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It’s probably been a while since mainstream hip-hop saved anyone’s life but there’s still potential in the underground, it seems. Step forward Ivan ‘Choi’ Khatchoyan, sometime drummer for Oz-funkers Cookin’ On 3 Burners, drummer and producer for funky covers outfit The Traffic, head of Choi Records and now, it seems, hip-hop producer – with new 45 banger Hip Hop
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CHOI feat. GUILTY SIMPSON: Hip Hop Saved My Life (Vinyl 7″)
BEAT BRONCO ORGAN TRIO: Hey Hey (feat. ALBERTO PALACIOS ANAUT)
In the run-up to the release of the debut album from Madrid’s Beat Bronco Organ Trio, the band revisit Dave Bartholomew’s proto-funk New Orleans R&B cut Hey Hey and release their own blistering version. Where Bartholomew’s ’66 original version is a loose groove that foregrounds second-line rhythms and anticipated the percussive template that James Brown was soon
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THE HELIOCENTRICS: Burning Wooden Ship
Been missing the Heliocentrics? Your wait is over for here’s Burning Wooden Ship, the first single to be taken from forthcoming album Infinity Of Now due shortly on label Madlib Invazion. And if this single’s anything to go by, the LP promises to be every bit as psych-jazz-funky as you’d expect. A song of several stages, it initially features the haunting tones of songstress Barbora Patkova over
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STEPPIN’ TONES: The Feeling Is Mutant
The last, but by no means least, of a flurry of releases (mainly albums – hence the long lead before posting) that arrived on the monkey’s virtual doormat over the seasonal period was Steppin’ Tones’ long player, The Feeling Is Mutant. A man who definitely doesn’t have the profile he should do, Mr Tones is a dope mash-up king and maker of good-time big beat breaks in the old
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DR RUBBERFUNK: My Life At 45 (Part 4)(Vinyl 7″)
Dr Rubberfunk’s My Life At 45 (Part 4)? Boom! And, indeed, Boom! feat. Mr John Turrell – for it is precisely that nugget which forms the A-side on this particular vinyl 7″ and what a chunky slab of blues-funk it is. Expect Cream-like guitar riffage, a fat, loping drum break and JT belting it out with the best of them. Like I said – boom! Remove said disc from phonograph, turn over and replace and
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THE ALLERGIES: Why You Buggin’ (feat. ANDY COOPER)/ Downtime (ALLERGIES remix )
How’s this for a payload? Bombstrikes returning to wax with Andy Cooper feat. The Allergies and their Run DMC cover Why You Buggin’ on the A-side and an Allergies remix of Dr Syntax and Pete Cannon’s Downtime on the flip. I know! Apart from that Boca 45/ Mohawestra special a couple of years ago, I don’t think Bombstrikes have messed with vinyl for the best part of a decade. Why You
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PULPFUSION: From A Kid To A Man
Yet another project that dropped in the festive season and was thus in danger of getting lost amid all the nonsense that such a season entails is the From A Kid To A Man LP from a man who has been off the monkey radar for a long minute – Pulpfusion. Nevertheless, Terence Thoeny (for it is he) dropped this instrumental opus of fourteen tracks (plus three bonus cuts if you cop it on his
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CALIBRO 35: Fail It Till You Make It
Mere days from unleashing their seventh studio LP, ‘Cult cinematic funk combo’ Calibro 35 drop another single Fail It Till You Make It. Not that this lot have failed anything since both Dre and Jay-Z have previously sampled them. Perhaps it’s a comment on their new more electronic direction for, having spent most of their career with their heads in the – er – heady world of sixties and
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LEE FIELDS & THE EXPRESSIONS: Regenerate
Regenerate – surely there’s no more apt name for a single by Lee Fields & The Expressions given our Lee’s evergreen soul status. Sadly only available on digital format, Regenerate is noteworthy for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s a track from the It Rains Love LP recording sessions that never made it onto the album – though don’t be thinking that means it’s in any way less dope. Why? Because
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IZO FITZROY: Blind Faith
Izo FitzRoy’s back with new disco-soul single Blind Faith – the third to be taken from her forthcoming album How The Mighty Fall. Turns out it’s neither a commemoration of a certain late sixties supergroup nor a comment on the government’s Brexit strategy but a meditation on giving relationships another go when they haven’t been quite what they should. Helping her along on this
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