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As the sun sets on a quaint East Nashville house, a young man bares a piece of his soul. Facing the camera, sporting a silky suit jacket/shirt/slacks/fingerless gloves ensemble that announces "singer" before he's even opened his mouth, Lee Tracy Johnson settles onto his stage, the front yard. He sways to the dirge-like drum machine pulse of a synth-soaked slow jam, extends his arms as if gaining his balance, and croons in affecting, fragile earnest, "I need your love… oh baby…"

Dogs in the yard next door begin barking. A mysterious cardboard robot figure, beamed in from galaxies unknown and affixed to a tree, is less vocal. Lee doesn't acknowledge either's presence. He's busy feeling it, arms and hands gesticulating. His voice rises in falsetto over the now-quiet dogs, over the ambient noise from the street that seeps into the handheld camcorder's microphone, over the recording of his own voice played back from a boombox off-camera. After six minutes the single, continuous shot ends. In this intimate creative universe there are no re-takes. There are many more music videos to shoot, and as Lee later puts it, "The first time you do it is actually the best. Because you can never get that again. You expressing yourself from within."

"I Need Your Love" dates from a lost heyday. From some time in the '80s or early '90s, when Lee Tracy (as he was known in performance) and his music partner/producer/manager Isaac Manning committed hours upon hours of their sonic and visual ideas to tape. Embracing drum machines and synthesizers – electronics that made their personal futurism palpable – they recorded exclusively at home, live in a room into a simple cassette deck. Soul, funk, electro and new wave informed their songs, yet Lee and Isaac eschewed the confinement of conventional categories and genres, preferring to let experimentation guide them.

"Anytime somebody put out a new record they had the same instruments or the same sound," explains Isaac. "So I basically wanted to find something that's really gonna stand out away from all of the rest of 'em." Their ethos meant that every idea they came up with was at least worth trying: echoed out half-rapped exhortations over frantic techno-style beats, gospel synth soul, modal electro-funk, oddball pop reinterpretations, emo AOR balladry, nods to Prince and the Fat Boys, or arrangements that might collapse mid-song into a mess of arcade game-ish blips before rallying to reach the finish line. All of it conjoined by consistent tape hiss, and most vitally, Lee's chameleonic voice, which managed to wildly shape shift and still evoke something sincere – whether toggling between falsetto and tenor exalting Jesus's return, or punctuating a melismatic romantic adlib with a succinct, "We all know how it feels to be alone."

"People think we went to a studio," says Isaac derisively. "We never went to no studio. We didn't have the money to go to no studio! We did this stuff at home. I shot videos in my front yard with whatever we could to get things together." Sometimes Isaac would just put on an instrumental record, be it "Planet Rock" or "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (from Evita), press "record," and let Lee improvise over it, yielding peculiar love songs, would-be patriotic anthems, or Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe tributes. Technical limitations and a lack of professional polish never dissuaded them. They believed they were onto something.

"That struggle," Isaac says, "made that sound sound good to me."

In the parlance of modern music criticism Lee and Isaac's dizzying DIY efforts would inevitably be described as "outsider." But "outsider" carries the burden of untold additional layers of meaning if you're Black and from the South, creating on a budget, and trying to get someone, anyone within the country music capital of the world to take your vision seriously. "What category should we put it in?" Isaac asks rhetorically. "I don't know. All I know is feeling. I ain't gonna name it nothing. It's music. If it grabs your soul and touch your heart that's what it basically is supposed to do."

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Born in 1963, the baby boy of nine siblings, Lee Tracy spent his earliest years living amidst the shotgun houses on Nashville's south side. "We was poor, man!" he says, recalling the outhouse his family used for a bathroom and the blocks of ice they kept in the kitchen to chill perishables. "But I actually don't think I really realized I was in poverty until I got grown and started thinking about it." Lee's mom worked at the Holiday Inn; his dad did whatever he had to do, from selling fruit from a horse drawn cart to bootlegging. "We didn't have much," Lee continues, "but my mother and my father got us the things we needed, the clothes on our back." By the end of the decade with the city's urban renewal programs razing entire neighborhoods to accommodate construction of the Interstate, the family moved to Edgehill Projects. Lee remembers music and art as a constant source of inspiration for he and his brothers and sisters – especially after seeing the Jackson 5 perform on Ed Sullivan. "As a small child I just knew that was what I wanted to do."

His older brother Don began musically mentoring him, introducing Lee to a variety of instruments and sounds. "He would never play one particular type of music, like R&B," says Lee. "I was surrounded by jazz, hard rock and roll, easy listening, gospel, reggae, country music; I mean I was a sponge absorbing all of that." Lee taught himself to play drums by beating on cardboard boxes, gaining a rep around the way for his timekeeping, and his singing voice. Emulating his favorites, Earth Wind & Fire and Cameo, he formed groups with other kids with era-evocative band names like Concept and TNT Connection, and emerged as the leader of disciplined rehearsals. "I made them practice," says Lee. "We practiced and practiced and practiced. Because I wanted that perfection." By high school the most accomplished of these bands would take top prize in a prominent local talent show. It was a big moment for Lee, and he felt ready to take things to the next level. But his band-mates had other ideas.

