“Don’t you wanna fall in love again?” ponders Alanna Royale on the hook of new single entitled (perhaps not surprisingly) Fall In Love Again. And you know what? You just might fall in love again – with classic soul music at the very least (because you already fell in love with it before, right?) as she channels the best of the early seventies golden era on this cut from Colemine
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ALANNA ROYALE: Fall In Love Again
X-RAY TED: Get It Started
Next from X-Ray Ted on Bombstrikes is single Get It Started which does indeed get things started and like a bastard too with a brace of amped and funky instrumental dancefloor breakbeat belters. The aforementioned cut proves you can never have too much of a good thing by opening with a roughly half minute build-up plundering from a host of classic build-up tropes – you know – vocal
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MELBOURNE DOUGLAS: Dakota (Vinyl 7″)
The second of two new 45s announced by the Original Gravity label recently (the previous one being Jodie’s soul cut Pushover) comes from Melbourne Douglas and The Regulators picking up where the previous Regulators 45 left off with an early reggae style Britpop cover. And since early reggae material is rife with covers, this merely continues the tradition. In picking
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JODIE: Pushover/ Treat Me Better (Vinyl 7″)
The first of two 45s recently announced by the seemingly indefatigable Original Gravity label is this one from new signing Jodie boasting a brace of vintage sounding blue-eyed soul cuts – Pushover and Treat Me Better. Both are uptempo northern soul burners equally liable to devastate dancefloors, the B-side with its insistent tambourine and lyrical dismissal of an ex, the
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VOODOOCUTS: El Chino/ Mambo Mambo (Vinyl 7″)
Look out – it’s maracas at dawn time as Voodoocuts returns with Juice On Wax Vol. 2 and a double helping of Latin action! A man with form when it comes to edits and extensive experience of source material that hails from Caribbean to boot, his new drop follows 2017’s Vol. 1 B-side reboot of Nico Gomez’ Loopita with double Latin action on 45 – El Chino b/w Mambo Mambo. The
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MALANDRO NINE FIVE: Return Of Rondo b/w Adrian’s Wall (Vinyl 7″) + free download
Spaghetti Western-themed early reggae? Somebody’s been listening to The Upsetters and it turns out those somebodies would be Jorge Pezzimenti of The Loving Paupers and Agent Jay of The Slackers who drop sweet double-sider Return Of Rondo/ Adrian’s Wall evoking that ’68/’69 era when rocksteady was morphing into early reggae. It’s not just the name of A-side Return Of Rondo
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LET YOUR HAIR DOWN: BF Holiday
Next from Melbourne’s College Of Knowledge label comes this single BF Holiday from Let Your Hair Down. In the cinematic soul vein, this midtempo cruiser will slot in there right beside your Menahan/ Ikebe/ El Michels type material and also provides a rich seam of sampling possibilities. The band – originally The Let Your Hair Down Girls was an instrumental side project for the rhythm and
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DAMU THE FUDGEMUNK feat. BLU: God Speed
The next single to drop from Damu The Fudgemunk’s Conversation Peace album collaboration with library label KPM as part of the Def Pressé Editions/KPM Crate Diggers series is God Speed featuring L.A. rapper Blu. If you caught previous single Four Better Or Worse Pt 1 feat. Nitty Scott, you’ll know two things – one, that the aforementioned label collaboration
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JAYL FUNK feat. GEORGES PERIN: Raise Your Hands (Vinyl 7″)
Raise your hands in the air for the funky new disco single from Jayl Funk featuring Franco-Greek singer Georges Perin. Initially only available on vinyl 7″ via Bandcamp, the track features an A-side entitled (what else?) Raise Your Hands and B-side Love Time. The former kicks off with a soulful call to ‘Raise yo’ hands,” before scratching into a repeated chant of ‘boom-shaka-laka’ swiftly
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VARIOUS: It’s A Good Good Feeling: The Latin Soul Of Fania Records (The Singles)
Mention Latin soul to anyone and the word ‘Fania’ won’t be far from anyone’s lips since the label is as synonymous with the genre as Stax and Motown with soul and Trojan with reggae. Now, Craft Latino (the part of Craft Recordings which has oversight for the Fania Records back catalogue) has announced the release of a massive box set of Fania singles encompassing the
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