ATA Records’ The Flying Hats have a new single out shortly called Traffic Light. And when I say this is a cause for epic celebration I am not being hyperbolic. The monkey had the honour once again of being asked to write the PR blah for it so I’ll now hand over to myself for the complete lowdown…
Surely, The Flying Hats couldn’t produce a second absolutely classic single yet again so soon after the last one? Something really good, of course, something excellent even – but yet another timeless, ‘always in the box 45’? It’s just not normal! What mojo have they been working? Whatever it is, it’s very much green for ‘Go’ on the absolutely gorgeous Traffic Light from the band’s second LP Ups which follows previous single The Blender in conjuring up a slice of funky Hammond-led boss reggae so deliriously joyful it will, in the future, be prescribed by the medical profession to eliminate depression.
Man that is epic! What about the B-side?
So what could you possibly pair with that? Well, Bust Up finds the band going all out funky in the way The Upsetters did on Popcorn or – even more accurately – the way Jackie Mittoo did on Get Up & Get It – with a straight-up Hammond-led groove. This one was the funkiest track on debut album The Return Of The Flying Hats and the fact that it constitutes the B-side of the lead single for the second album isn’t as weird as it seems when you discover that all the ‘Hats material for both albums and both singles was recorded in the same session.
’69 New Orleans funk as re-imagined by Kingston’s finest in the same year? The sound of ’69 Kingston as re-imagined by Allen Toussaint and The Meters? It’s easy to bandy such comparisons around but in the ‘Hats case, they couldn’t be more accurate.
(Words copyright Stone Monkey 2026)
(Out 26 June on ATA Records)