"I don't know what happened," he says, still miffed at the memory. "It must have blew they mind after we won and people started showing notice, because it's like everybody quit! I was like, where the hell did everybody go?" Lee had always made a point of interrogating prospective musicians about their intentions before joining his groups: were they really serious or just looking for a way to pick up girls? Now he understood even more the importance of finding a collaborator just as committed to the music as he was.

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Isaac Manning had spent much of his life immersed in music and the arts – singing in the church choir with his family on Nashville's north side, writing, painting, dancing, and working various gigs within the entertainment industry. After serving in the armed forces, in the early '70s he ran The Teenage Place, a music and performance venue that catered to the local youth. But he was forced out of town when word of one of his recreational routines created a stir beyond the safe haven of his bohemian circles.

"I was growing marijuana," Isaac explains. "It wasn't no business, I was smoking it myself… I would put marijuana in scrambled eggs, cornbread and stuff." His weed use originated as a form of self-medication to combat severe tooth pain. But when he began sharing it with some of the other young people he hung out with, some of who just so happened to be the kids of Nashville politicians, the cops came calling. "When I got busted," he remembers, "they were talking about how they were gonna get rid of me because they didn't want me saying nothing about they children because of the politics and stuff. So I got my family, took two raggedy cars, and left Nashville and went to Vegas."

Out in the desert, Isaac happened to meet Chubby Checker of "The Twist" fame while the singer was gigging at The Flamingo. Impressed by Isaac's zeal, Checker invited him to go on the road with him as his tour manager/roadie/valet. The experience gave Isaac a window into a part of the entertainment world he'd never encountered – a glimpse of what a true pop act's audience looked like. "Chubby Checker, none of his shows were played for Black folks," he remembers. "All his gigs were done at high-class white people areas." Returning home after a few years with Chubby, Isaac was properly motivated to make it in Music City. He began writing songs and scouting around Nashville for local talent anywhere he could find it with an expressed goal: "Find someone who can deliver your songs the way you want 'em delivered and make people feel what you want them to feel."

One day while walking through Edgehill Projects Isaac heard someone playing the drums in a way that made him stop and take notice. "The music was so tight, just the drums made me feel like, oh I'm-a find this person," he recalls. "So I circled through the projects until I found who it was.

"That's how I met him – Lee Tracy. When I found him and he started singing and stuff, I said, ohhh, this is somebody different."

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Theirs was a true complementary partnership: young Lee possessed the raw talent, the older Isaac the belief. "He's really the only one besides my brother and my family that really seen the potential in me," says Lee. "He made me see that I could do it."

Isaac long being a night owl, his house also made for a fertile collaborative environment – a space where there always seemed to be a new piece of his visual art on display: paintings, illustrations, and dolls and figures (including an enigmatic cardboard robot). Lee and Issac would hang out together and talk, listen to music, conjure ideas, and smoke the herb Isaac had resumed growing in his yard. "It got to where I could trust him, he could trust me," Isaac says of their bond. They also worked together for hours on drawings, spreading larges rolls of paper on the walls and sketching faces with abstract patterns and imagery: alien-like beings, tri-horned horse heads, inverted Janus-like characters where one visage blurred into the other.

Soon it became apparent that they didn't need other collaborators; self-sufficiency was the natural way forward. At Isaac's behest Lee, already fed up with dealing with band musicians, began playing around with a poly-sonic Yamaha keyboard at the local music store. "It had everything on it – trumpet, bass, drums, organ," remembers Lee. "And that's when I started recording my own stuff."

The technology afforded Lee the flexibility and independence he craved, setting him on a path other bedroom musicians and producers around the world were simultaneously following through the '80s into the early '90s. Saving up money from day jobs, he eventually supplemented the Yamaha Isaac had gotten him with Roland and Casio drum machines and a Moog. Lee was living in an apartment in Hillside at that point caring for his dad, who'd been partially paralyzed since early in life. In the evenings up in his second floor room, the music put him in a zone where he could tune out everything and lose himself in his ideas.

"Oh I loved it," he recalls. "I would really experiment with the instruments and use a lot of different sound effects. I was looking for something nobody else had. I wanted something totally different. And once I found the sound I was looking for, I would just smoke me a good joint and just let it go, hit the record button." More potent a creative stimulant than even Isaac's weed was the holistic flow and spontaneity of recording. Between sessions at Isaac's place and Lee's apartment, their volume of output quickly ballooned.

"We was always recording," says Lee. "That's why we have so much music. Even when I went to Isaac's and we start creating, I get home, my mind is racing, I gotta start creating, creating, creating. I remember there were times when I took a 90-minute tape from front to back and just filled it up."

"We never practiced," says Isaac. "See, that was just so odd about the whole thing. I could relate to him, and tell him about the songs I had ideas for and everything and stuff. And then he would bring it back or whatever, and we'd get together and put it down." Once the taskmaster hell bent on rehearsing, Lee had flipped a full 180. Perfection was no longer an aspiration, but the enemy of inspiration.

