The later years of the Sound Of Memphis studio – cuts from a time when the legendary deep soul powerhouse was trying on some of the newer modes from the end of the 70s! The work here is a real lost slice of Memphis soul – music from a time when the heyday of Stax and Hi Records had long passed, but smaller indies like SOM were going strong – and able to capture the shifting sound in the great soul city – as singers worked in the sorts of funky club and boogie modes you'd more regularly associate with New York or Chicago! The quality level is surprisingly great – especially since there's a nicely indie vibe to these cuts – not polished disco rehash, but the sort of underground club material that we've always loved from reissues on labels like Numero or Soul Cal – coming here from the surprising source of Memphis. Even more importantly, almost all this material never saw the light of day at the time – since the SOM connections to bigger labels had faded – so the whole thing's like a time capsule, taking you back to some real under-exposed days on the Memphis scene! Titles include "Dream Girl" and "Groove With A Feeling" by Freedom Express, "You Can Bet I Can Get You Yet" and "What You Do For Love" by Lee Moore, "Ridin" and "Attraction" by Erma Shaw, "Cold Blooded Sally" by Fran Farley, "New Lang Syne" by Kannon, "I'll Be Around" by The Jacksonians, "Gone" by Vision, "We Need Love" by Donald O'Connor, "Tighter Tighter" by Demetrius & Takelia, and "Don't Fight It" by Louis Williams. CD

Pretty decent soul/rock material from the early 70s. The liner notes say that these guys started their career working with Buddy Miles, Electric Flag, and Sam & Dave – but the record's got a lot more of a soul vibe than you might expect, and it reminds us of some of the more rock-sounding soul acts on Stax from the same time. Titles include "7 1/2", "Don't Bogart Me", "The Pusher", "Who Can We Depend On?", and "You Never Get Too Big". LP, Vinyl record album

An incredible collection from Honest Jons – and like some of the rest of their best, music we never would have heard otherwise! The focus here is on calypso music, but recorded in West Africa – not the usual Caribbean setting – a very unusual strain of styles that cropped up in the fading colonial years of the British Empire – as rhythms were routed southward to Africa, via Caribbean migration to the London scene – making for some really fresh sounds in the end! The work is often much heavier on percussion than its more familiar variant – and other instrumentation includes some great horn parts, and bits of guitar – alongside vocals on most numbers. As usual, the notes are historically helpful and very well done – and titles include "Scrubbs Na Marvellous Boy" and "Poor Freetown Boy" by Famous Scrubbs, "Olubunmi" by Roy Chicago, "Ariwo" by Chris Ajilo & His Cubanos, "Taxi Driver" and "Gentlemen Bobby" by Bobby Benson & His Combo, "Mami" by The Rhythm Aces, "Arria Baby" and "Fire Fire Fire" by Ebenezer Calender & His Maringer Band, "Tree & The Monkey" by ET Mensah, and "Yabomisa Sawale" by Victor Olaiya. CD

A sweet little collection that goes way past the disco in the title – but maybe that's what you'd expect, give that most of the music is from the post-disco generation of the 80s! There's still plenty of clubby elements in the music, but the artists here have really taken off from late 70s American and Euro modes – adding in some bits of electro pop, or using some of the new technologies to create more programmed rhythms that point the way towards future dance styles to come. In a way, the special shift of the scene is similar to what happened with Italo Disco of the 80s – although with a different sound overall – and as with other compilations of this nature on Svart, the whole thing's a great look at a far off scene we never would have heard otherwise. Some cuts are so rare, they don't even have titles – and tunes include "In An Other Time" by Free Feeling Band, "Black Hole" by Syntax, "Mabellene" by Groove Night, "Israel Is Real" by We, "Guilty Of The Crime" by Pixies, "SMO" by Kim Kuusi, "Tunnen" by Jarkko Valja, and "Fantasia" by Anssi Timo. LP, Vinyl record album

