A pair of great albums from Osibisa – back to back in a single set! First up is Happy Children, which has Osibisa really kicking up the groove nicely – bringing in a bit more soul, shedding some of their prog elements, and finding this great blend of West African elements and American ... CD(Global Grooves CD)
A really mighty combination – the tremendous trombone of Vin Gordon, the production genius of Lee Scratch Perry, and the heady rhythms of the Upsetters – all combined here in an album that may well be one of Gordon's best! Vin gets all sorts of space to solo in the lead – and his ... LP, Vinyl record album(Reggae LP)
The third album from Hawkwind, and one in which it seems like the group are really beginning to find their groove – maybe in part because Lemmy's in the lineup here, giving them some rudimentary bass parts that seem to push the boundaries even more – while all the spacey sounds and cool ... CD(Rock CD)
Sweet disco and soulful jazz – the only album we've ever seen from Copeland Davis, a great talent on the piano, and a mellow soul singer with a clear inspiration from Marvin Gaye! The album's a pretty unusual one – in that the overall groove is instrumental, mostly tight rhythms and ... CD(Soul CD)
The kind of record that makes us mighty happy we come from Chicago – as this Windy City project have a way of layering together all the sounds we love from our fair city – house, soul, funk, and jazz – all bristling together in a set that has a very unique approach to the music! ... LP, Vinyl record album(New Grooves LP)
A really fantastic record, and one with a very unusual pedigree – as it was originally produced by Rita Marley, who issued the whole thing on her own label – even though the set is way more 70s soul than reggae in style! The group are tremendous, and have this way of mixing fantastic ... CD(Soul CD)
One of the most impressive albums ever from Jessica Lauren – the London keyboardist who easily skirts the worlds of jazz and club, past and future – working here with a quality that was instantly timeless the moment it was first recorded! Lauren draws plenty of inspiration from ... LP, Vinyl record album(Jazz LP)
A really ear-opening collection – one that's filled with a great range of funky grooves from Southeast Asia at the end of the 70s! There's a surprisingly universal vibe to many of these cuts – waves of sound that have certainly flowed out from New York and Philly scenes, and inspired ... LP, Vinyl record album(Global Grooves LP)
A killer Christmas record from Robert Glasper – even if the cover makes it look like some Busta Rhymes side project from the 90s! Glasper's on keys and at the helm of the whole thing – and the record's more of a soul session overall, with contributions from a great array of guests who ... LP, Vinyl record album(Holiday Music LP)
One of Bobby Hutcherson's most important albums ever – and an essential piece of "new thing" jazz that ranks up there with such key Blue note sessions of the genre as Tony Williams' album Life Time, Dolphy's Out To Lunch, and Jackie McLean's One Step Beyond! Hutcherson's sound on ... LP, Vinyl record album(Jazz LP)
A brilliant take on the music of Eric Dolphy – a set that certainly lives up to his legacy in jazz, but one that also really opens up all these new corners in his music! The set seems to embrace all of Dolphy's recordings at once – making his Blue Note work resonate with early ... CD(Jazz CD)
The world of reggae was maybe a bit late to get into the world of Holiday music – at least compared to other genres – but by the end of the 70s, a new Christmas reggae tradition was alive and well – as you'll hear in this great set of four classic albums, plus a few bonus tracks ... CD(Holiday Music CD)
Trombonist Steve Davis is not only a hell of a player, but a hell of a leader too – one who really seems to have just the right ear for picking the right musicians to do the right thing – then getting them all to perform at a level that's even greater than we might expect! That's ... CD(Jazz CD)
A set that documents a key moment on the British scene – a point when all the indie energy of the C86 scene was ready to burst strongly into the mainstream – taking the music from the singles pages of the NME to the charts of the bigger radio stations around the globe – all with ... CD(Rock CD)
A really fantastic record, and one that's way more than a typical standards set – an album that's more "lost" than anything else – as it represents some very early material from tenorist Gato Barbieri, right at a point when his music was really taking off! The set was ... CD(Jazz CD)
You might know the music of Nate Mercereau from his projects with Carlos Nino and Andre 3000 – and nicely both artists are on this set as well – providing a really wonderful range of textures and tones next to Nate's great guitar! The album's got a very unusual approach – in that ... LP, Vinyl record album(Jazz LP)
An incredible reworking of the Beautiful Day album from avant piano legend Andrew Hill – one of the last great albums he gave us before departing the earth, and a set that's expanded here with a lot of extra material, presented with a reworked sense of sound! The core group has Hill at the ... CD(Jazz CD)
Fresh funk, but built from classic breaks – handled in a really unique approach by the Cromagnon Band – who supposedly pick older break records they really love, then jam with them in the studio – and end up creating something new in the process! There's a nice current of psych ... LP, Vinyl record album(Deep Funk LP)
A fantastic live set from reedman Gary Bartz – captured here with his ultra-hip NTU group – who you might know from their classic albums on Milestone in the 70s! Gary's soaring out with a hell of a lot of pride and power right from the start – effortlessly spinning these long ... LP, Vinyl record album(Jazz LP)
A long-overdue look at a very early, secretly legendary chapter in the career of Lou Reed – a time when he was slaving away in the studios of the budget-line Pickwick Records label, writing and recording all sorts of music that was released under the names of fake groups who didn't exist! ... LP, Vinyl record album(Rock LP)