Funk | Soul 372 Items

In the 1960s and ‘70s, unbeknownst to most, Saigon (today named “Ho Chi Minh City”) had become a fertile environment for a flourishing music industry which produced countless recordings of beautifully crafted songs.
Ho Chi Minh City based band, Saigon Soul Revival has been bringing alternative pre 1975 music from Saigon back to the stage since 2016 with their live performances. Honoring the original composers, singers and the golden era from which this music (Nhạc Vàng) came, while applying new arrangements and interpretations of old Vietnamese songs. With tight grooves, psychedelic textures and a powerful unique sound, SSR has performed countless shows at a variety of venues across Vietnam, and accompanied live the two release tours to the Saigon Supersound Compilation releases.
While spending the last three years studying and playing this music, Saigon Soul Revival teamed up with producer Jan Hagenkötter (Saigon Supersound / INFRACom!) and finally in January 2019, they started to create own compositions in the same vein for their debut album Họa Âm Xưa. The album was recorded in Vietnam with additional guests during one week in May this year.
The album focuses on compositions that fuse Vietnamese lyrics and sounds with influences of western rock, soul, bolero, tango and other popular genres of this time period, most of which was banned after the war. This project strives to revive this beautiful musical heritage of Vietnam which represents an important cultural bridge between east and west.

Following on from Buddy's debut single 2 years ago we bring you Buddy Hank & The Shine Bands previously unissued lp called "Dust to diamonds".
It comprimises of the previous hit single "Try you love" along with 3 new discoveries from the same session.
"Lets get down tonight"/""Sugar baby" plus "Your'e so special". All 3 are infectious disco boogie tunes with that recognizable sound Buddy Hankerson helped create for Young & Company on Brunswick records.
Also contained on the lp is an instrumental verison of "Lets get down tongight" plus two instrumentals from the 1981 sessions they never got around to laying vocals down to.
"im so glad i found you" and "Sham".
We really hope "Dust to Diamonds" wipes the dust away you.

First there is the hooligan chantwell, up for anything in the hurly-burly of carnival proper; and then the casual reporter, firing off postcards to Trinidad about taxis, flashy booze, fast women and football in Manchester, with homesickness and grievance nestled just behind the optimism, pride and tentative senses of belonging.
There is the bearer of news from home, in detailed accounts of murders, tales of stupid local coppers, and reminiscences about food and particular mango trees; the political thinker, considering racism and Africa; and the diarist, with his vivid tales of infidelity, and disclosure of the break-up of his marriage, and his desire to get away.

One foot in the UK, the other in Trinidad; but the man himself somewhere in-between. Kitch In The Jungle, nobody around. A ‘diasporic explorer’; a key twentieth-century witness, alongside such hallowed figures as Samuel Selvon and Edward Kamau Braithwaite.

Though in frustration Kitch would sometimes take over double-bass duties himself, the musicianship of Rupert Nurse, Fitzroy Coleman and co is top-notch. The original glorious sound is down to Denys Preston, recording for Melodisc, often at Abbey Road Studios (where we transferred and restored the 78s compiled here).

Presented in a lovely gatefold sleeve, with a full-size booklet containing superb, specially-commissioned sleevenotes by Kitch biographer Anthony Joseph, and fabulous, previously-unseen photographs

Still deeper forays into the musical landscape of the Windrush generation.

A dazzling range of calypso, mento, joropo, steelband, palm-wine and r’n'b. Expert revivals of stringband music, from way back, alongside proto-Afro-funk.
An uproarious selection of songs about the H-Bomb and modern phones, prostitution and Haile Selassie, mid-life crisis and the London Underground, racism and solidarity, the Highway Code and a 100% West Indian Royal Wedding.

For example some frantic British-Guianan joropo music-hall about Eatwell Brown from Clapham, who starts out biting off a piece of his mother-in-law’s face at a party, then devours everything in his path… a chunk of Brixton Prison, a Union Jack, a policeman’s uniform. Or Marie Bryant — collaborator of Lester Young and Duke Ellington — taking time off from skewering the South African PM Daniel Malan at her West End revue, to contribute some arch, swinging filth about uber-genitalia.

