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I’m always partial to a well turned-out soul edit and here’s Jayl Funk with – Easy Summertime – a respectful reboot of Billy Stewart’s ’66 cover of a certain Gershwin-penned number of which there are allegedly 25 000 versions out there. This does, of course, mean that everyone knows the first line and this, along with
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Monthly Archives: June 2016
JAYL FUNK: Easy Summertime (Honkey Phonk 011)(2016)
MARTA REN & THE GROOVELVETS: Release Me (2016) + video
Rating: What to release as the next Marta Ren & The Groovelvets single? Perhaps stank soul cut Release Me – one of the highlights of latest album Stop, Look, Listen? Well, it’s in the name isn’t it? But how to represent such a track in an audio-visual medium? How about getting two heavies to strong-arm Marta down into the bowels of some nameless building and leaving her in a
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BOCA 45: Boca’s Summer Scorchers (2016)
Hotter than the Devil’s own barbecue, Boca’s Summer Scorchers is the soundtrack to your summer – even if Boca 45 does say so himself – with justification, admittedly. Cue mixed up old school hip-hop, funk and soul classics with a few new bangers chucked in for good measure (Eli Paperboy Reed’s Cut Ya Down for one) from the man’s prodigious stash of seven inch wax. That’ll
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VARIOUS: Carnibal Records 014 (2016)
As the planet suddenly feels less safe than it has done since 9/11 and the ignorant, with tedious predictability, have been manipulated by rich and powerful bullshitters into scapegoating anyone ‘foreign’ or unlucky enough to be on benefits instead of, say, the ever so slightly more cuplable rich and powerful bullshitters, it may well be that you feel the need for something a bit cheery in
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SOUL SUGAR: Drum Song (2016)
Drum Song finds Soul Sugar‘s Guillaume Metenier re-imagining the afrocentric 70s cut of the same name by former Skatalite and Studio One music director Jackie Mittoo as a smouldering organ-led reggae number. A protege of Dr Lonnie Smith, Metenier recorded this cover in a loft in the south of Paris and the release is out, correctly, on seven inch vinyl. The track originally featured as part of
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RAS BEATS feat. ROC MARCIANO: Wit No Pressure (2016)
Got Roc Marciano on the mic? Might have to step up when it comes to a beat. No pressure or anything. Not that Ras Beats is fazed, delivering, as he does, an armour-plated bit of boom-bap that sounds like it has been informed by the jangly guitars of some late 80s post-punk outfit. Must sound alright to Marciano too since he’s “lit up a bogie,” and saying, “your flow, to me, is like
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DIESLER feat. GLORIA ADERETI: Birds & Bees (RENEGADES OF JAZZ REMIX) (2016)
Ah ‘the birds and the bees’- that classic British euphemism for having a certain awkward chat – you know – the one about where you have to explain what is wrong with putting a house beat under a soul vocal. Luckily Renegades Of Jazz is on hand to talk Diesler and Gloria Adereti through this embarrassing subject and, what is more, to ensure that at the end of it Birds & Bees
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SARD BOOGIE: Get Up And Roll (2016) Free download
His name is Sard Boogie and he boogies hard. Say hello to SB’s latest cheeky one, Get Up And Roll, which makes heavy use of Freedom’s Get Up And Dance (as sonically referenced on J5’s Concrete Schoolyard) and then cuts loose with Masta Ace’s ‘pella from Born To Roll too – though only from the mid-point to, you know, let you well and truly get up and dance to the funk before you get hit by
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DOGZ NADZ: Play It Loud (2016) Free download
If the Chemical Brothers recent Go featuring an uncredited Q-Tip was too modern sounding for you, you’ll definitely want to check out this fresh booty from Dogz Nadz who loops up a new beat from bits of Shannon’s seminal 1983 synthpop cut Let The Music Play – probably the first track to sync a TR-808 and a Roland TB-303 bassline together. Chuck a fat electro break on that (as
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DJ CLAIRVO: Rally In Paris EP (2016)
DJ Clairvo steps out from behind his Lack Jemmon project with Kid Panel once more to keep the revs up on his Rally In… series – this time with Rally In Paris. Inspired by what sounds like a recent high-octane point-to-point sojourn in the city of love racing from djing in clubs to djing in bars to djing house party after house party, Clairvo tries to aurally recreate his madcap hijinx with this
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