A record that forever changed the role of the DJ and turntable when it was dropped on the world – certainly not the first record to feature an artist building sound out of a mixture of old records and his own creation, but definitely one of the most hyped and most exposed over the years! For some reason, Shadow was able to find a way to take all the skills that hip hop DJs had been developing for 20 years, mixing them with some of the darkness of the European production scene – and then getting a wider audience to really appreciate both his own talents, and all the other inspirations that drove him – something that still seems to resonate all these many years later, as Shadow opened the door for many others to appreciate all the sounds that we'd been loving in the underground! And despite all his later work, this classic full length set might still be his best – a well-deserved classic, with titles that include "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt", "The Number Song", "Changeling", "What Does Your Soul Look Like (pts 1 & 4)", "Mutual Slump", "Organ Donor", and "Midnight In A Perfect World". LP, Vinyl record album

A monster record by Brother Jack McDuff, and one of his best-ever – in our humble opinion! At first glance, the album appears to be just a bunch of jazz covers of standards and pop tracks – like "Tobacco Road", "Shadow Of Your Smile", "This Bitter Earth", and "Teardrops From My Eyes" – but Jack's got some help from JJ Jackson on the arrangements, and the outwardly simple tracks are twisted into these amazing grooves that have Jack wailing away in strange choppy funky ways on the organ! The whole album must be heard to be believed, and the version of "Shadow Of Your Smile", which starts with a nice break, is worth the price of the album alone! Plus, the whole thing's packaged in a very groovy cover, too. LP, Vinyl record album

A warm batch of instrumental beats and atmospherics from Express Rising – and a much-anticipated second project from funk archivist Dante Carfagna! Dante's a name you probably know best from his work writing liner notes or Wax Poetics – and helping out in countless important compilations over the years – but a decade ago, Dante dropped his first mysterious project under the Express Rising name – and finally returns here with a second album! The sound is even more enticing this time around – still drawing a bit from the world of DJ Shadow – a frequent Carfagna collaborator on archive projects – but the sound is also surprisingly warm and lyrical too – bits of beats, layers of older sounds, and these spare keyboard bits all served up together in a style that's really unique – and which avoids any of the cliches of both the downtempo world, and the instrumental hip hop scene The approach is often quite poetic, yet still soulful as well – and the whole thing's got a laidback vibe that's neither sleepy nor muddled – a really sort of special space between the grooves. Titles include "Horse Opera", "Dark Early", "Answering Echo So Near", "Winter The Heart", "A Treasure Smile", "Rooms Between Us", and "Memorabilia". LP, Vinyl record album

Earl Klugh's guitar gets plenty of rich colors to work with here – some deeper backdrops from arrangers Don Sebesky and Dave Matthews – each of whom bring a different mood to the set! Sebesky's got those lush, full charts that we love so much from his classic orchestral charts of the 60s and 70s – while Matthews is a bit tighter and more swinging, but still farther from his funky work of the 70s than you might expect. Klugh's guitar hits loads of those classic colorful tones throughout – and titles include "Theme From The Pawnbroker", "The Look Of Love", "Nature Boy", "A Certain Smile", "The Shadow Of Your Smile", and "Stay Gold". LP, Vinyl record album