the test of time as one of Peru's most important contributions to tropical music across the decades, establishing Alfredito Linares as a master of the idiom and serving as a harbinger for great things to come for him in Colombia and Venezuela. Long sought after by collectors, DJs and lovers of hard salsa and boogaloo alike, 'Yo Traigo Boogaloo' is now lovingly reissued in replica form with the original cover art, remastered from the studio tapes, reproducing that magical MAG studio sound for today's aficionados to enjoy like it was 1969 all over again. Pablo E Yglesias DJ Bongohead of Peace & Rhythm

Thaba is a collaboration between South African singer/
songwriter Khusi Seremane and American producer/musician
Gabriel Cyr. Tragically in July 2020, while the two were
working with Soundway to prepare the release of their first
record, Seremane died a few days past his 41st birthday, after
battling health issues for several years.
The particular Thaba sound reflects a sonic duality drawing
on a double pop heritage of Mbaqanga and Bubblegum artists
like The Soul Brothers, Paul Ndlovu and Pat Shange alongside
traces of Roxy Music, Grace Jones, Sade, and Talk Talk that’s
wrapped up in a modern, electronic, layered, introspective
and at times jazz-tinged production style.
Brought together by a shared love of kwaito, 90’s R&B and
classic downtempo, Seremane and Cyr collaborated for a
decade after meeting online in the halcyon days of Myspace
Music. While the pair initially planned for Seremane to guest
on a Teleseen track, their ideas eventually evolved into an
entire record. Their debut, Eyes Rest Their Feet, was created
remotely over the course of several years, with the core
recorded during a 2016 studio session in Cape Town.
After returning to New York, Cyr honed these recordings with
several Brooklyn-based musicians, calling upon members
of Antibalas, Underground System, Midnight Magic, Loboko
and others. Eyes Rest Their Feet spans genres as well as
geography, touching on elements of soul, reggae, synth-pop
and beyond, with lyrical themes that explore loneliness and
the challenges of human relationships.
Eyes Rest Their Feet not only represents the apex of
Seremane’s work as an artist but also a meditation on the
transformative power of love and the impermanence of all
things.

Composed, produced, and arranged by Eartheater alone, Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin draws a path back to the primordial lava lake from which she first emerged, as it also testifies to the reincarnating resurrections the project has undergone over its first full decade of existence. While the album renews her focus on guitar performance and legible structure, Eartheater balances the unabashed prettiness of acoustic harmonic songs with the dissonant gestural embroidery of oblique instrumentals. Having fallen back in love with the idioms that first captivated her, she worked to crack open the techniques that had fossilized inside of her, while still seeking to apply the electro-alchemical knowledge she picked up along her journey. The result of a laborious revival in fire, Phoenix recontextualizes Eartheater’s combinatorial approach to production within her most confident abstractions, adjacent to some of her most direct songs to date.

Eartheater composed and workshopped most of Phoenix over a ten-week artist residency (FUGA) in Zaragoza, Spain, housed in a sprawling, cubic glass facility that looked out over wildflower-flecked mountains. Following an intensive period of recording and touring, the residency provided her with an unprecedented period of solitude in the small Spanish town. Her newfound sense of isolation ultimately became liberating, leading her to sidestep the crutches and steady grids inherent to electronic music, and to conceive pieces rooted in her guitar and her desire to perform with other players live.

Eartheater’s voice glows brighter than ever at the center of Phoenix’s arrangements — her familiar operatic highs are grounded by newly expanded velvety lows, leaping lucidly up and down octaves. Her intricate guitar work flits across baroque fingerpicked passages and latches into cyclical figures that meet her voice in lush harmonic progressions. From her own guitar parts, to the orchestral string arrangements she wrote for the Spanish conservatory group Ensemble de Camara, to the harp and violin lines performed by her close friends and collaborators Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz of LEYA, Eartheater’s applications of acoustic instruments bring an extraordinary emotional emphasis to her compositions. Phoenix prepares for a future where electronic sound — or even electricity itself — isn’t guaranteed, but where her music could still come to life with a group of hands dexterously winding across instruments against the light of the fire. Eartheater drew inspiration for Phoenix from geological imagery, whose turbulence and potential for genesis mirror the trajectory of her own life and relationships. The album’s instrumental pieces directly reference these moments of upheaval, colliding audio of volcano and lightning storms with resplendent string and vocal arrangements. “Volcano” looks out over the album from its peak at the center, its tectonic plates colliding in towering melodies and layers of vocal harmonies, as piano accents crest and cascade down the mountainside. When Eartheater sings, “I’m still building mountains underground,” she is trying to reconcile the pinnacles of her ambition with the comforts of a simple existence buried beneath the surface. “Diamond in the Bedrock” finds her admiring the gemstone forming under intense pressure inside her, but rejecting the romantic promise that the diamond signifies, choosing instead to escape a relationship that has come to stifle her.

With the album’s subtitle, Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin, Eartheater imagines being tempered to a state of perfect equilibrium, suspended between melting and freezing, where fire could streak across her body and appear as a crystalline blush. This image captures the tension at the heart of the Eartheater project, as she decides how best to distill her passion and render it cool to the touch; to find beauty in simple pleasure, while keeping one eye fixed on the peaks that loom in the horizon. The album is mixed by Kiri Stensby and mastered by Heba Kadry, featuring photography by Daniel Sannwald.

Mort Garson’s road to cool cultural caché and the sublimity of Plantasia meant a decades’ long journey through an underworld of sophisticated, international, string-laced dreck (i.e., your great-grandparents’ record collection) to arrive at Music from Patch Cord Productions, this set of queasy-listening you now hold.

Music from Patch Cord Productions shows that Garson’s knack was to exist in both worlds, super-commercial and waaay out. He cut delirious minute-long blasts for commercials (as to whether or not they were actually ever aired remains unknown) and spacecraft-hovering études. Were there really account managers out there in the early ’70s that gave the greenlight to these commercial compositions which seemed to anticipate everyone from John Carpenter to Suicide? What were these campaigns actually for, Soylent Green? Regardless, Mort’s jingle work laid the groundwork for the future. As Robert Moog himself noted: “The jingles were important because they domesticated the sound.” Via Garson’s wizardry, the synthesizer transcended novelty to ubiquity and dominance.