Some of the earliest work ever recorded by Little Richard – raw, rootsy R&B that's free from most of the cliches of his later hits for Specialty Records! The material here isn't as distinctly Little Richard-esque as the sound in years to come – but that's also part of the appeal too – as the tunes offer up Richard's amazing vocals in settings that are more in the mode of some of the King Records work of the period, with all the rough, raspy edges that reference might imply! Titles include "Why Did You Leave Me", "Get Rich Quick", "Every Hour", "Taxi Blues", "I Brought It All On Myself", "Thinkin About My Mother", and "Please Have Mercy On Me". CD

A sweet little collection that goes way past the disco in the title – but maybe that's what you'd expect, give that most of the music is from the post-disco generation of the 80s! There's still plenty of clubby elements in the music, but the artists here have really taken off from late 70s American and Euro modes – adding in some bits of electro pop, or using some of the new technologies to create more programmed rhythms that point the way towards future dance styles to come. In a way, the special shift of the scene is similar to what happened with Italo Disco of the 80s – although with a different sound overall – and as with other compilations of this nature on Svart, the whole thing's a great look at a far off scene we never would have heard otherwise. Some cuts are so rare, they don't even have titles – and tunes include "In An Other Time" by Free Feeling Band, "Black Hole" by Syntax, "Mabellene" by Groove Night, "Israel Is Real" by We, "Guilty Of The Crime" by Pixies, "SMO" by Kim Kuusi, "Tunnen" by Jarkko Valja, and "Fantasia" by Anssi Timo. CD

Essential funk in a single set – three killer albums from James Brown's legendary backing group! First up is Food For Thought – the classic first album by The JBs – James Brown's Fred Wesley-led backing band, and the force behind most of his greatest records of the early 70s! The band are incredible at this point – sharper, harder, and funkier than just about any other combo around – and that includes all the thousands of groups in the funky 45 underground who were always trying to copy their sound, but never got things this right! Not only are the rhythms the stuff of legend – but the use of the instruments is far far above the norm – as can be heard on the mindblowing "The Grunt", which was sampled heavily by Public Enemy to great fame – and which features a saxophone solo that sounds more like a whistling tea kettle! The set collects some of the group's best early singles, and includes all of the short little funky cuts that made them a legend right out of the box – "Pass the Peas", "The Grunt", "These Are The JBs", "Hot Pants Road", "Wine Spot", "To My Brother", "Blessed Blackness", "Theme From King Heroin", "Escapism (parts 1 & 2), and "Gimme Some More" – all together here in one tight little album of massive funky hard beats and breaks! Doing It To Death is an incredible album – a landmark piece of funk that nobody should be without, funk fan or not! The album is the second to feature James Brown's famous backing combo of the early 70s – and unlike their first one, which was really more of a collection of singles, this album has the group playing hard, long, and loud, in the free funk improvisational mode that was James' real contribution to the music at the time. The tracks are all incredibly long, with James at the forefront, egging the band on with shouts and comments – but also letting them open up large instrumentally, playing in a mode that's as much jazz as it is funky soul. The whole thing's peppered with some nice shorter segues between tracks – but the long cuts are the winners, and are some of the best funk ever recorded! Titles include "Mo Peas", "Doing It To Death", "La Di Da La Di Day", "You Can Have Watergate, Just Gimme Some Bucks & I'll Be Straight", and "Sucker". Last up is Damn Right I Am Somebody – quite possibly our favorite record by the JBs, ever! The set starts with a wonderful conversational bit – rapping and musing on the idea of "Damn Right, I Am Somebody" – showing the group in a political and righteous mode for the first time ever. The grooves then kick in – with the same heavy funk as on earlier records, but also a nice nod towards experimental production – from strange fade ups and fade downs, to stark time and rhythm changes, and even bits of electronics used to create some very cool moments in the grooves! The whole thing's as dead funky as can be, and is stuffed with insane classics like "Blow Your Head", "Same Beat", "Damn Right I am Somebody", "I'm Payin' Taxes, What am I Buyin'", and a great cover of Marvin Gaye's "You Sure Love to Ball"! CD