A lost bit of Sunshine pop – and one of our favorite indie sides from the late 60s! The Yellow Balloon may not have been a household name, but they've got a heck of a talent for harmonizing in the best sunny style of the time – matching The Association or The Beach Boys for sheer sweet vocal approach, and working with some nice Left Banke-ish touches that bring a baroque edge to the set. The tunes are all pretty darn catchy – sitting nicely between Pet Sounds and Pretty Ballerina for sheer charm – and although the set's an indie effort at heart, it comes across like the best from the bigger labels of the time! Titles include "Yellow Balloon", "Junk Maker Shoppe", "Springtime Girl", "Stained Glass Window", "How Can I Be Down", and "I've Got A Feeling For Love". LP, Vinyl record album

A lost bit of Sunshine pop – and one of our favorite indie sides from the late 60s! The Yellow Balloon may not have been a household name, but they've got a heck of a talent for harmonizing in the best sunny style of the time – matching The Association or The Beach Boys for sheer sweet vocal approach, and working with some nice Left Banke-ish touches that bring a baroque edge to the set. The tunes are all pretty darn catchy – sitting nicely between Pet Sounds and Pretty Ballerina for sheer charm – and although the set's an indie effort at heart, it comes across like the best from the bigger labels of the time! Titles include "Yellow Balloon", "Junk Maker Shoppe", "Springtime Girl", "Stained Glass Window", "How Can I Be Down", and "I've Got A Feeling For Love". CD

Ok so she's got a Grammy – but that makes us love her even more! Jill Scott is one of the greatest soul artists to emerge in the past decade – and this second album avoids the usual "sophomore slump" by showing a whole new side of her talents! Disc one is a great live set – showing that Jill's organic talent isn't the product of studio trickery, and can conjure up as much warmth in person as it can on disc. The backing is tight, jazzy, and with a different finish than you might be accustomed to from Jill's first LP – less hip hop beats and more real funk drumming, a fuller group instrumental sound with lots of nice solos, and over it all, incredible vocals from Jill! The set's got smoking live versions of "One Is The Magic #", "A Long Walk", "Love Rain", "Getting In The Way", "Fatback Taffy", "He Loves Me", and "Do You Remember". CD

A mighty pairing of talents – indie legends Men I Trust and funk monsters Khruangbin – united here on one record, recorded on a very strong tour date from 2022! All material was recorded at RBC Echo Beach – with Men I Trust on side one, Khruangbin on side two – sadly not playing together on the same stage, but maybe something you could create if you played two copies of the record at the same time, one side each! Titles include "Sugar", "All Night", "Seven", "Show Me How", "Dern Kala", "Lady & Man", and "White Gloves". LP, Vinyl record album

The classic sound of Funkadelic, reworked by a key selection of contemporary talents from the Detroit scene – but never in a way that wrecks the originals at all! Unlike other remix projects, which might break up the music to a point that you can hardly recognize the original grooves – this set does a wonderful job of maintaining all the integrity of the famous funky recordings by the group, while also letting some artists from the group's hometown also include a few of their own contributions too – all in ways that really expand the original vision of the music, while keeping things in a funky soul vein all the way through! Given all the greateness of Detroit grooves in recent years – from that city's very fertile underground of producers and musicians – the sound here is still even more amazing than we expected, and the album's a very fitting one to be issued on the Westbound label. The set's double-length, and for good reason too – and titles include "Music 4 My Mother (Underground Resistance mix)", "Sexy Ways (Recloose disco flip)", "Get Your Ass Off & Jam (Marcellus Pittman rmx)", "You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure (Alton Miller mix)", "Super Stupid (Dirtbombs version)", "Music For My Mother (Andres Wo Ahh Ay voc mix)", "Cosmic Slop (Moodymann mix)", "Be My Beach (Mophono & Tom Thump)", "Let's Make It Last (Kenny Dixon Jr edit)", "Let's Take It To The Stage (Amp Fiddler @Ya mix)", "Undisco Kidd (Gay Marvine edit)", "Looking Back At You (Ectomorph stripped & dubbed)", and "Standing On The Verge (Anthony Shake Shakir & T Dancer rmx)". CD