Other curios and questions abound. How did Garson’s arrangement work for Arthur Prysock’s satiny body worship album This Is My Beloved transmogrify into the body-snatcher pulses of “This is My Beloved”? Are the two pieces even related? What is the IATA code for the airport of “Realizations of an Aeropolis”? What denomination is the “Cathedral of Pleasure”? If “Son of Blob” sounds like a hallucinatory melted ice cream truck theme, what on earth does Blob’s father sound like? Every sound wrangled out of that Moog by Garson pushes things further and further out.

Of course, these are all questions that may never get answers, as Garson wasn’t the most organized modern day composer, busy as he was conjuring strange new realms with his circuit boards and synths. He worked and wrote right up until his death in 2008, his daughter and Sacred Bones still going through all of the material left behind. He wouldn’t live to see it, but his renaissance was just around the corner, the seeds that had been scattered in record bins around the world suddenly coming to bear fruit. Take a bite!

East London-born music legend and all round boundary-breaking innovator, Dizzee Rascal, today announces the release of his 7th studio album, entitled ‘E3 AF’ and new single ‘L.L.L.L (Love Life Live Large)’, out via Island Records.

This new release marks the genesis of a new era for Dizzee and is the first album wholly written, recorded and produced in the UK in over a decade. ‘E3 AF’ is a 10-track layered, purposeful statement of intent, rooted in Dizzee’s inedible ties to both east London and Black British music’s legacy. He sound is sharper, stronger and more self-assured than ever, and it is obvious that he has poured the creative energy of the past few years into ‘E3 AF’ as a body of work. First single, L.L.L.L (Love Life Live Large), features Tottenham born MC Chip and kicks open the door with the force of a steel toe capped boot. Chip, adds another thwack of bravado to the rumbling, Dizzee-produced beat. ‘E3 AF’ confirms Dizzee’s status as an artist still very much in his prime, sonically it draws on the infectious pace of grime and resolutely forward-thinking UK rap. From one song to the next, you are taken on a journey through Black British musical excellence. Ice-cold UK drill drips on Smoke Boys-featuring ‘Act Like You Know’ (produced by MK the Plug) and Eastside pulses with pure grime courtesy of Chubby Dreadz and Platinum 45. Self-produced opener ‘God Knows’ (featuring P Money) and high-octane ‘You Don’t Know’ pull from dubstep, grime and drum ‘n’ bass while threatening to wreak havoc with your speakers. By the time Alicai Harley’s warm up vocals float over sunny syths on the deeply personal ‘Energies + Powers’ (produced by Steel Banglez), the album practically radiates heat. Dizzee Rascal is a unique artist that has inspired many for multiple generations. From his 2003 debut album release, the Mercury Prize-winning ‘Boy In The Corner’ to date, Dizzee has continued to push expectations and boundaries. He is British musical royalty. Every album that followed stacked up another marker of success. Between 2004 and 2017 all album releases blasted firmly into the Top 10 Official album chart, won awards, critical acclaim and amassed Dizzee a huge following of devoted fans. ‘E3 AF’ is set to confirm Dizzee Rascal’s status as the master at the top of his game.

2xLP: Gatefold, pressed on Gold Nugget vinyl


“I wanna thank me,” Snoop Dogg said as he accepted his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, “I wanna thank me for believing in me. I wanna thank me for doing all this hard work. I wanna thank me for having no days off.”

An Entertainment Icon, Snoop Dogg has reigned for more than two decades as an unparalleled force who has raised the bar as an entertainer and globally recognized innovator.  Snoop has released 19 studio albums, sold over 40-million albums worldwide, reached No. 1 countless times on Billboard charts internationally and received 20 GRAMMY® nominations. Snoop Dogg most recently released his highly praised and award-winning Gospel album, Bible of Love. He is currently working on his next studio album, I Wanna Thank Me, releasing this summer through EMPIRE.

In addition to his extensive work in music, Snoop Dogg has made his mark in the television and film space, including an Emmy Award nomination for his role as Executive Producer and Co-host of VH1’s hit show, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner, Executive Producer of MTV’s Mary + Jane, Executive Producer and Host of TNT’s game show, Joker’s Wild and Executive Producer of acclaimed Netflix’s show, Coach Snoop.

Sister of Groovedge Records, Mystery Booms brings together the Lyon electronic scene to show its common love to the Dub.

First appearance is naturally delivered by brother Irie Mona. He is a producer implanted in town since a decade and he perfectly knows how to inject new digi-attitude in an old school roots way of dubbing productions.

Modern weird riddims by the boy Prince Stoner! Expect 2 contemporary songs for the dancefloor, still into a respectfull dub attitude! Tuned in! !!

Freshly signed artist named Ian Ash (also know as “H” and Sunny G) delivers a massive filtered boogie house track. So What U Want will also come with a Lord Funk remix which sound a bit more electro funk to blast the dancefloor.

This track is a radio killer and should be loved by many musiclovers including DJs, producers or simply people who like to listen to mainstream vocal house as French touch production. A bunch of samples and played instruments make it efficient and support the
sweet voice of the singer Djemaïli. He is known first as an R’n’B singer, but he liked to perform on this future classic – and you can hear it! Ian Ash is known as a resident DJ of the World-famous Montreux Jazz Festival where he has spun records yearly between 2001 and 2019. Including 1st and 2nd parts of George Clinton Parliament Funkadelic, Spearhead feat. Michael Franti, Doctor L, Tony Allen,Jean Grae, Raphael Saadiq, Will Calhoun, Common,Dj Cam, Mister Mike, Benji B, Souljazz, Andy Smith,Buddah Monk, Jimmy Cliff back band, Jamie Lidell, and Claude Nobs himself! He spun also at Cargo (London), SPACE (Ibiza), NL (Amsterdam), Divans du Monde
(Paris), etc. He surely is in the top 10 Funk DJs in Europe. He also has been stage and studio audio engineer for 2 decades and has mixed a couple of live artists such as Joe Sample, Mandrill or even AIR. He has mixed more than 90 concerts at Montreux Jazz Festival 2002 and deeply participated in producing 4 Days in Geneva by Ohmega Watts
more recently.