"I seen where practicing and practicing got me," says Lee. "A lot of musicians you get to playing and they gotta stop, they have to analyze the music. But while you analyzing you losing a lot of the greatness of what you creating. Stop analyzing what you play, just play! And it'll all take shape."

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"I hope you understood the beginning of the record because this was invented from a dream I had today… (You tell me, I'll tell you, we'll figure it out together)" – Lee Tracy and Isaac Manning, "Hope You Understand"

Lee lets loose a maniacal cackle when he acknowledges that the material that he and Isaac recorded was by anyone's estimation pretty out there. It's the same laugh that commences "Hope You Understand" – a chaotic transmission that encapsulates the duality at the heart of their music: a stated desire to reach people and a compulsion to go as leftfield as they saw fit.

"We just did it," says Lee. "We cut the music on and cut loose. I don't sit around and write. I do it by listening, get a feeling, play the music, and the lyrics and stuff just come out of me."

The approach proved adaptable to interpreting other artists' material. While recording a cover of Whitney Houston's pop ballad "Saving All My Love For You," Lee played Whitney's version in his headphones as he laid down his own vocals – partially following the lyrics, partially using them as a departure point. The end result is barely recognizable compared with the original, Lee and Isaac having switched up the time signature and reinvented the melody along the way towards morphing a slick mainstream radio standard into something that sounds solely their own.

"I really used that song to get me started," says Lee. "Then I said, well I need something else, something is missing. Something just came over me. That's when I came up with 'Is It What You Want.'"

The song would become the centerpiece of Lee and Isaac's repertoire. Pushed along by a percolating metronomic Rhythm King style beat somewhere between a military march and a samba, "Is It What You Want" finds Lee pleading the sincerity of his commitment to a potential love interest embellished by vocal tics and hiccups subtlely reminiscent of his childhood hero MJ. Absent chord changes, only synth riffs gliding in and out like apparitions, the song achieves a lingering lo-fi power that leaves you feeling like it's still playing, somewhere, even after the fade out.

"I don't know, it's like a real spiritual song," Lee reflects. "But it's not just spiritual. To me the more I listen to it it's like about everything that you do in your everyday life, period. Is it what you want? Do you want a car or you don't want a car? Do you want Jesus or do you want the Devil? It's basically asking you the question. Can't nobody answer the question but you yourself."

In 1989 Lee won a lawsuit stemming from injuries sustained from a fight he'd gotten into. He took part of the settlement money and with Isaac pressed up "Saving All My Love For You" b/w "Is It What You Want" as a 45 single. Isaac christened the label One Chance Records. "Because that's all we wanted," he says with a laugh, "one chance."

Isaac sent the record out to radio stations and major labels, hoping for it to make enough noise to get picked up nationally. But the response he and Lee were hoping for never materialized. According to Isaac the closest the single got to getting played on the radio is when a disk jock from a local station made a highly unusual announcement on air: "The dude said on the radio, 107.5 – 'We are not gonna play 'Is It What You Want.' We cracked up! Wow, that's deep.

"It was a whole racist thing that was going on," he reflects. "So we just looked over and kept on going. That was it. That was about the way it goes… If you were Black and you were living in Nashville and stuff, that's the way you got treated." Isaac already knew as much from all the times he'd brought he and Lee's tapes (even their cache of country music tunes) over to Music Row to try to drum up interest to no avail.

"Isaac, he really worked his ass off," says Lee. "He probably been to every record place down on Music Row." Nashville's famed recording and music business corridor wasn't but a few blocks from where Lee grew up. Close enough, he remembers, for him to ride his bike along its back alleys and stumble upon the occasional random treasure, like a discarded box of harmonicas. Getting in through the front door, however, still felt a world away.

"I just don't think at the time our music fell into a category for them," he concedes. "It was before its time."

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Lee stopped making music some time in the latter part of the '90s, around the time his mom passed away and life became increasingly tough to manage. "When my mother died I had a nervous breakdown," he says, "So I shut down for a long time. I was in such a sadness frame of mind. That's why nobody seen me. I had just disappeared off the map." He fell out of touch with Isaac, and in an indication of just how bad things had gotten for him, lost track of all the recordings they'd made together. Music became a distant memory.

Fortunately, Isaac kept the faith. In a self-published collection of his poetry – paeans to some of his favorite entertainment and public figures entitled Friends and Dick Clark – he'd written that he believed "music has a life of its own." But his prescience and presence of mind were truly manifested in the fact that he kept an archive of he and Lee's work. As perfectly imperfect as "Is It What You Want" now sounds in a post-Personal Space world, Lee and Isaac's lone official release was in fact just a taste. The bulk of the Is It What You Want album is culled from the pair's essentially unheard home recordings – complete songs, half-realized experiments, Isaac's blue monologues and pronouncements et al – compiled, mixed and programmed in the loose and impulsive creative spirit of their regular get-togethers from decades ago. The rest of us, it seems, may have finally caught up to them.

On the prospect of at long last reaching a wider audience, Isaac says simply, "I been trying for a long time, it feels good." Ever the survivor, he adds, "The only way I know how to make it to the top is to keep climbing. If one leg break on the ladder, hey, you gotta fix it and keep on going… That's where I be at. I'll kill death to make it out there."

