Funky soul from the great Marcos Valle – a great blend of mellow grooves and upbeat tunes recorded at the same time Valle was working in the US with Leon Ware! The style here is very similar to Ware's 2 albums for Elektra – both of which feature work from Valle, and include tunes that are also done here in Portuguese versions! Marcos makes a real departure from some of his earlier work here, and emerges as a surprisingly great soul star with plenty of talents for penning two-step tunes and keyboard-heavy tracks that glisten with a sweet California groove. A few tracks recall some of Valle's Odeon work – like the baroque instrumental "Camina Grande" – but we're most partial to the soul tracks that dominate the record, and which include "Bicho No Cio", "Pecados De Amor","Garimpando" and "A Paraiba Nao e Chicago". LP, Vinyl record album

Funky soul from the great Marcos Valle – a great blend of mellow grooves and upbeat tunes recorded at the same time Valle was working in the US with Leon Ware! The style here is very similar to Ware's 2 albums for Elektra – both of which feature work from Valle, and include tunes that are also done here in Portuguese versions! Marcos makes a real departure from some of his earlier work here, and emerges as a surprisingly great soul star with plenty of talents for penning two-step tunes and keyboard-heavy tracks that glisten with a sweet California groove. A few tracks recall some of Valle's Odeon work – like the baroque instrumental "Camina Grande" – but we're most partial to the soul tracks that dominate the record, and which include "Bicho No Cio", "Pecados De Amor","Garimpando" and "A Paraiba Nao e Chicago". LP, Vinyl record album

Nasty nasty funk from the great Bo Diddley – one of his rare funky 70s classics for Chess – produced by Johnny Otis with a really tripped-out groove! The album's got an edge that seems to go even farther than some of Bo's other Chess work at the time – and picks up the full-on Otis funky mode by leaning hard on the drums, pulling up the bass, and bringing in a trio of female lovelies to back up Bo on vocals! Gloria Scott's one of the vocalists on the album, and Shuggie Otis even joins in on the funky party with some sweet guitar! But even with all this help, Bo's still the star of the story – and his massive chugging approach to guitar is moving full steam ahead on the set – really ripping a groove through a great batch of original tracks that include "Take It All Off", "I've Had It Hard", "Good Thing", "Bad Trip", "Infatuation", "Bo Diddley-Itis", "Woman", and "Look At Grandma". LP, Vinyl record album

The classic debut album by the DOC, from the glory days of Ruthless Records – one of the few records on the label to live up to the brilliance of NWA at their height! Dr Dre handles the production here – and there's a razor-sharp edge that really matches DOC's wordcraft – as powerful as the rest of the Ruthless crew, but in a different way too – almost more sophisticated, with the messaged buried a bit more in the lyrics. Titles include "The Formula", "It's Funky Enough", "Mind Blowin", "Lend Me An Ear", "Portrait Of A Master Piece", "Whirlwind Pyramid", "No One Can Do It Better", and "The DOC & The Doctor" – plus "The Grand Finale", which features guest work from Ren and Ice Cube. LP, Vinyl record album

Just when you thought Prince Paul and Cat Power would never make a record together PRESTO – it's the new Handsome Boy album! HBMS takes a bit more of a chillout tack with this long overdue second opus – with lots of laidback beats and samples, and a surprising amount of live instrumentation! The gleeful, sarcastic comedy of the stellar first album remains intact, with some genuinely amusing skits (including one with Jay Z appearing under the pseudonym Hines Buchanan), and the deep range of guest vocalists isn't as surprising as how strong their work is in the best tunes. It would have been pretty easy for Prince Paul and Automator to find a bunch of interesting names to flesh out their big pop culture frappe, but something else altogether to make trippy hip hop tracks featuring Cat Power and the Hieroglyphics make sense on the same record. A pretty solid set from the most adventurous pseudo duo in the game! Guests include Del The Funky Homosapien, De La Soul, RZA, Lord Finesse, AG, Rahzel, Jazzy Jay, Qbert, Mike Patton, Casual, Hieroglyphics, Grand Wizard Theodore, El-P, John Oates, Pharrell, Kid Koala, and George W. Bush (just kidding). Tracks include "If It Wasn't For You" with De La, "Are You Down With It" with Mike Patton, "The World's Gone Mad" with Del and others, "It's Like That" with Casual, "I've Been Thinking" with Cat Power, "Rock And Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This) Pt 2" featuring Lord Finesse, Qbert and others,"First. . .And Then" featuring Dres from Black Sheep, "A Day In The Life" featuring RZA, AZ and others and more, plus intro/outro by Father Guido Sarducci. LP, Vinyl record album

A killer electric piano jam from the great Mike Longo – stone funky, and one of his best albums ever! The whole thing's done in a really laidback style that's simply amazing – a lot like the best CTI work of the time, but somehow rougher, and with a darker edge. Longo riffs out on the keys over rhythm by Ron Carter, Mickey Roker, and Ralph MacDonald – and Joe Farrell and Randy Brecker add in some great horn work that fleshes out the tunes with a deeply soulful jazzy feel. The whole album's great, with a range of moods, emotions, and grooves that Longo hardly ever hit again – and titles include "Summers Gone", "El Moodo Grande", "Like a Thief In the Night", "Ocean of His Might", and "Magic Number". LP, Vinyl record album

A great collection of work from one of our favorite funky scenes! Way up in Scandinavia, where the winters are 360 days long (or something like that!) they've got to do something to warm themselves up – so they take to their instruments, and jam like mad to come up with some great funky jazz – as you'll hear in this incredibly well-done collection of early 70s gems from Funky Finland, Swinging Sweden, and Nonstopjamming Norway! The package is a brilliant introduction to the lost gems lurking in the icy lands of Northern Europe – and is incredibly well-timed, given that in recent years, some of this under-issued music is finally getting back out to the public again, and inspiring a whole new generation of funky listeners. There's loads of great keyboard work on the set – cool in tone, but warm and soulful in approach – and even if you're the type that's got some non-American funk biases, you'll be more than happy to place this one on the shelf next to your favorite 70s albums on labels like CTI or Kudu. Titles include "Grandma's Rocking Chair" by Olli Ahvelahti, "Bluegaloo" by Ablution, "Mr Minor" by Staffan Ableen Quintets, "Equinox" by Pop Workshop, "Karakorum" by Mamba, "6 Down" by Eero Koivistoinen Music Society, "Watusi Dance" by Pop Workshop, "Afro Temple" by Sabu Martinez, and "Batucada Por Favor" by Bob Azzam. LP, Vinyl record album