Songs for dancing, having fun, and vibing out, B. Bravo's latest project, the "Cosmic Mind" EP, brings listeners to the dancefloor by way of a healthy dose of talk-box, retro synths and irresistable boogie grooves.

Los Angeles producer, talk-boxer, remixer, DJ & instrumentalist, B. Bravo, has been flipping interstellar references and laying down galactic beats for over a decade. From 2009's Analog Starship to 2020's Cosmic Mind EP, the funk in him is alive and well. Born in California with roots in Japan, Bravo combines his love for jazz, soul, hip hop and electronics into his own signature sound of swinging grooves, melodic synths and bouncing analog basslines.

LIMITED REMASTERED VINYL REPRESS WITH NEW COVER ART AND SLEEVE NOTES.

The mythology that has grown around The La’s has made them one of the most enigmatic bands of the last few decades. The story began in a hard hit Liverpool in 1984, when Mike Badger teamed up with local lad Lee Mavers to write and sing their way out of the rut the city was in.

Over the next two years they co-wrote material inspired by their love of 'roots' music such as: Bo Diddley, raw 1950s Rockabilly, Captain Beefheart and the punk bands they had both seen in local club Eric's a few years before. Early reviews called them ‘Surreal Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (Melody Maker) or 'Tom Waits could have dreamt up The La's 'Sweet 35' (NME)

These earliest La's recordings that now appear here on limited edition vinyl are raw & spirited, defining a unique, creative time in the band’s history and firmly point the way to future success.

'Had The La's been able to accommodate Badger and Mavers could world domination have been far away?'MOJO

A dramatic, string-drenched epic, James Ralph Bailey’s Just Me ’N’ You has been a sought-after soul masterpiece for decades. A lush suite of beautiful songs, it was conceived as a concept album; a sophisticated paean to love.

Originally released by MAM Records in 1974, Just Me ’N’ You is a breathtaking jazzy soul album. It’s similar in style to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On - particularly the performances, orchestrations and chord progressions - but dealing with a different universal subject matter. If What’s Going On was about romance instead of politics, it would sound like this.

Fans of Marvin, Leon Ware, Donny Hathaway, Leroy Hutson and Willie Hutch will love this record. Not as well known - this is definitely an underrated gem - the work of James Ralph Bailey is no less mind-blowing. It’s got to be one of the best soul albums of all time.

The original productions were made on a basic home tape machine and enhanced with strings, rhythmic overdubs and a variety of other instrumentation. These are beautiful arrangements of strings and jazzy horns. Rhythm guitars and bouncy bass serve as the groove foundation, congas provide a Latin feel whilst the vibraphone and harmonica add colour. And then of course there’s JR’s voice.

His style recalls Hathaway, with a delivery akin to Marvin at the time. As he scats and sings, accompanying himself in sweet harmonies, there is still a rawness of pain and longing in his voice, the rawness familiar to all deep soul.

As an album, Just Me ’N’ You is no mere collection of songs. The tender, smooth tunes flow perfectly together into a fluid, single artistic statement. This is one where it’s hard to pick out any standouts. You may have heard the soaring title track before, maybe on Gilles Peterson’s Digs America compilation. The opening track “After Hours” sounds as fresh now as it ever was and segues beautifully into the majestic “Heaven On Earth”. Recorded by Hathaway the previous year, Bailey’s original of “Love Love Love” is incredible and arguably the definitive version. The powerful, dreamy, sax-and-harmony-laced “All Strung Out Over You” has echoes of the Chi-Lites, it’s that good. Goosebumps. And we could go on.

Mastered by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry, this Be With edition of Just Me ’N’ You sounds every bit as brilliant as it should. A joyous celebration of love, this album is perfect in every way. If you don’t already own a copy then now is the time.

In our latest chapter of Spiritual Jazz, we return to the source – the Impulse! label, and the monumental influence of its most prominent artist, John Coltrane.
Since the first release in the series back in 2008, we have mapped out the growth of the spiritual sound in jazz. Spiritually energised and politically conscious, the spiritual sound in jazz music is one of the most important currents in the music. Our series has charted the growth of the style from early experiments at Blue Note and Prestige to European excursions, exiled experimentalists, and sounds from across the globe. But whenever you think of spiritual jazz, it's a fair bet that the double exclamation mark and orange and black spine of Impulse quickly comes to mind. Home to John and Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Yusef Lateef, McCoy Tyner and countless other musical pioneers, Impulse! was the most important and forward-thinking jazz label of the 1960s. With the music-first attitude of an independent but the clout of a major, producers Creed Taylor and Bob Thiele made Impulse the defining imprint of a crucial decade. They hand picked the top players of the moment and gave them freedom to record the music they wanted, setting out their stall with a bold slogan – 'The New Wave Of Jazz Is On Impulse!'

Here we dive deep into the Impulse! catalogue, bringing celebrated masterpieces from Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders into the arena, together with lesser known cuts from Phil Woods and John Klemmer as well as straight-up classics such from Yusef Lateef and Elvin Jones. Fifty years on and the new wave of jazz still sounds fresh, vibrant and as relevant as ever.

BSP // Bispebjerg is a record label that presents music from Copenhagen based artists and affiliates. BSP is closely related to the Copenhagen Underground Posse, music and party collective that where active on the Copenhagen scene for the past 8 years.

Behind the label are Philip Jun Kamata, has been making music for nearly two decades, where he, among other things released the underground bass sex anthem "you dont know what love is" on Hyperdub. J Kamata is debuting on this V/A two new alter egoes; the 313 high tech funk inspired Jun Anthony, as well as his raw electro moniker Sequential Hill.

The other half of the label, Daniel Savi has been active in the club scene for a good while, primarily releasing on house labels such as Underground Quality and Tartelet Records. For this release he hits you hard with his bass alias Savi DJ.

With BSP we attempt to build a universe with Jungle, Electro, House, Booty Tech and their derivative genres. The first release is a V/A consisting of 3 different artists as well as remix from local hero Kasper Marott (Kulor, Axces).

Release comes in white discobags w. blue sticker on front and double sided foto insert.

Track descriptions

A1. Jun Anthony - 313 Garage. 06.38
Jun Anthony presents his groovy take on a garage track under a heavy 313- high tech funk influence.