Key early work from trumpeter Jack Sheldon – a set that captures his talents at their most basic and most stripped-down – very much in the spirit of the best LA jazz coming out on the Pacific Jazz label at the time! If the cover makes the set look a bit like a Chet Baker album, that's because there's a bit of the Baker approach here – one that's simple and focused, with a strongly melodic style that comes through beautifully on Sheldon's shimmering horn. But there's also a bit more of an edge, too – thanks to bold piano work from Walter Norris, and the addition of Zoot Sims on a number of tracks – and unlike Baker (or Sheldon on later records), there's no vocals here at all – just a strong instrumental groove. Titles include "Beach-Wise", "Groovus Mentus", "Dozo", "Jack Departs", and "Palermo Walk". CD

Key early work from trumpeter Jack Sheldon – a set that captures his talents at their most basic and most stripped-down – very much in the spirit of the best LA jazz coming out on the Pacific Jazz label at the time! If the cover makes the set look a bit like a Chet Baker album, that's because there's a bit of the Baker approach here – one that's simple and focused, with a strongly melodic style that comes through beautifully on Sheldon's shimmering horn. But there's also a bit more of an edge, too – thanks to bold piano work from Walter Norris, and the addition of Zoot Sims on a number of tracks – and unlike Baker (or Sheldon on later records), there's no vocals here at all – just a strong instrumental groove. Titles include "Beach-Wise", "Groovus Mentus", "Dozo", "Jack Departs", and "Palermo Walk" – plus three bonus tracks! CD

The classic sound of Funkadelic, reworked by a key selection of contemporary talents from the Detroit scene – but never in a way that wrecks the originals at all! Unlike other remix projects, which might break up the music to a point that you can hardly recognize the original grooves – this set does a wonderful job of maintaining all the integrity of the famous funky recordings by the group, while also letting some artists from the group's hometown also include a few of their own contributions too – all in ways that really expand the original vision of the music, while keeping things in a funky soul vein all the way through! Given all the greateness of Detroit grooves in recent years – from that city's very fertile underground of producers and musicians – the sound here is still even more amazing than we expected, and the album's a very fitting one to be issued on the Westbound label. The set's double-length, and for good reason too – and titles include "Music 4 My Mother (Underground Resistance mix)", "Sexy Ways (Recloose disco flip)", "Get Your Ass Off & Jam (Marcellus Pittman rmx)", "You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure (Alton Miller mix)", "Super Stupid (Dirtbombs version)", "Music For My Mother (Andres Wo Ahh Ay voc mix)", "Cosmic Slop (Moodymann mix)", "Be My Beach (Mophono & Tom Thump)", "Let's Make It Last (Kenny Dixon Jr edit)", "Let's Take It To The Stage (Amp Fiddler @Ya mix)", "Undisco Kidd (Gay Marvine edit)", "Looking Back At You (Ectomorph stripped & dubbed)", and "Standing On The Verge (Anthony Shake Shakir & T Dancer rmx)". LP, Vinyl record album

A remixed version of Incognito's Tales From The Beach album – but one that feels more like a collaborative effort from all the talents involved, working together with the original tunes almost in tribute to the mighty power of the group! The mixers here are all either contemporaries of Incognito, or a slightly younger generation who've clearly been influenced by their classic blend of jazz funk and soul – and unlike other remix projects, which might wreck the original brilliance of the album, this one serves to push it forward even further – taking Bluey's initial inspiration, and moving strongly upward with a great sense of warm and soul. Titles include "Step Aside" remixed by Dimitri & DJ Meme, "Feel The Pressure" remixed by Mark De Clive-Lowe, "Happy People" remixed by Christian Prommer, "Love Joy Understanding" remixed by Tortured Soul, "Freedom To Love" remixed by Simon Grey, "I Come Alive" remixed by DJ Day, "Tales From The Beach" remixed by Outside, "I Remember A Time" remixed by Francis Hylton, and "Freedom To Love" remixed by Yam Who. CD

A wide-ranging look at the talents of August Darnell – an artist who's probably best known to the world as Kid Creole, but who also had a hand in a number of other dancefloor acts of the late 70s and early 80s! All tracks here have that trademark August Darnell groove – a good ear for jazzy, playful rhythms – often with styles borrowed from previous decades in the 20th century, retooled with hipper, leaner styles for the time! Darnell was one of the first to actively reach back into the past for ideas to use on the dancefloor – and although the practice is quite common now, the tracks here have a sound that few contemporary artists could ever hope to match. And when he wanted to, Darnell could also hit a club groove as great as any other artists on the New York scene of the late 70s – a pulsing, hypnotic approach to rhythm that was probably best know from his side projects on Ze Records. The tunes go way beyond familiar Kid Creole hits – and titles include "Goin To A Showdown" and "I'm An Indian Too (12" mix)" by Don Armando's Second Avenue Rhumba Band, "Is That All There Is" by Cristina, "Paradise" and "Emile (Night Rate)" by Aural Exciters, "There But For The Grace Of God Go I (12" version)" by Machine, "Don't Play With My Emotions" by Ron Rogers, "On A Day Like Today" by Gichy Dan's Beachwood #9, "Pharoah (Can't Take It To The Grave" by Coati Mundi, "Sunshower" by Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, and the Kid Creole tracks "He's Not Such A Bad Guy After All (12" version)", "Double On Back", "Off The Coast Of Me", and "Going Places (Zemix version)". CD