Superior sound, courtesy of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas; lovely gatefold sleeve; full-size booklet, with full notes, and fabulous previously-unseen photographs, including a set from the family archive of Russ Henderson (who led the first, impromptu Notting Hill Carnival march, in 1966).

“Please Wait“ (Ta-ku & matt mcwaters) releasing their EP „Black & White“ featuring soon to be mega star Masego and others via 823 & Jakarta Records.
After releasing last year’s very successful tribute-record “25 Nights for Nujabes” (almost 13 mio. plays on Spotify to this day), Perth-based artist Ta-ku finally returns with brand new music!

Please Wait is the culmination of numerous online exchanges and years of sharing voice memos, stems, musical ideas & TikTok links between Ta-ku and Canadian producer matt mcwaters. Their cathartic approach to this body of work has been more about self-expression than anything else and has culminated in an EP that covers a range of issues and experiences from different times in their lives.
While the 1st single features Jamaican-American multi-talent Masego and will also have a video, the 2nd single features up & coming singer/songwriter Alayna.
Ta-ku’s 823 label represents the appreciation for the people/ideas/places that inspire and push us forward. The artwork is shot by the artists themselves and each release has an accompanying photo zine that acts as a visual story to compliment the music being showcased.

IZIPHO SOUL RECORDS are thrilled to be releasing JASON ANTHONEY WRIGHT’S 2008 masterpiece, RESET TO ZERO on a 7’’ single!
Produced by Absolute’s Paul Wilson and Andy Watkins, RESET TO ZERO is one of the finest pieces of U.K. retro soul.
The soaring lead vocals, layered over a soulful groove has made this a respected song on the musically knowledgeable rare soul scene, whilst still maintaining that wider reaching appeal a feat only achieved by very few compositions. On the B side is the Pete and Steve Lewinson produced Motown flavoured LOOKING THROUGH THE WINDOW

Recorded in 2000 with essentially the same team as “Shades of Bey” and “River Man” and a similar variety of tunes and textures. It includes covers of two Milton Nascimento classics (“Bridges” and “Saidas e Bandeiras”), a cover of “Fragile” (by Sting) and standards such as “I’ll Remember April”, “Just Friends” (with strings), “Invitation" and “Little Girl Blue”, as well as the sultry original “Tuesdays In Chinatown”. This is Andy Bey in fine form, and includes performances by Ron Carter, Geri Allen, Mino Cinelu and Steve Turre. First time on vinyl.

The Ancient Cosmonauts horn-heavy take on funk, soul and jazz fusion somehow manages to be both rooted in the past and pleasingly fresh. With their first release, the band digs into its leader's Michael "Treetop" Voss past with The Poets of Rhyhtm.
A-side "More Mess On My Thing" is the band's take on the 1993 Poets classic, driven forwards by laidback, loose-limbed drumming, rubbery bass guitar, layered hand percussion, a call-to-party female vocal and the twin attractions or rising horn lines and snaking sax solos. "Keepin' On" is based on a forever lost recording of that same 1993 session, with the band adding urgent lead vocal to the ear-catching horn lines of the original version, the song runs up to its climax in a screaming trumpet solo over the collective push of the full band.

WOW…. Dynamite cuts gives you for the first time on 7” two Jazzfunk gems from the mega rare hard to find LP by 47 times its own weight 1975 Fable records.

Japanese import / Gatefold / First time on vinyl / Limited run

An independent label ‘’Hydeout Productions’’ releases the best compilation album for the first time.

Including from Nujabes’s fresh and passionate works only found in his early works to more emotional and metaphorical works which became the basis of his later success.

“Ghost Phone continues its skewed take on RnB with four anonymous re-rubs that explore the genre’s deeper realms.

Opener 'Mais Que Amor' brighens up the dance with a screwed trap intro and pitched vocal cuts. 'Ride With Me' follows, bringing wild, broken beats and spliced dirty south samples. On the flip, 'Ize Kashmir' keeps things rolling for the heads down crew alongside the dank, bare bones dub of 'Ize Kashmir Dub’”