The monkey is sadly late to the party on this one but couldn’t pass up the chance to comment on a single called Italian Love Triangle. It is, of course, one of the tracklist centrepieces of Whatitdo Archive Group’s The Black Stone Affair – an LP which provides lost soundtrack thrills to an alleged lost spaghetti western/ noir/ caper/ giallo-flick. This one is the sixties bossa style instro which, on
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Tag Archives: Record Kicks
WHATITDO ARCHIVE GROUP: Italian Love Triangle + Video
CALIBRO 35: Post-Momentum EP
Cult Italian ‘cinematic funk’ fiends Calibro 35 return a mere 17 months after their last album, Momentum, with the Post-Momentum EP. And if that name suggests the two might be linked, well, you’d be right. Not least of the reasons for which is the fact that this release is bookended by two versions of LP track Stan Lee. This one was something of departure for a band known for their
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WHATITDO ARCHIVE GROUP: The Black Stone Affair (Main Theme)
More sixties/ seventies soundtrack thrills from Whatitdo Archive Group with the single release of The Black Stone Affair (Main Theme) – a.k.a. the title track to their recent and excellent The Black Stone Affair LP purporting to be the long-lost soundtrack to a long destroyed spaghetti western-cum-giallo movie. The track in question opens the LP too and pays homage to the sort of thing Roy
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THE TIBBS: Another Shot Fired (Vinyl 7″) + video
The Tibbs return with a new single that is also the title track from their second LP, Another Shot Fired, released back in the autumn. It’s an uptempo reggae-tinged soul affair, ably-helmed by new singer Roxanne Hartog who replaces Elsa Bekman and is well up to conveying the sort of romantic sorties explored in the lyrics. But how to represent such goings-on in audio visual format? Well, Holland is famously a home of café culture
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WHATITDO ARCHIVE GROUP: The Black Stone Affair LP
Rating: 
Always, a winner, it seems like the ‘soundtrack to a movie that never existed’ trope has never been more popular than in 2021 and arguably one never more fanatically pursued than by the Whatitdo Archive Group. For starters, the PR campaign goes heavy on the idea that the ‘movie’ in question – spaghetti western-cum-noir-cum-caper-cum-giallo epic The Black Stone Affair
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WHATITDO ARCHIVE GROUP: The Return of Beaumont Jenkins / La Pietra (Vinyl 7″)
Imagine, if you will, a lost Italian cinematic masterpiece of globetrotting western-cum-noir from the early seventies and its equally lost soundtrack – Whatitdo Archive Group certainly have, and then some. In a year that already promises to be rich in library/ soundtrack vibes, new 45 single, The Return of Beaumont Jenkins b/w La Pietra is lifted from the forthcoming
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MARTA REN: 22:22
It’s rock n soul time from Portuguese soul sister Marta Ren as she returns to take herself outside and have a word with herself on 22:22. What? Yep, Ren says 22 is “a number that pursues me and this song is about me having a conversation with myself when I was 22, a milestone year for me. At the same time I am also speaking to any girl who relates.” Cue three-plus minutes of horns
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THE DEVONNS: Blood Red Blues
The Devonns channel What’s Going On-era Marvin Gaye on new single Blood Red Blues, which, as the title suggests takes a look at the lack of progress towards injustices in the U.S. Unlike Gaye’s perspective of a Vietnam vet. returning to a nation affected by hatred and bigotry, singer Mat Ajarrapu’s perspective is from within the same nation, decades after stuff
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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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CALIBRO 35: Momentum
If Calibro 35’s previous LP, 2018’s Decade, marked something of a watershed in what was the tenth year of their career, so, apparently does new one Momentum. The band put it like this, “If Decade was the sum of everything…in the previous ten years, Momentum is the prequel of what you will hear in the next ten.” And they do have something of a point. Not only does the new album feature
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