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It’s always a pleasure to nab a premiere but the debut single from Motenko – slo-mo, sixties-style, R&B gem On Your Level – is a particular delight, drenched as it is in piano and horns and featuring a scorching vocal turn from singer and keyboardist Micah Motenko. The band hail from Austin, TX and if that rings a bell it might be because it’s the home town of Black Pumas and
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MOTENKO: On Your Level (Audio premiere)
THE DEVONNS: Tell Me (Vinyl 7″)
Just before the debut LP release of relatively recent Record Kicks signings The Devonns (pronounced ‘De Vaughns’ rather than like the English county home of the cream tea) comes new limited 45 single Tell Me. A jaunty lilting affair that channels pre-funk soul, the single provides enough warmth to raise both room temperature and the corners of the mouth. Based in Chicago, the band have been heavily inspired by the city’s soul music
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KARATE BOOGALOO: Marriage For All (Or None At All)
Melbourne ‘cinematic funk’ outfit Karate Boogaloo return with new single Marriage For All (Or None At All) a ‘personal manifesto of allyship’ written during the 2017 Australian same-sex marriage plebiscite. Opening with a few bars of ambient melancholy, the track then plunges headlong into a minor-key funk groove featuring squalling guitar, fretful drumfills and underneath it
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FLEVANS feat. LAURA VANE: Realisation
Continuing his highly successful partnership with Laura Vane, Flevans returns with new single Realisation – and waits for you to comprehend that he’s taken 80s boogie in funky direction – indeed arguably to a point where it crosses over with what used to be called ‘nu-funk’. Thus, on this, you can expect much heavier syncopation on much more organic-sounding drums than the 80s
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D90 DISCS: 70s Sumting/ Big B.U.T.T./ The Beat Done Changed/ Now You Know (Vinyl 7″)
Rating: Hot on the heels of Amerigo Gazaway’s sold out Poppa’s Got A Brand New Bag 45 from December, comes another huge Biggie booty 7″, this time in the shape of D90 Discs’ super fresh second release, 70s Sumting/ Big B.U.T.T./ The Beat Done Changed/ Now You Know. Four tracks on a 45? Yeah, I know – but doable if they’re short and essential if they’re dope – which
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FUNKIN BASSTARDS: Drop The Mirrorball
With a title like Drop The Mirrorball and cover art like that, you can probably already sense that this is the second disco-friendly payload today – in this case from Funkin Basstards. The four-tracker is the second BBP EP this year and also the duo’s second for the label. A mainly vocal affair, it finds four-to-the floor music shatter in a variety of directions. Sofia Kamina features on two tracks –
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ZERO THE DESK: The Secret Edits Volume 1
New from Bulabeats, it’s chunky breaks package The Secret Edits Volume 1 from the mysteriously-named Zero The Desk – quite possibly the nom-de-plume of a certain Mr Pluse given that the drum patterns and sounds on offer here are his signature. Whatever the truth of the matter, this producer steps on you again by chopping up a notorious Madchester anthem over clattery beats
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KAZAHAYA: High Enough / Forever (Vinyl 7″)
It’s pumping disco mash-up bizniz from the Disco Bits crew once again as they find a kindred spirit only too willing to bathe his work in the glittering coke-dusted light of the mirrorball. That’ll be sometime hip-hop producer Kazahaya then – a man clearly as spiritually at home in Studio 54 as he is at The Latin Quarter. High Enough splices Rare Pleasure’s Let Me Down Easy into Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – the latter possibly Inner
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BAZZA RANKS feat. DYNAMITE MC: Vibes Master
New single Vibes Master sees Bazza Ranks and Dynamite MC hook up once more almost exactly a year since the last time the monkey posted about them – funnily enough – with Don’t Let It Pass. While that was a 45 though, this is a strickly digi-affair available in five different flavours including the original. Or at least their unremixed cover of a certain 90s anthem. This one’s all about the
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LONE NINJA: Quad Barrel (Prod. BLAQ MASQ)
I have to say, I don’t recall a quad-barrel shotgun being among the traditional ninja inventory – but you’ve got to keep up with the times I suppose. And it’s probably just as well because on this one, Lone Ninja’s taking on Phantasm‘s undertaker, The Omen‘s Damian Thorn, demonic puppets and Richard ‘Night Stalker’ Ramirez, not to mention entering the House Of A Thousand Corpses and
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