A2. Jun Anthony - 313 Garage (Kasper Marott Remix) 05.53
The second cut holds a dubby, deep and groovy remix from Copenhagen rising star Kasper Marott.

B1. Sequential Hill - Jakd Oscillateurs - 05.29
Jun's alter ego Sequential Hill presents a punk approach to electro - Raw, but with a tiny soft spot for lofty strings and emotional pads.

B2. Savi DJ-Djungle (Slow edit) 06.08.
Savi DJ presents savvy bass grooves on this revivalist jungle cut, in a slowed down version for your mixing pleasure.

Rare musical magic from the Bruton library catalogue – ambient, spacey, pastoral and electronic. Music by John Cameron, Alan Hawkshaw, Fran-cis Monkman, Brian Bennett and more – all total masters of the scene. All very cool. All very now. All will sell very fast.

Over the last three decades Jonny Trunk has collected and written about library music. But he’s never had a great deal of luck with the Bruton catalogue. By this he means that he’s never stumbled across a massive stash, or lucked-out buying a huge run for practically nothing –that’s the kind of thing that used to happen in the 1990s and the early noughties if you were out there looking hard for library music. But he did manage to get about 25 in one hit about 20 years ago when the BBC shut down their “TV Training Department” near Lime Grove and also when a box of Brutons ended up being dumped at a hospital radio, and they didn’t want the records, so Jonny got a call.

There are lots of Bruton albums in existence – over 330 LPs in the vinyl catalogue, issued between 1978 and 1985. That’s a lot of music to wade through if you are looking for sublime modern day sounds. For many years now the “trophies” from the Bruton catalogue have been the beat or action driven LPs – the two Drama Montage albums (BRJ2 and BRJ8) have always been the big hitters, and others such as High Adventure (BRK2) too.

But Jonny has always found himself drawn to the lime green LPs, the pastoral, peaceful albums (The BRDs), which were full of the kind of gentle, lovely music that would turn up in Take Hart as Tony was paint-ing a woodpecker or a badger or an Autumn tree. The other Brutons he likes are the orange ones (The BRIs) simply because they are full of ex-perimental futuristic electronics and would remind him of 1980s ITV backgrounds. This LP series includes Brian Bennett’s cosmic classic Fantasia (BRI 10). Jonny has been knows to refer to this style of library music as “Krypton Factor library”, because it’s exactly what that strange but successful 1980s TV quiz show sounded like.

In recent years as interest in library music has expanded, we’ve watched
the price of a handful of Brutons really going through the roof - not the just the action and drama ones, but the more esoteric and experimental LPs too – like the BRDs and the BRIs. Jonny gets the vibe that people fi-nally want to hear this other more interesting and experimental side of the Bruton catalogue. So what better time than now to put together a compilation of such sublime period sounds.

Not only does this album bring together a set of fabulous cues that would cost the average man in the street a month’s wages (if the origi-nals were all wanted and if you could even track them all down), but it also chops out the need to listen to other tracks on library albums that are nowhere near as good.

The cues here all date from between 1978 and 1984. They come from the BRD, BRI, BRH, BRJ, BRM, BRR and BRs catalogues.

The composers are all legends within the genre, and here, were doing what great library composers do best – fulfilling a brief and utilising modern studio equipment to both commercial and beguiling effect.

The New Mastersounds have been delighting audiences with their infectious brand of funky soul-jazz for the two decades since they formed in Leeds in 1999. For the first five years of the band's career they were regulars at the Jazz Café in London, before they began to turn heads on the funk scene in the US, where guitarist/producer/bandleader Eddie Roberts now lives. For over a decade they have been a staple act of the late-night scene during New Orleans' annual Jazz Fest.

Recorded at Color Red Studios in Denver in December 2018, "Shake It" is a fresh Anglo-American collaboration between the band and vocalist Lamar Williams Jr (son of the late Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams), with high-class soulful horns from Mike Olmos & Jason Mingledorff, and percussion by Jeff Franca of Thievery Corporation

The first two singles from the album - "Let's Go Back" and "Kings & Queens" - are already enjoying radio support in UK (BBC6Music), France (FIP, RDWA), Spain (Radio 3, Radio Catalunya, Radio Calvia), Italy (Radio Populare), Germany (Radio Z) and Belgium (Radio Skorpio).














j 10. On The Up (S.K.A.) [feat. Lamar Williams Jr]










[j] 10. On The Up (S.K.A.) [feat. Lamar Williams Jr]

Abstrakt Sonance makes his return to Aufect for the labels's first 12" release in a decade! Enlisting the likes of Crowell and legendary Grime MC, Killa P on the title cut "New Style", together they deliver a smackdown with a skippy Grime-Dubstep hybrid banger in a mood fitting for the status quo.

Label owners Greazus step up to flip "New Style" with a remix leaning heavy on 808's and an infectiously animated piano-esque hook.

"Lay It On" turns up the vibes and dips into R&B vocals chops and loose drums that seem to be melting into each other.

Fans of deep, heavy Dubstep will love "Squad Up". This one is meant to push soundsystems - minimal dubby chords, deep dubs, rolling drums, nuff said.

Presenting a collection of stone-cold classic breakbeats and b-boy jams from the sunkissed vaults of Miami's legendary TK Disco label!

NYC in the late 70's and early 80's saw a nascent street subculture fully evolve, a movement with it's own language, art, aesthetics, dances, fashion and way of living.

What would become what is now globally known as 'hip-hop' was in its infancy, with it's own legends and history being forged on an almost daily basis across the city's Black and Hispanic neighbourhoods. Music was central to hip-hop, the DJ was king and at the hands of people like Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Flowers, Mean Gene, Jazzy Jay, Afrika Bambaataa, Charlie Chase and numerous other groundbreaking DJ's of the era, music took on a whole new meaning that would reverberate through popular culture for the rest of time.

