Want a taster of the forthcoming Scenarios album consisting entirely of live recordings from German funk heroes The Mighty Mocambos? Well, here it is – Ghost Walk. Nope, not a cover of the Budos Band nugget from 2006 but an entirely different cut with the same name. It says here that it’s, “kafka-esque funk instrumental, contrasting a jazzy breakbeat with spooky horns and organ erotica
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Monthly Archives: September 2022
THE MIGHTY MOCAMBOS: Ghost Walk
DJ PAUL SITTER: Impressions Like That EP (Vinyl 7″)
It’s DJ Paul Sitter again with another quality 45 – this time the Impressions Like That EP. Not totally sure why it’s an ‘extended player’ given that it’s a 45 with – er- one track on each side and neither over four minutes – not that you’ll be complaining when you hear them. Take A-side It’s On Like That for example – an uptempo hip-hop bump based around an old Soviet-era psychedelic library
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FUNKOOL ORCHESTRA: Boogie With Your Baby
Funkool Orchestra’s Boogie With Your Baby is it then – the final digital single off Golden Rules’ contemporary funk sampler The Originals 2, before the German label ‘bring soul back to the people’ on vinyl with the arrival of the full LP. An insistent jazz-funky nugget with an uptempo four-to-the-floor beat, this largely instro one is distinctive for the ‘live feel’ created by the ‘party
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SABABA 5: Lizarb
…and from Big Boss Man’s Trans-Pacific Express a couple of days ago to more Eastern psych-funk with Sababa’s second single, Lizarb, off their self-titled instro album. True, it’s a mellower affair than the BBM banger but a sweet groove nonetheless. It’s all about the call-and-response intro. over an insistent cymbal pattern and then drums, bass and synth muscle in and we’re into a
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SMOOVE: Multitrack Reworks Vol. 4 (Vinyl 12″)
Smoove gets, well, smooth, once again with the latest in his run of slick soul-disco-boogie-80s funk edits Multitrack Reworks now up to Vol. 4. And the two sides of this gold hand-stamped white label 12″ affair are occupied by tracks simply named Live and Egypt. Contemplate those for a while and at some point during the first 30 seconds of each you might twig that the former is
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JUNIOR DELL & THE D-LITES: I’m A Man (Vinyl 7″)
It looks like a Bluebeat label on the 45, it sounds like a bluebeat act and the song was written long enough ago to have been the source for a ska cover. But that’s just because the Original Gravity Records machine is adept at pastiching pretty much whatever the hell genre and era it turns its hand to. I say ‘its’ – obviously I mean tireless label mastermind, Neil Anderson, who for this release has aimed his
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PECOE: Beat Treats EP
The monkey’s always got time for Oz-producer Pecoe who knows how to make modern-sounding funky breaks without slathering them in wobble bass. New four-track EP Beat Treats is a case in point opening with the uptempo Champion Sound on which our man applies a few vocal dancehall stylings over a chunky groove consisting of clean wah-wah guitar, a crunchy drum break and a farty bass line
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BIG BOSS MAN: Trans-Pacific Express (Vinyl 7″)
Rating: 
Big Boss Man surprise again with the digital release of one side of their second new vinyl 7″ this year – the track Trans-Pacific Express. Rhythmically funky again like the cuts on previous single Juju Funk b/w The Return Of Baron Samedi, this one (despite the name) seems to head due east a few thousand miles from the Caribbean and go heavy on sounds that recall the psych-funk of
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ENERGY DREEG: Boom Bap Love LP
Finally – some energy news you don’t mind hearing about! And that’s because the debut solo LP from Energy Dreeg is out. Energy Dreeg? Indeed – you may remember him from his collaboration LP project, Soul Revolution, with Shaolin Temple Defenders singer, the ‘Lion of Bordeaux’ all the way back in 2012. And you’ll find the latter has something of an influence on this one two since he mixed and mastered it as well as
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SURPRISE CHEF: Iconoclasts
Aussie cinematic soul fiends Surprise Chef present another musical hors d’oeuvre before serving up the main course of their first LP on Big Crown, Education & Recreation in the form of new single Iconoclasts. A subdued affair, it almost evokes certain types of traditional Japanese music both in the arrangement and, at times, even the instrumentation. The sort of thing you’d have no
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