For Lee it all feels akin to a personal resurrection: "It's like I was in a tomb and the tomb was opened and I'm back… Man, it feels so great. I feel like I'm gonna jump out of my skin." Success at this stage of his life, he realizes, probably means something different than what it did back when he was singing and dancing in Isaac's front yard. "What I really mean by 'making it,'" he explains isn't just the music being heard but, "the story being told."

Occasionally Lee will pull up "Is It What You Want" on YouTube on his phone, put on his headphones, and listen. He remembers the first time he heard his recorded voice. How surreal it was, how he thought to himself, "Is that really me?" What would he say to that younger version of himself now?

"I would probably tell myself, hang in there, don't give up. Keep striving for the goal. And everything will work out."

Despite what's printed on the record label, sometimes you do get more than one chance.

Originally released in May 1982, ‘Combat Rock’ is the final album from The Clash line up of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon. Featuring two of the band’s most well-known songs, ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ and ‘Rock The Casbah’. Now rereleased as a 180gm 3LP special edition, with an additional 12 tracks compiled by The Clash.

Having returned to London following their pivotal 17 show residency at New York’s Bond’s Casino in 1981, the band rehearsed and recorded at The People’s Hall in the squatting Republic of Frestonia near Latimer Road in London and from there they embarked on a tour of the East and South East Asia, during which the album sleeve image was captured by Pennie Smith in Thailand.

The tracks on ‘The People’s Hall’ chart the period from what was their last single Radio Clash right up to the release of Combat Rock, including unheard, rare and early versions of tracks.

Also includes rare Pennie Smith images + history of Frestonia essay by Tom Vague.

New edition on Opaque Cream Vinyl, (CLMN12044LPC3) is for Indies only. For Fans of: Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, Antibalas, El Michels Affair. The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble are definitely on a roll coming off of their third LP, Build Bridges, which debuted at #1 on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Chart. Their new and fourth LP, Step Down, is a direct reflection of the heavy times they were written and recorded in. Covid-19, two Presidential impeachment trials, the George Floyd murder and resulting social unrest, a seditious attempt to subvert the democratic process at The Capitol… With titles like Step Down, The Other Side, Time To Rebuild, Omnificent, Love Age, and In Common, SFSE uses their music to beautifully paint a picture of societal woes, but also points toward the solution and a better world. Heavy Cinematic Soul, spiritual Jazz-Funk, upbeat Afro-Funk, and deeply introspective rare-groove cuts lace this ten-track transmission vessel. SFSE is deeply defined by the sum of their influences, but always have their eye focused beyond the horizon as well. We think this album will capture your heart immediately, but also provide the depth for discovery upon repeated listens. SFSE have made a true statement here, and we are very proud to present Step Down to the world.

In the music business, there are certain sidemen — players who back the stars — who play with such prowess that they gain fame of their own. By all rights, Herman Hitson should be one of those people. Over the years, he played with Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Joe Tex, Bobby Womack, Wilson Pickett, Garnet Mimms, Major Lance, Jackie Wilson, the Drifters, the Shirelles, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters and many others. “I played behind Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke on the same doggone show,” he said, recalling one night at the Royal Peacock. Along the way, he picked up every style of music that was popular in the early years of his career. Arguably, the original seeds of psychedelic rock were planted after Hitson and Hendrix became running buddies in the early 1960s. Both were playing the Chitlin’ Circuit, tours that would load somewhere between ten and two dozen African American musicians on a bus and tour the South, playing Black nightclubs. The two spent weeks together, Herman says. As the 1970s rolled in, Herman wound up playing funk guitar, recording some tracks with the Ohio Players and releasing some of his own funk singles, including the powerful “Ain’t No Other Way,” a number firmly in the James Brown vein which he reprised on ‘Let The Gods Sing.’ In the mid-1960s, he moved to New York City, where he once again hooked up with Hendrix. Early in 1966, Herman began work on his own psychedelic rock album under the title “Free Spirit.” Hermon sang and played lead guitar, and Hendrix played bass on a few tracks that went unreleased by ATCO at the time. Those recordings wound up being the source of a controversy in the 1980s that brought Hermon’s name into the limelight in a different way. The title song of the album, “Free Spirit,” was released on two albums of music allegedly recorded by Hendrix and then “lost” to history. “That’s my song,” Herman says today. "He Hendrix didn’t never play no lead on nothing of mine. And he didn’t sing on nothing of mine. In fact, back then he thought he couldn’t sing. We had to keep pushing him". Jimi would say, ‘I can’t sing.’ I’d say, ‘Man, you don’t have to be Wilson Pickett. All you got to do is sing like you sing.” Recorded and co-produced by Bruce Watson at his Delta Sounds Studio in Memphis, Hitson’s backed on the new album by guitarist and co-producer Will Sexton and some of Memphis’ best musicians.

Within the last ten years the resurgence of sixties Gallic Pop, once known as Ye-Ye music, has escalated beyond an inter-stellar dizzy height. What might have been a waning, embarrassing genre destined for a shelf life/death gathering dust amongst the Eurovisions of yesteryear, the ‘jerk-beat’ psychsploitation records of the latter day French-Disco had soon found new floor space in some of the most credible nightspots in London and Japan.