The breaks - minute sections or breakdowns of a record where we get to the unadulterated groove and the band on the record cut loose - is what it was all about! Unlike the discotheque DJ's who favoured the long mixes and blends in their club scenarios, hip-hop DJ's were amassing huge collections of records that had these magical sections on them, often x 2 copies of each, so that they could elongate the best part of the record ad infinitum by cutting them up live - all killer no filler! These special on the fly mixes and edits were then unleashed in the local parks of their neighbourhoods, on gargantuan DIY sound systems for all of their friends and neighbours to party on down until the wee small hours. These breakbeat segments also gave the MC's space to address the gathered masses without their voices colliding with lavish string arrangements or vocals underneath. A clear, concise, stripped back slab of funk on which to put forth their ideas, feelings and rhymes for all to enjoy.

Collected here are some of those most infamous breakbeats, all from the TK vaults. These records were studied by these young DJ's, coveted, covered up, hunted down, whispered about in darkened corners by those who needed and obsessed over the freshest of beats. There's a good chance you will have heard these records in some form or another as they have been covered, sampled, recreated and spun in clubs across the galaxy for over 4 decades. These are the very building blocks upon which popular culture and club music have been built, and here they are all in one place for your listening enjoyment!

Released with love and respect by: Above Board and TK Disco, Miami FL. 2020.

Released during the late 1970's Disco era, Milton Wright's sophomore long player has always stood out as a singular, innovative example of the deepest, rarest grooves known to underground Soul lovers all over the globe. This often overlooked body of work has found a whole new audience who revisited the man's work retrospectively, pushing the LP into the domain of "holy grail" status amongst Black music lovers and Funk fanatics. "Spaced" has been at the top of the wants lists of serious music lovers for decades, often unattainable and commanding stellar collectors prices on-line, sometimes fetching amounts of upwards of £400. This unique LP could be perceived as being Wright's most personal work, tragically overshadowed by the burgeoning successes of his then label mates on Miami's Alston Records imprint. The sheer craftsmanship and songwriting prowess on show is undeniable, as is the top level musicianship and production, sounding ridiculously fresh almost some 40 years later. Above Board distribution has collaborated with Alston / TK Records to ensure the quality of this fully legitimate repress of this long lost Soul / Funk classic has been maintained. Remastered, reissued and represented with the full cooperation of the license holders for 2016. Do not pass up the chance to own a true gem, a pivotal, lost LP like "Spaced", now made available again to be enjoyed by all. "Magic Music".

New album from the Parisian producer.

Label say:
Because, at La Creme Garcia Club, a private circle of discerning smokers in Barcelona, Blundetto was in heavy rotation in the playlists. So heavy that these people of good taste for legal activity on this side of the Pyrenees yet prohibited from profits, had the idea of becoming the privileged partners of a new album. Without scrutiny, without intervention in the artistic, but with a single watchword: let Blundetto return to his first love of world sound.

The result is a stereo trip illustrated by Mossy Giant's artwork. A trip around the world without leaving your couch.
An offer that cannot be refused.

Ten years had passed since Bad Bad Things; it was the occasion to celebrate this decade by reviving its state of mind. The one who mixes collaborations, atmospheres, and styles. Exiled to the green, in musical autarky from several albums, Blundetto has therefore returned to the rhythm of city life and studios. He has changed his way of operating, opened his repertoire, and invited friends to new titles that he had written for them.

The circle of intimates already present on Bad Bad Things (Hindi Zahra, General Electric, Chico Mann) has widened to include regular accomplices (Biga Ranx) and to extend to artists with whom Blundetto felt an obvious connection (Crime Apple, Leonardo Marques). Guided by this roadmap written by Blundetto, all succeeded in painting with their colors and spreading their musical soul in the project, either taking the rhythmic direction of Brazil, Africa, or Latin America, getting dizzy in Jamaican fumes or chopping at the salient angles of hip hop.

Dive into the new openings of Clément Petit’s arrangements, now more sophisticated than those on which Blundetto evolved, and now capable of bringing an orchestral dimension made of strings and brass, creating a direct opening on the emotions, an automatic generator of images to accompany the soundtrack by the producer Blackjoy.

Whatever the orientation, each guest becomes a unique and essential part while Blundetto remains the common thread, the cement and the final varnish of a musical mosaic called Good Good Things.

• Widely and rightly regarded as one of the best ever soul and funk bands, the now legendary Average White Band tore-up the rule book
and conquered the US, UK & International charts with a series of soul and disco hits between 1974 and 1980.
• AWB’s repertoire has been a source of inspiration and influence for many R&B acts and they are one of the most sampled bands in
history, remaining relevant today, continuing to reach new generations of younger audiences.
• Snoop Dogg, Fatboy Slim, Ice Cube, Puff Daddy, TLC, Rick Ross, will.i.am and Mark Ronson amongst countless others, have all borrowed
sections of their grooves.
• After the success of 1979’s ‘Feel No Fret’, the band went into the studio record their next album and in 1980, ‘Shine’ was released with
the worldwide Chart and Club hit ‘Let’s Go ‘Round Again’, reaching #14 in the UK Albums Chart. However, there was a back-story
behind the album’s release, which Alan Gorrie and Hamish Stuart have annotated in the LP notes.
• To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of ‘Shine’, AWB (past and present) have reconfigured the album as they had originally intended,
bringing in the four tracks that they had to ‘leave’ behind when they changed record labels. In addition, due to separate behind the
scenes situations, two further tracks were unable to be included on the album and remained unreleased until this century.
• ‘On The Strip – The Sunset Sessions’ is what ‘Shine’ could have been; a slightly longer 2LP set, heralding in the new decade.
• The album includes the singles ‘Let’s Go ‘Round Again’ and ‘For You, For Love’, as well as ‘Whatcha’ Gonna Do For Me’, which later
become synonymous with Chaka Khan, who recorded it the following year, having sung on an early-take for AWB, when they were
recording the album. ‘Miss Sun’ makes it long-awaited inclusion on the album for which it had been recorded until fate dealt another
hand, with permission being withheld then appearing as the lead track on Boz Scaggs’ ‘Hits’ LP; reaching #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• 40 years on, Average White Band still ‘shine’ brightly and remain highly influential for today’s groove-merchants and EDM DJs.

