It would seem to be the week (and perhaps the time of year) for labels to promote some remix product. In this case it’s an album of re-versions of Edinburgh production duo Jazz Spastiks’ The Product LP which consisted of effortlessly dope phat, jazz-influenced boom-bap hip-hop hook-ups with quality American emcee legends such as Ladybug Mecca (of Digable Planets fame), Apani B
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Monthly Archives: November 2014
JAZZ SPASTIKS: ‘The Product’ Remixes (2014)
BADBOE: Pump Up The Funk – Instrumentals (2014)
First there was the album taster EP. Then there was the album itself. Then there was the remix LP. And now, finally, there’s an EP of Pump Up The Funk instrumentals. Ooh he’s a canny one, that Badboe! And just to prove it, he has chosen the very best tunes to release the instrumentals of – just in case you thought you could inflate the dancefloor pressure better than he did with his
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LEON: School Of Groove (2014)
OK – quiet now please, School Of Groove has begun! Thank you at the back – just because I’m not looking at you, it doesn’t mean I can’t see what you’re doing! Ok, so today’s lesson is all about Leon whose intention is to educate you all in the ways of jazz-funk influenced breakbeat instrumentals. Some of you may be familiar with this sort of concept from the recent Astronaut
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GHOSTFACE KILLAH: 36 Seasons (2014)
If you dig deft lyrical delivery of hard-boiled tales of double-crossing and revenge combined with 70s soul-influenced boom-bap production you’re going to shit when you hear that a certain legendary emcee has his thirteenth full length studio LP, 36 Seasons coming out next month. Wu are we talking about? Why Ghostface Killah of course – a.k.a Ghostface, Ironman and Tony Starks. The
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HIPSTA: Step To The Rhythm (2014)
“Do you wear skinny jeans rolled up with no socks? Do you wear a plaid shirt and braces? Do you wear your hair long and greased back on top but shaved at the sides? With old school biker tattoos and a beard like Edward fucking Lear? Looking like some art school cock’s idea of a 1940s biker? Probably with a beer belly? Rocking a style that has been in for so long even a child can tell
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VARIOUS: Bombay Disco 2 (2014)
If Bombay Disco failed to satisfy your fascination with disco-era filmi themes fear not! Get your leisure suit/ Halston dress on once more as the Cultures Of Soul label – under the guidance of chief disco-digger Brother Cleve – goes all ‘Bombay the hard way’ on the crates of mouldy second hand vinyl to be found throughout the teeming sub-continent. And that’s a lot of music to
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SHAKA LOVES YOU: Flip The Funk (2014) Free download + video
Forget moving like Jagger, what you need to do on the party dancefloor is move like Carl Carlton. More specifically, you need to move like Carl Carlton did to his disco anthem in praise of curvy ladies on She’s A Bad Mama Jama. In the unlikely event of that not prompting total doffing of clothing by all females present you might consider simultaneously hitting those looking righteous in a
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VARIOUS ARTISTS: The Craig Charles Funk & Soul Club Vol. 3 (2014)
As the PR blah for this notes, among the many ways in which Craig Charles spread the sound of good grooves around the globe in the last year was taking his ‘trunk of funk’ to Australia. I speculate that he must have really dug his time there given that he’s now enjoying a sojourn on that TV show which makes people eat centipedes and chew kangaroos’ bollocks. Luckily he’s
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MAC MCRAW, AUDESSY & OXYGEN: B-Boy Bionics b/w Dust (2014)
Rating: 
Now then – who in the contemporary world of underground boom-bap hip-hop could possibly meet the challenge recently laid down by Danny Spice with his Live At The Throwdown EP effort? You’d be hard pressed to find any-…oh. Hang on. What’s this? Mac Mcraw‘s B-Boy Bionics 12″? The same obsession with sampled beats, the same ethos of production
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DANNY SPICE & The WILDSTYLE TRIBUTE BAND: Live At The Throwdown (2014)
Rating: Danny Spice brings the flava once more with his latest, Live At The Throwdown, which (while not actually ‘live’ – the name is a tribute to the night he used to run) it certainly throws down the gauntlet to the boom-bap underground with an eight-tracker so heavyweight its mass has actually generated its own field of gravity. Naturally, such an entity attracts satellites
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