Without a shadow of doubt, the flagship LP with best odds on becoming a discerning household object was “Histoire de Melody Nelson” by one Serge Gainsbourg. An inimitable, 45-minute concept LP handcrafted by a bass-driven psychedelic rock group and a heaven sent, 1001 piece orchestral and choral symphony. The album left hip hop producers alongside progressive rock aficionados crying out for more and more for years to come. This LP was in a league of its very own… or was it?

The seldom-sung musical arranger for Melody Nelson has become one of the most enigmatic names in French-funk; lorded by many as the “French David Axelrod” Jean-Claude Vannier’s name is the lesser-spotted, tell-tale seal of sample-friendly quality when it comes to crate-digging ‘en Francais’. Suitably, when rumours amongst French record dealers claiming “the band who played Melody Nelson recorded a follow-up lp” became a legend of psychedelic folk-lore. Another unconfirmed rumour about JCV taking the remaining out-takes of the beloved Melody Nelson to create a promo-only experimental rock LP left sample hungry producers and DJs in turmoil…

For those in the know the answers to these mysteries lay flat between the anonymous gatefold sleeve of an undiscovered conceptual album bizarrely entitled “L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches” by a custom-built avant-rock entourage called Insolitudes. The rocking-horse manure treasure hunt began.

So here we have it. The mythical teen-tonic for all those suffering from Melody Nelson withdrawal symptoms. For record collectors looking for that special something, this LP contains the extra-special EVERYTHING. Peruse the following genres: Psychedelic, Classical, Soundtracks, Jazz, Hip Hop, Samples, Avant Garde, Funk. Then place a copy of “L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches” in each section.

History denotes that when ‘our man in Paris’ Msr. Gainsbourg first heard the initial bones of this LP he took his poetic pencil to paper providing bizarre liner notes, thus consummating the most extraordinary concept album of all time. The story “The Child Assassin Of The Flies” was to be included as the only information to grace the LPs highly collectible, concertina gatefold sleeve. The story in full is reproduced in its native-tongue on this very special re-release package. The CD also includes the bonus track “Je M’ Appelle Geraldine”, a beat heavy John Barry-esque track taken from Vannier’s super-rare 7? EP “Point D’Interrogation”.

DJs and Producers such as Jim O’Rourke, Stereolab’s Tim Gane and David Holmes have spent sleepless nights in perusal of original copies of this perfect release and now regard it as ‘One Of The Best’. Recent copies on eBay have commanded ridiculous price-tags, and is now one of the most sought-after articles amongst the vinyl hungry hip-hop community.

Three years after Reno Wurzbacher’s entry into the series, Cook Strummer now offers up his own Berlin Gets Physical, a collection of all-new and exclusive tracks.

Berlin-based, Belgium-born Strummer has been a Get Physical associate for several years. He has dropped various singles including the standout 'Rising' which also featured on the Words Don't Come Easy series, and always crafts the perfect mix of rhythm and melody with plenty of hints of his homeland's famous cold wave sound. He often uses his own voice, drum machines, synths and guitars in his music, and since his debut album in 2018 on LOK Recordings, he has had high profile support from the likes of Laurent Garnier, Adam Port and Ame. This summer, he dropped 'Atmosphere' on Obsolet Records which proved another successful outing and now Berlin Gets Physical finds him digging deep into the famous city's freshest and most essential house sounds across 15 well-sequenced tracks.

His own new offering 'For Berlin' kicks off with a dark and edgy vibe, gothic vocals and tense drums. Glitchy hits and blurting synths add to the prickly atmosphere and immediately lock you in while Los Cabra & Manuel Sahagun's 'Italian Groove' then takes off on waves of serrated dark disco synths and Freudenthal feat. Nowhere People continue that macho disco vibe with the rugged chug and cosmic rays of 'Cipher.'

The twinkling 'Bad Karma' by Marvin Jam & Le Mythe then allows you to catch your breath with a slower, more spacious dub disco sound and the twanging bass riffs and exotic effects of Daniel Jaeger & Valenti's 'Quarantine Cowboys' rebuilds the atmosphere with some innovative house blues. The mid-section brings brain-frying synth work on 'Out Of The Blue', bubbling dub house and disco courtesy of dramasquad's sprawling 'ziggy' and percussive deep house looseness from 'Abayomi.'

After KEENE's rubbery and rolling Afro sounds comes more cosmic house richness from Dan Buri and Max Joni & MUKKIMIAU, the driving tech of Red Pig Flower & Lulla and heady sounds of Mike Book. There is a raw house heaviness to FreedomB's 'State of Shock' and things shut down with Electronic Elephant's tightly coiled minimal drum funk on 'Ask Yourself'.

This on point collection is an authentic snapshot of the contemporary underground sound of the Berlin.

Following the success of his label debut - the raucous 'Bun & Cheese' EP - Dudley bassline stalwart DJ Pantha - is back with a full-length LP. 'The 140 Archives' sees Pantha prove his prowess in harnessing a sound which captures the genre in its antecedents whilst resembling something altogether new. Funky rhythms and rude melodies energise the first two tracks before the half-time 'Vibez' represents a slightly darker, more contemplative take. Elsewhere, Grime's influence lives through 'Four By Niche' and the title, claps and chopped choral vocals of 'Blackberry Riddim', whilst the gunshot-happy 'Emmerdale' and 'Protein Shake' represent bassline at its most playful.