Something a little different from Athens of the North, Crisrail (Chris Rael) is an almost-LP of mad out there funky post punk from Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. Rated and played this out for some time but it has remained mostly under the radar due to scarcity. I could compare it to The Cure but it's so much more. 500 ONLY

"Playing instruments didn't come naturally to me, but I loved it so much I kept doing it and got better. When I started composing seriously in my early twenties, I didn't have much confidence in my voice or instrumental abilities, but my imagination was on fire and I was determined to create music that sounded like nothing else. I would find my place in the constellation of sound by carving a niche that was so unique, musical virtuosity wouldn't be a factor. I was inspired by Tom Scott of the Muffins, Maryland's legendary progressive jazz quartet, and owner of Black Pond Studios in Rockville, where Game of Music was recorded. It was my first solo release; I played everything except Tom's horn and flute parts. Lacking confidence to perform, I was very much a studio rat and became facile at overdubbing solo tracks. New music reviewers praised it at the time, but its distribution was limited and it's been out of print for decades. Listening now, it's more musically muscular than it felt to me at the time. It's incredibly gratifying that more people can hear it again, thanks to Athens of the North." - Chris Rael

After the success of the 2 Late 4 Love EP, Roy Of The Ravers returns to Emotional Response with a double LP with a deeper perspective, experimenting in ambient and drone textures, lucid techno travails and acid interludes.

Recorded between 1997 and 2017, the album was pieced together over the last six months after Roy's archives were first feared lost and then found. Approached by the label to release a follow up with something more introspective and personal, it was discovered that a recent move to a new studio had led to over 20 years of music being misplaced after it was believed they were mistakenly dropped at a local charity store. However, deep in a box of what were thought to be patch cables were in fact the decades worth of hard drives and here presented, is a sample of those lost recordings.

The nature of the music is introspection, eschewing the acid beats and white noise for a personal encounter between man and machine. The orchestral opening of the title track gives way to the submarine beats, pulsing TB303 and gliding hats of Robinson College 10 to set the outlook to come. Even with the scattering A Dim And Distant Past waking lulled senses, the melodies and feel all lead to a pause and reflect rather than jump and shout.

This is continued with the haunting drives of Bounce Erec and Oriental X0X-Press; the twisted, warped jams of The Weber Traum Boat Pt.3, Ichi and Roland Corp Labs 05; and the beautiful, heartfelt odes in Sade Lost Theme, The Clock House Pt.2 and closer, Nemesis '01. The album's melodic nature hums and shines as CS (6x8) appears as much a centre piece as a alternative consideration to the acid tinged, club bangs of Roy's releases to date.
A surprise package maybe, but in the rolling, word of mouth phenomena that was Emotinium II, all this and more was sensed and so White Sunrise Music II, spreading across 12 songs of contrasting moods, is a further affirmation that there is something good and worthy of exploration.

Songs for dancing, having fun, and vibing out, B. Bravo's latest project, the "Cosmic Mind" EP, brings listeners to the dancefloor by way of a healthy dose of talk-box, retro synths and irresistable boogie grooves.



Los Angeles producer, talk-boxer, remixer, DJ & instrumentalist, B. Bravo, has been flipping interstellar references and laying down galactic beats for over a decade. From 2009's Analog Starship to 2020's Cosmic Mind EP, the funk in him is alive and well. Born in California with roots in Japan, Bravo combines his love for jazz, soul, hip hop and electronics into his own signature sound of swinging grooves, melodic synths and bouncing analog basslines.

Waxtime Boxset Series Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - The Essential Albums ‘Ella & Louis’ and ‘Ella & Louis Again’ Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald were capable of producing magic that few jazz singers could match.

Their infrequent studio collaborations yielded true masterpieces. After cutting several sides backed by big bands for Decca in the late forties and early fifties, Ella and Louis were summoned by producer Norman Granz in 1956-57 to make three albums that would become legendary jazz classics. This 3-LP set compiles their two complete small group albums, Ella & Louis (Verve MGV4003) and the 2LP set Ella & Louis Again (Verve MGV4006-2).

Ella & Louis *****Down Beat “Ella & Louis is one of the very, very few albums to have been issued in this era of the LP flood that is sure to endure for decades.” (Nat Hentoff) Voted number 636 in Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums

Ella & Louis Again (2lp Set) ***** Down Beat “This set is more relaxed and more successful than their previous cooperative venture. It can hardly fail to break sales records for them both.” (Leonard Feather)

Demon Records presents The Final Tour from legendary guitar band The Shadows performing their greatest hits live on this 2LP set made available for the first time. Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch and Brian Bennett together on-stage June 5th 2004 at Cardiff Arena.
It was during a hot summer day in June 1960 that The Shadows entered Abbey Road's Studio 2 to record Apache, the track that was to become the instrumental hit of the decade. It shot to No.1, became an instant classic and saw the start of a string of over thirty hits that included another four No.1’s - Wonderful Land, Kon-Tiki, Dance On! and Foot Tapper.

31 tracks including four No1's are featured on this double LP pressed on red vinyl with printed inner sleeves

The Berlin based label Sonar Kollektiv has been waiting for it anxiously: Key Elements' debut album leads Jazz music into the new decade down-the-line. The music Key Elements create is fresh, merciless and ruthless and has always the finger on the pulse of the time. The album's eight tracks are all far away from Broken Beat nostalgia or Beatmaking nedism, they breathe inspiration from the young, thriving British jazz scene. Key Element's initiator, DJ and producer Marian Tone, built up a reputation in the Berlin hiphop, soul and jazz scene over the years (also as a co-founder of Beatkollektiv). With all of his compositions you always feel this heritage and his love and passion for hiphop. But the other two allys within ëKey Elementsû, drummer Waldi and the keyboard or bass player Jim Dunloop made their contribution with compositions and ideas as well. An album which was initially designed to be a mere solo project became an effort of a trio over the years being inherently consistent.

