An electronic pop masterpiece – and the first moment of international exposure for the mighty Yellow Magic Orchestra! Before this set, the trio of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, and Yukihiro Takahashi had already been making plenty of waves on the Japanese music scene – but the record gave them a focused showcase they never had before, and helped set the stage for so much other electronic music in years to come! The tracks are tuneful, but also created from lots of different electronic elements – video game noise, analogue electronics, drum machines, keyboards, and more – mostly wonderfully tuneful instrumentals, which gave the work a very universal appeal. Titles include "Computer Game (Theme From The Circus)", "Computer Game (Theme From The Invader)", "Yellow Magic (Tong Poo)", "Cosmic Surfin", "Firecracker", "Simoon", "La Femme Chinoise", "Bridge Over Troubled Music", and "Mad Pierrot". (Rock, Soul) LP, Vinyl record album

A bit of a change for Dr John, but a nice one too – a set that's somewhat more mature than some of his Atco albums, but in a really nice way! The album features fuller backings from Claus Ogerman, but a core groove that's still nice and soulful – jazzy leanings from a combo that includes Dr John and Richard Tee on keyboards, John Tropea on guitar, Will Lee on bass, and Steve Gadd on drums – the latter of whom kicks in a nice groove at the bottom of most numbers, making a subtle undercurrent of older funk amidst the smoothness. Ogerman's backdrops are never too excessive, and help the Dr break out of some of his older modes in a good way – not rehashing the same New Orleans ideas, but taking them instead to cooler California territory – a bit in the way that Allen Toussaint was doing on his best mainstream work of the 70s. Titles include "Dance The Night Away With You", "Rain", "Wild Honey", "Street Side", "Snake Eyes", "Fire Of Love", and "City Lights". LP, Vinyl record album

Titles include "Keep That Music Simple", "Fonky Side", "Disco Therapy", "I Thought I Heard New Orleans Say", "Bon Temps Rouler", and "Something You Got". LP, Vinyl record album

A great set of west coast soulful fusion – filled with instrumental contributions from key Fantasy Records and soul session musicians who include George Bohannon, Ernie Watts, and Oscar Brashear – and also served up with some vocals by singers Syreeta and Deniece Williams! Titles include "Suite Syreeta", "Kwanzaa", "Well", and "Funk De Mambo". LP, Vinyl record album

A killer start to the 80s for the Dazz Band – with great tunes in a funky mode as well as more measured group soul numbers – and it all adds up one of their best albums ever! Tunes like the opener "Shake It", plus "Shake It Up" and "Magnetized" bring the funkier vibes – with a vamping guitar, thumping bass groove, punchy horns, and top notch vocals from the group – while tunes like the title track and "Beyond The Horizon" have a more soaring arrangement of horns and some strings,still with an impeccable core groove. It's not as smoothed out in the production booth as some of their later grooves of the 80s – a total gem! Other titles include " Skate Lovers", "Carry On", "Do It Again", "Do It Again", "Sooner Or Later" and "Beyond The Horizon". LP, Vinyl record album

The group's grown plenty by the time of this set – hitting a new level of sophistication that takes them way beyond the familiar pop of earlier years! There's definitely a more adult feel to some of these tracks than before – a maturing quality that's really wonderful – probably summed up best in the lead vocals of Marilyn McCoo or Florence LaRue – but still sounding pretty great even when the whole group's singing together! Bones Howe is still at the helm, guiding the group with a heavenly sound that's the pinnacle of pop at the time – and titles include two great Burt Bacharach numbers – "Living Together,Growing Together", lifted from the Lost Horizon soundtrack, and "Let Me Be Lonely" – plus the tracks "Woyaya", "What Do I Need To Be Me", "Open Your Window", and "The Riverwitch". LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic entry in this long running series – a batch of compilations that normally focuses on rare disco grooves, but which also features a fair bit of funky soul nuggets this time around! The groove is still mostly uptempo, but with all these wonderfully weird, wild funky elements in the mix too – not gimmicky tracks, but the kind of unusually-crafted cuts that are quite far from the mainstream – and which show that there were often some really amazing things happening in the farther reaches of the soul music underground at the end of the 70s! Plus, most of these cuts are impossibly rare – so much so that many are reaching our ears for the first time, via this excellent compilation – in a list of tracks that includes "Specialty Item" by MVP Cloudburst, "Give Me Love" by EKG, "Disco 2000" by Pleze, "Flashback" by Jeff Burns, "Dance Your Blues (part 2)" by Spellboun, "Forget Yourself" by Body Heat, "Say Raise Your Hand & Say McNasty" by McNasty, "Reflex" by Reflections, "Reaching For Our Star" by Sharon Revoal, "Space Ghost (parts 1 & 2)" by Jackson Lee, "Spend Some Time With Me" by Rideout, "Move On" by Frederick, "I'm Into Your Love" by Executive Jam, "Seeking" by Cash Money, "Give It Up" by Horizon, and "Twilight" by Firewater. (Funky Compilations, Soul) CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

The genius of Terry Callier – remixed! One of the greatest things to happen to Chicago soul legend Callier in recent years was his discovery by a host of cutting edge producers and DJs on the European scene – important talents who took his work to a whole new audience, by fusing Terry's original grooves with some more ambitious rhythmic progressions, keyboard lines, and other studio touches. And while you might fear that such knob-twiddling would muddy the waters and dampen Callier's spirit, such was not the case – as work in this vein only seemed to inspire Terry further, to stretch out his wings and reach new musical horizons. The tracks on this set offer a number of recent Callier recordings, remixed by the cream of the current UK and European scene – all as proof of how great this format is when applied to Callier's work. Titles include "Monuments Of Mars (Hopper mix)", "Running Around (Fug city mix)", "Love Theme From Spartacus (4 Hero No Skins mix)", "Sierra Leone (Block 16 mix)", "Darker Than A Shadow (Mitchell & Dewbury mix)", "Love Theme (Zero 7 rmx)", "Imagine A Nation (Funky Lowlives mix)", and "Just My Imagination (Tom Findlay & Keeling Lee mix)". CD