International Anthem proudly presents Step on Step, a double LP collection of newly unearthed solo home recordings created by enigmatic producer, arranger, and composer Charles Stepney in the basement of his home on the Southside of Chicago during the years before his untimely death in 1976. Stepney’s signature “baroque soul” sound is known to many as it’s heard in his prismatic orchestral arrangements for Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, Earth, Wind & Fire, and many more. His sound has been used by countless samplers in the hip-hop world including Kanye West, The Fugees, and MF Doom. But in comparison to the post-mortem renown of his sound, or the artists he supported while he was alive, Stepney is a greatly underappreciated figure… a genius relegated to the shadows.

Step on Step is Stepney’s eponymous debut album, featuring 23 bare-bones, demo-style home recordings, most of which are Stepney originals that were never again recorded by him or any other artist. Highlights from those original works include “Denim Groove,” which hears Stepney on piano and congas alongside his first instrument (the vibraphone), and “Look B4U Leap,” one of several kinetic lo-fi dance numbers that feature Stepney having fun with an early-gen Moog synthesizer. It also features prototypical, seedling-style demos of Stepney compositions for Earth, Wind & Fire, including “That’s The Way of The World,” “Imagination,” and “On Your Face,” as well as the original version of “Black Gold,” which would eventually be recorded by Rotary Connection (as “I Am The Black Gold of The Sun”).

A collection of home recordings Charles Stepney -- the late composer/producer who worked with Earth Wind & Fire, Deniece Williams, Rotary Connection, Minnie Ripperton, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, and more, and was sampled by Kanye West, Madlib, MF Doom, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, and more -- called Step On Step is coming out September 9 via International Anthem.

Issued on BBE Music, “Reflections” is the new album by London based harp player and composer Alina Bzhezhinska, alongside her HipHarpCollective. Following up her critically acclaimed debut album “Inspiration” (Ubuntu 2018), Bzhezhinska puts together a second long player, collaborating with British jazz stars Tony Kofi (Saxophones), Jay Phelps (Trumpet), Julie Walkington (Double Bass) and vocalist Vimala Rowe, strongly supported by international talents Mikele Montolli (Electric Bass), Joel Prime (Percussion), Adam Teixeira (Drums) and Ying Xue (Violin & Viola).

 Alina creates a unique sound on the harp with layered effects and electronics, combining original works and covers to pay homage to some of jazz, funk and hip-hop’s greatest innovators. Throughout the record she draws from a variety of influences, including the likes of Dorothy Ashby’s ‘Afro-Harping’, Alice Coltrane’s spiritual outputs, Joe Henderson’s free-form jazz experimentation, 90s Acid Jazz and Trip Hop.

“This album is very vibrant and reflects directly on London’s multicultural community. We had so much fun making this recording - it truly built up our morale in the middle of the pandemic and I hope our fans will feel this energy too. For ‘Reflections’ I tried to break from any stereotypes and limitations - what you hear is my own choice of sounds and influences, taken from the many mixtapes I've been making since I was a teenager. I put together the music I like to listen to when I am happy or sad, when I feel like dancing or meditating. The tunes we play are my own reflections on what I love the most - a free spirit, courage, innovation and all the beautiful things life gives us. I hope our music can reach people’s hearts and evoke all the spectrum of colours and emotions that only the arts can do.” - Alina Bzhezhinska

 Reflections is released on double LP vinyl, limited edition CD & digital formats.
 

Previously unreleased live recording of the iconic of soul jazz musician
Eddie Harris in an outstanding concert
The Montreux recording of the song "Compared to What" together with Les
McCann, made Eddie Harris suddenly a famous jazz musician, located
somewhere between jazz, funk and soul, McCann and Eddie Harris had created
something like a new style.
The hit became the anthem of the civil rights movement. Almost twenty years
later, in January of 1988, at the concert of the Eddie Harris Quartet at the "Fabrik"
of Hamburg-Altona, a fair amount can be felt of the fire that once "set the Casino
on Lake Geneva ablaze". The seething enthusiasm of Montreux continues in the
NDR recordings of January 1988 in Hamburg, where Eddie Harris and his band
played a great concert. An artist to be rediscovered!
Eddie Harris: tenor saxophone, trumpet, piano, vocals
Darryl Thompson: guitar
Ray Peterson: bass
Norman Fearrington: drums

After this pair of Leeds residents made waves last November with their first EP for Pilot, Bobby O'Donnell and Reeshy return to lay down four new tracks that definitely stray towards the electro end of the breaks/electro spectrum. There's a sense of continuity, as the first EP's tracks - labelled 1-4, are followed by tracks 5-8, as well as being executed with a proper human touch that not all such machinefunk can boast. '6' is full of spiralling Drexciyan mystery, before being pared down to an LFO-style bass prod. '8' also echoes the former legends of Leeds with its dreamy pads and acid backdrop - something in the local water supply. Definitely funky enough to keep the breaks DJs onside, but with a thorough knowledge of love of 40 years of electronic music heritage at its disposal too, this is one release you should make sure you not miss.