The premise for Quindi Records is simple – to represent music with a universality at its core.
Without adhering to specific genre tropes, the releases are intended to have a meaning and purpose in all kinds of situations – a social soundtrack as much as a stimulating experience,
feeding emotions and the psyche with a sentimental palette of sounds. Lovers’ music, loners’ music, music for friends and family alike.
Woo makes for a perfect choice to meet this loose concept head-on – the music of Clive and Mark Ives straddles disparate worlds and finds its own peculiar balance. On one hand it’s delicate synthesizer music with a minimalist bent, while on the other their joyous, twinkling harmonies have an immediacy that speaks to the soul. You can detect privacy in their craft – the brothers originally recorded their music in relative isolation in London in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. It’s only in recent years their sublime work has enjoyed a wider audience through an extensive run of reissues.
Arcturian Corridor ? presents a rare, previously unreleased piece of music from Woo – the expansive suite of the title track that unfurls across five parts. It’s an enchanting listen that shows a new breadth and depth to the duo – detailed drum programming and a broader palette of synth tones cascading in elegant unison. The name refers to Arcturus, the fourth brighteststar in the night sky. As Woo themselves explain, “The Arcturian Corridor is said to be a channel of light that brings unconditional love and wisdom from Arcturus to Earth.”
In addition to the 20-minute A-side piece, Woo also presents a new version of “Love On Other Planets”, a standout piece from their 1990 album ?Into The Heart of Love? . The fragile subtlety of the original has been embellished here with rich new passages that turn it into a kind of electronica epic, although still marked out with the sensitivity one expects from a Woo record.
Two remixes complete the set, both furthering Quindi’s modus operandi as a genre-agnostic force for cosmically charged music. Dublin’s Wah Wah Wino collective present their Wino Wagon manifestation for a tastefully strange house version of the fifth part of “Arcturian Corridor” that channels the freakiness of Pepe Bradock, the robo-funk of Metro Area and a soupcon of pop nous. British duo Ultramarine maintain the stylistic ambiguity as they channel decades of expressive experimentation between live band dynamics and machine soul on their version of the title track’s second chapter.

Louis Armstrong is one of the most important jazz musicians. He belongs to those who transformed the local music scene born in the Southern States of the United States - around New Orleans - into an international language.

It was in the 1920's, in Chicago, that he recorded his first records with His Hot Five and His Hot Seven. His personality and his natural enthusiasm, combined with his talent as a trumpet player and singer, helped him pave his way to success.

He traveled the United States with his orchestra throughout the 1930's and the 1940's, and appeared on television sets from all around the world throughout the 1950's and the 1960's. In five decades, Armstrong's music had evolved into jazz music, then known as a familiar universal language, popular on five continents.

The four sides of this double album revive the history of jazz, from "Muskrat Ramble" to "Hello Dolly".

To celebrate 40 years since the release of their first ever recording, Soft Cell are set to re-issue their seminal debut EP Mutant Moments.

Originally released as limited run of 2000 7” EPs in October 1980 on the band’s own Big Frock imprint, the release sold out immediately. Apartfrom various unofficial bootlegs, this much-revered and influential slice of electronica has been unavailable on vinyl for nearly four decades.

Soft Cell, aka Marc Almond and Dave Ball, went on to release their debut single proper, Memorabilia, cited as one of the most influential club records ever. This was followed by the multimillion-selling single Tainted Love, which topped the charts in 17 countries worldwide in 1981. The band have released four critically-acclaimed albums, including the genre-defining Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. After a 17-year hiatus, Soft Cell returned in 2018 for a sold out show at London’s O2 Arena, and are currently working on new material.

This new edition of Mutant Moments is pressed on deluxe 10” clear vinyl to upgrade the sound quality from the original 7”. In addition, the four tracks have been remastered especially for vinyl using the most cutting-edge digital technology available.

Soft Cell’s Dave Ball has personally supervised the remastering process, and comments: ‘A vintage slice of lo-fi Polytechnic synthpop, lovingly remastered for you’.

In the late 90’s, east-side LA was in the throws of a post-indie explosion; a network of stoned bands ranging from neo-psychedelia to pseudo-country overran Spaceland (our generation’s Troubadour) and the local Silverlake Lounge. I was playing freakbeat records twice a week in dive bars, half of Spacemen 3 was crashing at my house (my drop-out roomate was Sonic Boom’s tour drummer) and it was during this blur that I met Raymond Richards, a clean-cut all-American pedal steel guitarist playing in Mojave 3 (the country-tinged side project of 4AD shoegaze royalty, Slowdive). I was instantly swept off my feet, head over heals in love with Raymond's weeping tone—the most chill-inducing, emotionally responsive dialog I’d had with music since discovering Satie as a child—it was then and it is now, truly haunting. After a year of personnel trials, my roomate and I stole Raymond for our own band, and not only did he smother our songs with his enchanting steel, he was virtuosic with a variety of atypical instruments such as baritone guitar and theremin, he utilized them all. The band was short-lived—I joined Ariel Pink, Raymond fled to Portland and me subsequently to New York City—but in founding the ESP Institute years later, there was always a recurring mental note; we must make Raymond’s pedal steel album. I had managed to wrangle his blessed performance on a remix for Project Club’s El Mar Y La Luna, but it took almost a decade until I once again wore the producer hat and we began working on The Lost Art Of Wandering, a title borrowed from Sam Shepard’s Stories. Spiritually candid, expansive yet enveloping, this is the strung-out, visceral country music that simply radiates from Raymond. Each song is his set of coordinates in a vast open terrain, holding a sentimental familiarity, a truthful longing for the simple comforts that diffuse life’s complications, a place to get lost. –Lovefingers

In 1981, London-based E.G. Records released the debut album from a young Ghanaian group called Edikanfo. Edikanfo quickly rose to international notoriety following the release of “The Pace Setters” because of the infectious, forward-looking highlife meets afro-funk synthesis the band committed to tape. But the album also caught an additional wind of publicity due to its producer, the already legendary British musician and sound conceptualist Brian Eno. During that time, Eno was researching and openly propagating West African musics. He often mentioned his love of Fela Kuti and called his own rhythm-driven experiments the search for a “vision of a psychedelic Africa.” He had recently been collaborating with The Talking Heads on their Avant-funk masterpiece “Remain in Light” and with The Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,” an album which foretold the sort of cross-pollination and global music interconnectivity that today we take for granted. Eno and Edikanfo’s work together at Studio One in Accra (Ghana) was yet another inspired morphing of soundworlds and processes and a significant touchstone for both artists. As Brian Eno recently noted: “the actual recording sessions were joyful - the band played with such verve that you couldn't resist.”