A really fantastic album from bassist Joshua Abrams – a set that may well be his greatest to date – and that's saying a lot, given all the other work he's given us in recent years! The double-length set has Abrams working with this lineup of improvising jazz talents, but in a way that's very rhythmic, and very organic – slow-building songs that almost seem to mix jazz with inspiration from gamelan music, but with very spiritual currents overall – music that builds slowly and flows to the cosmos – almost in a way that reminds us of the seminal "On The Beach" by Phil Cohran & The Artistic Heritage Ensemble! Yet Abrams is very much in his own territory here – working with a lineup that features the leader on guimbri, Lisa Alvarado on harmonium and gongs, Mikel Avery on tam-tam and gongs, Ben Boye on electric autoharp and piano, Hamid Drake on tabla and tar, Ben Lamar Gay on cornet, Nick Mazzarella on alto saxophone, and Jason Stein on bass clarinet – with every member of the ensemble also performing on flutes. The sound is incredible – music to build a bridge to the heavens – and titles include "In Memory's Prism", "Finite", "Shadow Conductor", and "Agree". CD

A wonderful album of southern soul – and the only full-length LP cut by Bobby Moore and his long-lived Rhythm Aces combo! The group's the sort that slaved away endlessly in live shows all over the south – playing on their own, or providing extra backup for countless big stars touring through the area. Bobby's on tenor, and the group has some incredibly rich vocal talents – unnamed, but with a group harmony style that's equally at home with sweet ballads or hard stompin party numbers. The latter style is the band's strongest suit, though – with an approach that's somewhere between the hard soul of Sam & Dave and the party grooves of Doug Clark & The Hot Nuts – and like that group, Moore's style was probably forged out of years of playing at beach dances, frat parties, and bar gigs, the real proving ground for a tight combo like this! A great little LP, with a fresh sound throughout – and tracks include "The Hamburger Song", "Follow Me", "Hey, Mr. DJ", "Searching For My Love", "Jenny, Jenny", "Come Back Baby", and "We've Got That". Recorded at Fame in 1966 with Rick Hall, too! CD

That's not a typo in the title – the compilation's a collection of tracks that all bear the mark of Phil Spector – Spector's Spectres, if you will! It's a well known fact that Phil had a monumental impact on 60s rock, pop, and soul music – as his "wall of sound" production style forever transformed the sound of the single back in the sixties. And although there's been lots of compilations that focus on Phil's own work, this is the first one we've seen to showcase his proteges and contemporaries – a surprisingly wide range of studio talents who all picked up on Phil's tricks and twists! The tunes on the set include some great 60s soul and pop numbers, and a bunch of the tracks are reissued legally here for the first time. Plus, the set's got some wonderful liner notes – really taking you through the tracks, and explaining the connection to Spector and the overall sound of the music. Features production work by Nick DeCaro, Van McCoy, Jan Davis, Abner Spector, Brian Holland & Lamont Dozier, Brian Wilson, Sonny Bono, and Jack Nitszche – and titles that include "When You Walk In The Room" by Jackie DeShannon, "When The Boy's Happy" by The Four Pennies, "Hang On" by The Wall Of Sound, "Tremblin" by Gene Pitney, "A Little Love" by Alder Ray, "On The Spanish Side" by The Corsairs & Landy McNeil, "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" by The Beach Boys, "Just You" by Sonny & Cher, "I Can't Make It Alone" by PJ Proby, "And That Reminds Me" by The Dolls, "You're So Fine" by Dorothy Berry, "Missing My Baby" by Clydie King, and "I Just Couldn't Say" by Lorraine & The Delights. CD