Taken from Dilla's 2001 BBE Music debut solo album Welcome 2 Detroit, 'Big Booty Express' gets the remix treatment from German duo Âme, Parisian Pépé Bradock and London's Coda Deep. Alongside the OG version these new productions add up to a six track exploration of Dilla's tribute to Detroit's melding of the Motor City's Black music heritage with Kraftwerk's experimental Euroelectro. Contributing two mixes to the EP, Parisian producer Pépé Bradock AKA Julien Auger first forays into music were after learning guitar as a 14 year old and playing with various Jazz-Funk bands. At this time he also started DJing with Hip-Hop bands and turning his hand to producing their tracks. As the 90s progressed he also discovered Techno and House music. His musical influences range from Jazz to Dub Reggae and he has remixed for Blaze, Cassius and Alex Gopher among others. Also providing a remix of Big Booty Express is the German production duo of Frank Wiedemann and Kristian Beyer who work together under the name of Âme. After first meeting in Kristian's record shop in their home town of Karlsruhe and bonding over a shared love of Chicago House and Detroit Techno the pair started working together and producing records for Sonar Kollektiv in 2003. The final two remixes on the Big Booty Express EP and only included on the digital package come from the Londoner Coda Deep. Influenced by avant-garde Electronica, Nu Wave and African Tribal sounds, he is a DJ and producer playing deep and melodic Tech and Techno and will also be known to music fans for his 2019 BBE release 'The Running of the Bulls'. This EP of remixes sits very well alongside the catalogue of J Dilla releases on BBE Music and adds to the rich heritage of innovative beat making and music production that we can associate with Dilla and those he worked with.

Lewis Parker continues to dig deeper and get stronger in ways, on his most recent addition to his impressive and wide body of work. 20 plus releases into his career, Parker goes in from the opening bars of his new LP ‘Frequency of Perception’. The veteran producer and rapper comes in hot, clearly rooted in his ideas and views, wasting no time dropping knowledge and his opinions on social issues, current rappers, and the rap industry itself.

The Blackploid resurgence of recent years continues to gather steam. After laying dormant for some time, Martin Matiske's project roared back into life in 2021 with a pair of EPs for Central Processing Unit. It doesn't look like he'll be taking his foot off the gas any time soon - not only does the new Blackploid collectionPlanetary Sciencecomplete Matiske's hat-trick for the Sheffield label, but it also serves as a prelude to the full-length album which Blackploid will deliver on CPU in 2023.

If that LP is as good as the tracks we get here, then it's safe to say that we're on to a winner. This EP contains a quartet of top-tier machine-funk productions, the kind of crisp post-Drexciya joints we've come to know and love Blackploid for. Each track onPlanetary Sciencemakes good on the record's title by delivering club tackle flecked with FX which sound distinctly like spaceships blasting off into the cosmos.

There is also progression acrossPlanetary Science. While it still aims for the dancefloor,Planetary Scienceis a somewhat more textured listen than eitherStrange StarsorCosmic Traveler, Blackploid's previous CPU drops. Most notable is the increased use of synth pads, with Matiske draping chord progressions over all of these tracks in order to give his music a newfound depth.

Blackploid's subtle evolution is clear from the opening track. 'Dimension Unknown' may begin with a precision-engineered groove reminiscent of an early Legowelt joint, but things soon soften with the introduction of some rich keyboard chords. A few well-chosen bleeps and bloops flit in and out of the mix, but whereas some would use these to scuff up the track further here they are warm and playful.

The more confrontational stance of following cut 'Magnetron' makes it a yin to 'Dimension Unknown's yang. Blackploid works with similar tools here - machine-gun beat programming, chords playing off boinging bass - but there is a tension and buzz to the track which isn't apparent on its predecessor. The synths have a slight Eighties deep space thriller vibe about them, and the FX cut through the mix with more bite.

'Magnetron's energy carries through to 'Wire', the first track on thePlanetary ScienceB-side. Here a big, brutish bassline takes centre stage from the off, a chunk squarewave equal-parts Dopplereffekt and early Eskibeat. Around this swirls a queasy brew of synthesised tones, with the component parts all arranged in order to channel 'Magnetron's sense of unease.

Planetary Sciencecloses out with 'Neurotransmitter'. On this cut, Blackploid returns somewhat to where we started off, finding a midpoint between 'Dimension Unknown's more spacious feel and the livewire flavour of 'Magnetron' and 'Wire'. Tension remains, particularly when Matiske serves up one of the EP's snakiest basslines, but there's also a deftness to the synth pads here which makes 'Neurotransmitter' a little softer around the edges.

Blackploid limbers up for a forthcoming full-length on Central Processing Unit withPlanetary Science, an EP of stargazing electro joints that quietly expand the project's sonic world.

RIYL:Drexciya, Dopplereffekt, DMX Krew, I-F, Annie Hall

Morgan Geist and Kelley Polar present their debut album as Au Suisse which features contributions from Dan Snaith (a.k.a. Caribou / Daphni). A streamlined mixture of funk, synthpop and disco for fans of Hot Chip.