But just when the sky seemed the limit for Edikanfo, the coup d’état in Ghana on the last day of 1981, tragically put the brakes on the band’s quickly developing fortunes. For years after that, the country endured enforced curfews at night, which of course ultimately gutted the live music scene in Accra and elsewhere. Because of this and other financial setbacks, the band ceased activity and its members spread out in exile, all over the world. It clearly seemed as though the story of Edikanfo, one of Ghana’s greatest bands of that era, had come to a premature end.



Now, almost four decades later, Edikanfo has returned. And with its surviving members gearing up to reissue and tour their classic 1981 album, “The Pace Setters,” the band is once again excitedly pointed towards the future.

"I'm Always Right“ by Imagination is an unreleased jazz rock LP recorded in 1977, 3 years before their sought after “Shake It” debut from 1980. Comprised of five tracks with a playtime of roughly 30 minutes, you will hear one of the finest German late-70s rock-tinged electric jazz albums of the era. The recording is a delightful stand-out with unique compositions, aspiring solo work, and a soulful spirit throughout. Additionally, the album veritably glows with exceptional sound quality, as it has been remastered from original tapes that were cut more than four decades ago at the WDR Funkhaus, Cologne.

Something is stirring in downtown Tucson. That's no great surprise perhaps: Calexico have been sending out missives from the desert for 20 years now, Giant Sand for even longer than that, and the Green on Red revival is surely overdue. Let us remind ourselves that this isn't a big city in the American sense, but that its hinterland is indeed as big as it gets. For an hour south, Mexico starts. And this is where things get interesting.

Born in Nogales, Arizona, raised in Nogales, Sonora, multi-instrumentalist and band-leader Sergio Mendoza grew up listening to the Mexican regional styles jostling for headspace in a young, music-mad mind - cumbia mainly, but mambo, rancheras and mariachi too. The border is always a fierce arena of exchange, both commercial and cultural, and so there was American music too. At one point 'rock and roll, the classics', as Mendoza himself deadpans, seemed to win out and he stopped playing those 'Latin styles' for a good decade and a half.

The return to those sounds was a strong one in 2012's Mambo Mexicano, co-produced by Mendoza and Joey Burns of Calexico - a band for which Mendoza has become an increasingly integral touring and recording member. While that record had a studied air, tentative in parts (as befits the renewal of an old love affair), ¡Vamos A Guarachar! is another beast entirely: by turns raucous ('Cumbia Volcadora', featuring Mexican electronic pioneer Camilo Lara), tender ('Misterio', surely Salvador Duran's finest moment with the band so far) and plain serious fun, as in 'Contra La Marea' and 'Mapache', it also bears a robust electronic edge, a keen pop sensibility and all the hallmarks of Mendoza's love of 60s rock, with the closing track, 'Shadows of the Mind', sure to be included if anyone decides to update the Nuggets collection for the 21st century. This is roundabout way of saying that it appears to have everything, but never too much of anything. Focused, fierce and beautifully executed by a superbly drilled set of musicians, it is a record that fully matches the band's explosive live performances.

You could, of course, take the trip to Tucson yourself, to the home of this essential set of field recordings. The scene hangs out together, so ... if the stars align and their frantic tour schedules permit, you might see any number of folks from Calexico, Giant Sand or up-and-coming cumbia rockers Xixa deep in conversation somewhere in town with a quiet young man in black. That's Sergio. Right now, in this endless game of Tucson tag, Orkesta Mendoza are IT.

In October 2018 DJ Rocca and Almunia member Leo Ceccanti joined forces to deliver “Rhythm Collision”, a three-track EP of jangling, sun-kissed grooves, psychedelic dub disco and Afro-Cosmic flavours on Really Swing. 18 months on, one of that set’s standout cuts has been given a new lease of life courtesy of fellow Italian producer Alessandro Pasini AKA Deep 88. Since making his debut a decade ago, Pasini has earned a reputation as one of house music’s understated heroes – an artist whose hardware driven, retro-futurist take on deep house tends towards the timeless, melodic and atmospheric. With a deep love of turn-of-the-90s dream house, Larry Heard productions and sun-baked chords, his dancefloor-focused productions have often been called Balearic.

It’s perhaps fitting then that his reworks of Rocca and Cecanti’s “Ever Changing Bubbles” are as Balearic as they come. His “Balearic Mix” sets the tone, with Pasini layering trippy, dubbed-out and ear-catching elements – Ceccanti’s eyes-closed electric guitar solos, jangling acoustic guitar chords, warm dub disco bass, echoing spoken word samples, fluttering flute solos, drowsy organ motifs and the pair’s delay-heavy vocals – atop a crunchy, head-nodding, live style beat. While it deviates from the duo’s original version, it inhabits a similar sonic space – albeit in a more dancefloor-friendly way. Pasini excels himself on the accompanying “Balearic Dub”, stripping the cut back to its raw essentials – drums, metronomic bass –while toughening up the percussion and adding delay-laden instrumental snippets. It’s warm, woozy and otherworldly, with echoing voices, tactile musical motifs and restless delay trails combining to create a suitably hazy and intoxicating mood. By the time the touchy-feely flute and acoustic guitars begin to dance across the sound space, you’ll be lost in the groove and too happy to notice.

BBE Music announces the first repress of the classic Roy Ayers albums ‘Virgin Ubiquity’ 1 and 2 since 2006, on luxurious 180g vinyl with brand new sleeve notes written by Sean P. The music on 'Virgin Ubiquity' was selected and mixed down from previously unreleased multi-tracks recorded between 1976 & 1981, which Roy had in storage. It's all unmistakably Ayers, but is diverse and fresh enough to be more than a mere adjunct to one of his most productive and popular periods - testament to his and his musicians' creative abilities, as much of most revered Ayers output stems from this time. These discoveries take their place beside some illustrious company in a timeline bookended by 'Everybody Loves The Sunshine' and 'Africa, Center Of The World', several solo and Ubiquity albums, collaborations with Wayne Henderson & Fela Kuti, as well as guesting on LPs by Buster Williams and Herbie Mann. Out of print on vinyl and CD for over a decade now, BBE is delighted to re- present these groundbreaking Roy Ayers titles, neatly coinciding with the 45th anniversary of his classic album ‘Mystic Voyage’ and a UK tour to commemorate it during April 2020.