The legendary King Records is known as an important label for R&B and hillbilly music – but the label also has a surprisingly strong legacy in the early years of rock as well – maybe in part because it did such a good job of keeping its ear to the ground with those other important styles! King never got the chart-topping hits of a label like Sun Records, but it did manage to draw together an equally impressive array of talents – some still underground names after all these years, others now elevated in the secret history of rock and roll through their work for the label! The set brings together 30 tracks from King and related Federal and DeLuxe labels, all with the detailed notes and well-chosen cuts that continue to make this series so important, even after many years and dozens of releases – a legacy that's really supported here by cuts that include "Say So" and "If I Had A Woman" by Mac Curtis, "Stop The World" by The Bon Aires, "You're Gonna Like My Baby" by Bill Beach, "Haulin Freight" by Bob Newman, "Jungle Rock" by Hank Mizell, "Top Ten Rock" by Fuller Todd, "Put The Chain On The Door" by Boyd Bennett & His Rockets, "No Good Robin Hood" by Delbert Barker, "One Hand Loose" by Charlie Feathers, "Your Kind Of Lovin" by Donnie White, "Bip A Little Bop A Lot" by Joe Penny, "I'm Mad With You" by Moon Mullican, "Midnight Blues" by The Town Three, and "Good Good Good" by Ken McDonald. CD

Pre-moog work from Hugo Montenegro – but a set that's still pretty darn groovy! The Beach Boys reference in the title is very well put, as Hugo's using some cool harmony vocals for the record – a chorus that definitely takes some of its inspiration from Brian Wilson, singing here both with lyrics, and some wordless modes – not on every track, but used enough to give the record a really Sunshine Pop sort of appeal! Other instrumentation is great too – electric bass underneath fuller strings, offbeat woodwinds, fuzzy guitar, and even a bit of whistling – which has a cool sort of electronic feel. The blend of sounds is amazing – very unique, and already showing that Montenegro's one of the hippest talents of the 60s. Titles include "Classical Gas", "Rosemary's Baby", "Night Rider", "Lady in Cement", "A Future Left Behind", "Tony's Theme", and "Good Vibrations". LP, Vinyl record album

The long-awaited "real" second album from Jill Scott – finally out 4 years after her massive debut! Fortunately, the passage of time has done nothing to dampen Jill's genius – and the sound, style, and overall quality of this set is every bit as great as we could have hoped. The production is a bit fuller at times, but never cloying or overly mainstream – and still very much in the lean, mean, stripped-down Philly groove that Jill brought to the masses with incredible force. Jill's got help from a host of great Philly talents too – including Andre Harris, Jazzy Jeff, and Larry Gold – all of whom work with Jill in a sinister blend of beats, keys, strings, and soul! Titles include "I'm Not Afraid", "The Fact Is", "Bedda At Home", "Cross My Mind", "Family Reunion", "Can't Explain", "Not Like Crazy", "Rasool", and "My Petition". CD

The incredible debut of the mighty Jill Scott – a record that asks and answers a question with the title – then goes on to not only establish Jill as one of the freshest soul music talents of her generation, but also an artist who set the tone for so many others to follow! The record explodes out of the Philly scene with a mixture of underground soul and hip hop production elements – echoing classic modes, yet instantly present too – in a way that still sounds fresher than most of the copycat records that came in its wake – and a good deal of records that preceded it too. Jill scores big with a totally seductive blend of warm instrumentation, subdued funky beats, and immensely captivating soul vocals – and the whole record is awash in Fender Rhodes, giving it a spacey soul sound that will make the record a classic for years to come! Titles include "The Way", "Do You Remember", "Long Rain", "Love Rain", "Honey Molasses", "Slowly Surely", "Watching Me", "One Is The Magic #", and "He Loves Me" – but it's allllll good! The LP includes a remix of "Love Rain" featuring Mos Def! LP, Vinyl record album

The incredible debut of the mighty Jill Scott – a record that asks and answers a question with the title – then goes on to not only establish Jill as one of the freshest soul music talents of her generation, but also an artist who set the tone for so many others to follow! The record explodes out of the Philly scene with a mixture of underground soul and hip hop production elements – echoing classic modes, yet instantly present too – in a way that still sounds fresher than most of the copycat records that came in its wake – and a good deal of records that preceded it too. Jill scores big with a totally seductive blend of warm instrumentation, subdued funky beats, and immensely captivating soul vocals – and the whole record is awash in Fender Rhodes, giving it a spacey soul sound that will make the record a classic for years to come! Titles include "The Way", "Do You Remember", "Long Rain", "Love Rain", "Honey Molasses", "Slowly Surely", "Watching Me", "One Is The Magic #", and "He Loves Me" – but it's allllll good! The LP includes a remix of "Love Rain" featuring Mos Def! CD