Maybe a funk revival twenty years after funk first became displaced or absorbed by disco and early hip-hop was on the cards but who would have predicted that a further two decades on (having lasted twice the length of funk’s original heyday) it would still be going strong? Maybe The New Mastersounds know something about it having appeared in 1999 just a few years after the
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Tag Archives: The New Mastersounds
THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS: Be Yourself (Vinyl LP + 45) Re-release
THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS feat. LAMAR WILLIAMS: Shake It
Would you believe it, The New Mastersounds new long player, Shake It, is out already and like the three singles already lifted from it (Let’s Go Back, Kings & Queens and Taking Me Down) it is billed as ‘featuring’ singer Lamar Williams. You’ll be unsurprised to hear that’s because Williams appears on most of the tracks so, obviously, this isn’t the sort of instrumental set punters have
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS feat. LAMAR WILLIAMS JR: Taking Me Down
The steady flow of singles off The New Mastersounds upcoming LP collab. with Lamar Williams Jr, Shake It, continues apace with the arrival of new one Taking Me Down. It’s a track on which the band switch up the influences and transform from The New Metersounds into the New Mulatusounds and wear their Ethio-psychfunk influences proud. Listen and shimmy for the first
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS feat. LAMAR WILLIAMS: Kings & Queens
Following hot on the trail of first single Let’s Go Back, comes Kings & Queens – the second drop from The New Mastersounds’ forthcoming LP-length collab. with vocalist Lamar Williams, Shake It. The PR has this one billed as an ‘Average White Band meets Marvin Gaye’ type number and there is indeed plenty of funk bounce from the band (with guest horns) and vocal smoothness from
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS feat. LAMAR WILLIAMS JR: Let’s Go Back
If the New Mastersounds go back anywhere on new single Let’s Go Back, it’s to the shores of a bayou in the early seventies, probably mid-afternoon and definitely in the sub-tropical heat of August. For a moment, an idling blues guitar suggests we’re dozing outside Tony Joe White’s favourite shack alongside an equally sleepy-looking ‘gator and then suddenly, with a sinuous
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS: Renewable Energy
Sixteen years into their career, The New Mastersounds have spent nearly as long sounding like The Meters and Grant Green (in his funky period) as Grant Green and The Meters did. Combined. And that’s without Green’s drugs to help them along the way. It’s the kind of undertaking requiring an impressive amount of creative energy to keep things fresh, I think you’ll
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS: Made For Pleasure (2015)
It’s The New Mastersounds tenth studio LP Made For Pleasure! Can we expect it to dangle a few expert pastiches of New Orleans funk grandaddies The Meters right before our ears and brazenly flaunt some expert pastiches of Grant Green-era Blue Note material? We can! As is traditional with the band, it’s the opener (also the title track) which finds the Metersounds
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS: Therapy (2014)
It’s another new New Mastersounds studio LP already! That’s the third in the last four years for the Leeds-based UK funk and jazz act not to mention the ninth studio album overall! That’s going some. It’s almost like the band are trying to make a living out of music. How quaint. But we digress. How does Therapy (for so it is called)
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS: ‘I Want You To Stay’ Remix competition (2014)
Fancy remastering the Metersounds? Oops, my bad, I mean remixing the Mastersounds? UK funk giants The New Mastersounds are offering up the stems for chilled neo-soul groove I Want You Stay from forthcoming album Therapy for you to get your grubby hands on. The lucky winner(s) get to drop a release on the next New Mastersounds vinyl 45! Listen to the track below and download
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THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS: ‘Out On The Faultline’ LP audio stream + ‘You Mess Me Up’ video (2012)
Some bands joke about being big in Japan but we all know everyone wants to be big in the USA. The New Mastersounds actually are quite big in the USA having managed to sell ‘coal to Newcastle’ or perhaps more accurately, ‘funk to New Orleans.’ No mean feat. The Yanks apparently can’t get enough of this Leeds-based UK act whose best party trick, when they’re in the mood, is Meters’
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