Born from the collective mind of producer Morgan Geist (Storm Queen, Metro Area) and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Kelley Polar, AU SUISSE is a new project that promises to stake a milestone in both its members' already storied careers. Crafting immersive soundscapes using a patchwork of electro, synthpop, funk and disco, AU SUISSE's self-titled debut album evokes both a post-rave comedown on a tropical beach and a weekend alone icy chalet, ruminating on life and love. Guest players include friends and labelmates Dan Snaith (Caribou) and Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys).

Having met in college in the early '90s and continued to forge a close friendship throughout the years, AU SUISSE is the first time Geist and Polar have set out to gel their creative relationship into its own musical project. But this is no bashed-together collection of random tunes — this is a band, through and through, and Geist and Polar's shared expertise give the album its own indelible identity.

Ltd weiße 140G Vinyl mit bedruckter Innenhülle und Artwork/Design von Trevor JacksonMorgan Geist and Kelley Polar present their debut album as Au Suisse which features contributions from Dan Snaith (a.k.a. Caribou / Daphni). A streamlined mixture of funk, synthpop and disco for fans of Hot Chip.



Born from the collective mind of producer Morgan Geist (Storm Queen, Metro Area) and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Kelley Polar, AU SUISSE is a new project that promises to stake a milestone in both its members' already storied careers. Crafting immersive soundscapes using a patchwork of electro, synthpop, funk and disco, AU SUISSE's self-titled debut album evokes both a post-rave comedown on a tropical beach and a weekend alone icy chalet, ruminating on life and love. Guest players include friends and labelmates Dan Snaith (Caribou) and Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys).



Having met in college in the early '90s and continued to forge a close friendship throughout the years, AU SUISSE is the first time Geist and Polar have set out to gel their creative relationship into its own musical project. But this is no bashed-together collection of random tunes — this is a band, through and through, and Geist and Polar's shared expertise give the album its own indelible identity.

Daptone Records is proud to present Brooklyn to Brooklin, the Scone Cash Players inaugural release on Daptone Records. Longtime Daptone Hammond ace, Adam Scone was seduced when his traveling performances brought him from Brooklyn, New York to Brooklin, Brasil, where he found a trove of new love and music. Produced by Bosco Mann, and featuring Jimmy James (True-Loves, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio) on guitar and Neal Sugarman (Sugarman 3, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings) on tenor sax the group took this newfound inspiration into the studio and tracked some of the freshest soulful music we've heard in some time.

With help from his intergalactic choir, the opening track, "Cold 40's", leaps out of the speakers with the screaming organ sound that has put Scone on the short list of goto organ players. The Hammond then gives way to a dreamy, funky groove that's perfectly seasoned with ethereal background vocals that will transport you to a place where summer is on repeat. "Brooklyn to Brooklin” brings you deep into a fever-dream of tropical rhythms and seductive flourishes of psychedelia, sure to delight dancers and dreamers alike. Come take a trip!

Daptone Records is proud to present Brooklyn to Brooklin, the Scone Cash Players inaugural release on Daptone Records. Longtime Daptone Hammond ace, Adam Scone was seduced when his traveling performances brought him from Brooklyn, New York to Brooklin, Brasil, where he found a trove of new love and music. Produced by Bosco Mann, and featuring Jimmy James (True-Loves, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio) on guitar and Neal Sugarman (Sugarman 3, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings) on tenor sax the group took this newfound inspiration into the studio and tracked some of the freshest soulful music we've heard in some time.

With help from his intergalactic choir, the opening track, "Cold 40's", leaps out of the speakers with the screaming organ sound that has put Scone on the short list of goto organ players. The Hammond then gives way to a dreamy, funky groove that's perfectly seasoned with ethereal background vocals that will transport you to a place where summer is on repeat. "Brooklyn to Brooklin” brings you deep into a fever-dream of tropical rhythms and seductive flourishes of psychedelia, sure to delight dancers and dreamers alike. Come take a trip!

A multi-layered kaleidoscopic musical ride that will take you to places no other soundtrack has ever taken you before. Uplifting latin funk, melancholic chanson, dark synth drone, biguine punk, acid techno and a few absolutely indescribable hybrids, the songs created by Figueira to back the images of the film where he also plays the main character, are very impactful and cover an impressive array of influences and musical languages, put together in exquisite cinematic fashion.

After 5 highly acclaimed singles under his own name, the unpredictable, “out there” song writing and production style of Figueira is displayed here from a new perspective. Composing expressively for specific moments of the film, he has allowed yet new elements arise in his already extensive palette of sounds.

Relying once again exclusively on himself to get the job done, he has assembled a collection of songs that portrait many different emotions. Happiness, awe, fear, paranoia, helplessness, disappointment, excitement… are all evoked, reflecting all key twists and turns of the short-film directed by Mateo Fava and Dave Postma.

Limited cassette release (99 copies) with exclusive dialogue excerpts from the film (not included in the digital version). Hand-numbered, beautiful risographed foldable inlay, drawn by Kevin Mancera.