Funk | Soul 143 Items

Why you'll love it...
The first notes Charles Bradley sings on Victim of Love, his 2013 sophomore release, are not words but moaned lamentations. A drawn out “ooh” reminds listeners who we are dealing with: The Screaming Eagle of Soul, who doesn’t simply sing. Bradley wails, pleads, begs and screeches his way through Victim of Love. Many tracks are love songs, but they’d be better described as songs of longing.

Lavender Vinyl.In the late 1970s, a peculiar sound began bubbling up from the land of 10,000 lakes. Buried beneath 50 solid inches of annual snow, Minneapolis made a Sound quite different than what the pop world foresaw. It issued forth as a slick, black, technologically advanced fusion, poised to storm the charts. Never known for sizable African-American populations, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in fact harbored a tight-knit community of musiciansworking feverishly through the late '70s and early '80s toward a radical manipulation of American dance music, coating futuristic funk with the glamorous sheen of guitar rock. Synthetic ebony and ivory met electricity, with sexed-up results sent shockingly across the pop heavens like violet lightning.

Jimmy Jam Harris was just 16 when he began writing and arranging for Minneapolis 11-piece Mind & Matter. Boasting a perfectly calibrated vocal quartet, an aggressive rhythm section, and stacks of Rhodes, Rolands, and Hammonds, the danceable act failed to win favor with frigid Midwest audiences. Tracked in 1977, this bundle of never-before-released basement demos throw Harris' beloved Philadelphia Sound into an unfinished root cellar, pelting it with Clavinet attacks, disco skats, and infectious hooks. Named for the street address of its underground uptown genesis, 1514 Oliver Avenue (Basement) is James "Jimmy Jam" Harris' first foray into songcraft and an organic Minneapolis-vintage alternative to a late '70s Prince songbook gone increasingly synthetic.

“It has been a lengthy hiatus, but we have finally finished our latest ‘masterpiece’ and named it after an incredible indigenous-rights movement that is happening right now called Idle No More. I was born and raised in Montreal and spent a lot of time on the Kahnawake Mohawk Indian reservation. Idle No More is probably the most refined piece of music we have made to date. The songs are about the state of the world we live in today. Originally, I was going to call the album Of Madness I Dream, but then I became very enthused about the amazing work of the Idle No More movement. Everyone I asked had never heard of it, so I contacted the leaders of the movement and, with their permission, decided to rename the album Idle No More in hopes that it would increase the world’s awareness of this miracle that is taking place for the indigenous peoples of the world. If you are not familiar with Idle No More, look it up and GET Involved! It took a long time to make, but we are very proud and pleased to bring you this album. I hope that the future will brighten up every time it is played. Ultimately, John and Yoko were absolutely right: Love IS ALL YOU Need! Peace and Love.”—King Bama Lama Khan Emperor of RnB.

The music of Magic Sword, crafted by two unknown individuals is a collaboration of sight and sound. Featuring the music. Part dance, part cinematic experience and a comic book (by The Harbinger). Which brings life to this tale of fantasy. Volume 1 is an introduction to the epic story of Magic Sword that will consist of several volumes set to be released over the next several years.So as it was, it shall always be. Whenever the need is great, we call upon the power of the Magic Sword.

Truth & Soul & Magnetic recordings is proud to present the re-issue of this long forgotten gem that was released in 1973 by Satara, a tiny label in Portland, Oregon. Only 500 copies were originally released.Now select Rojac (and sister label Tay-Ster) singles are once again available for a limited time. This reissue series comes to a close on a big, funk-filled high note with the release of Chico & Buddy's 7" masterpiece on the Tay-Ster imprint. "A Thing Call The Jones"

One of the great characters in rock and soul music is Jerry Williams, better known as the eccentric, idiosyncratic, and always entertaining Swamp Dogg (no relation to Snoop Doggy Dogg). A Virginia native, Williams invented his own legend by claiming that he had little proper schooling, only to wake up one day and find himself a musical genius (his words). Actually, Williams is very talented, and an early association with Jerry Wexler and Phil Walden led to him working for a number of years as a producer, engineer, and occasional songwriter with Atlantic in the '60s. At decade's end, however, he decided that the time was right to unleash Swamp Dogg's singular view of the world on an unsuspecting public. The initial result was one of the most gloriously gonzo soul recordings of all time, Total Destruction to Your Mind. The album's charm may have to do with Dogg's world view: part libertarian politics; part Zappa-style critiques of commerciality and capitalism; and part horny male, the latter defining for better and worse his view of women. Although he spent years working in the industry, Dogg was simply not the standard-issue soul type. And that was good. Dogg continued to make records, albeit infrequently, after 1969, some good, a few great, and most all extremely difficult to find. With contemporary soul sounding increasingly mannered and sterile, Dogg's yelling, screaming, and general craziness is missed. Thankfully, he hasn't disappeared for good, although he only makes records when he feels like it. It would be wise to not count him out; just when you think this Dogg is down and out, he sneaks up and bites you.

“The re-release series of original Ethiopian classic vinyl continues — the finest Ethio jazz by Mahmoud Ahmed and his band from 1975 plus two tracks from 1978. The liner notes: ‘Melancholy blues, piercingly minimalist country airs, brassy, danceable urban jazz, heart-wrenching, off-key crooners: a rich and stirring patchwork of sounds, crossing Afro-beat, Latino-swing moves and Eastern arabesques (Anaïs Prosaïc).’ Such were the first — informed and enthusiastic — opinions of the music press when the first strains of modern Ethiopian music sounded on our shores. This was in 1984-1985. Such a positive note, struck about such a country at such a time, created plenty of reverb. The country had been so thoroughly trashed by the media’s feeding-frenzy, which spewed out a mix of horror and pious pity, bitter denunciation and humanitarian appeals, wallet-tickling clichés and refusal of identity. In one brutal swoop, TV-reality transformed Ethiopia into a cursed nation, forsaken by God and by man. In contrast to these tragedies, but in the same hackneyed tones, Mahmoud Ahmed’s life resembles an edifying fairy-tale where destiny, talent and achievement combine to triumph over poverty, fate and the evil eye. Biography, history and legend, with the help of God, infallibly weave the lesson of merit rewarded. But who can argue, in spite of the mockery that celebrities invariably draw, when faced with one of the greatest voices in all of Africa? Once upon a time, there was a street urchin in Addis Ababa, who started off as a shoe-shine boy and went on to become one of his country’s biggest stars, opening the door to Ethiopian music to Western audiences.” — Francis Falceto

A few years ago the world discovered a unique sound coming from the distant Ethiopian capital Addis Abeba. The emotional blow was only matched by the brightness of this original and magnificent discovery. The Ethiopiques series directed by Francis Falcetto and edited by Buda Musique provides a comprehensive landscape of this subtle musical universe where local and western cultures do magnify each other. This new Ethiopian Urban Modern Music release follows the first Soul & Groove installment and keeps revealing some essential parts of the modern Ethiopian puzzle. An unequalled soul funk signature until today.

Another Boogie classic on PPU! So, so good!!!

Instrumental … more sweet funk from Detroit!

Classic big bucks Northern Soul sides on nice lookalike label reissue 45!

Truth & Soul's rst and only all female group, Lady, lead by the incomparable
Nicole Wray, are back with a tribute to the 60 minute man.

Classic big bucks Northern Soul sides on nice lookalike label reissue 45!

Damon Albarn & Four Tet dig this gentleman, so you should dig this forgotten master of african synth-craze, too!

Eccentric Soul: The Bandit Label takes a look at the underside of Chicago soul through twenty tracks of blistering R&B, sweet soul, and discofied funk. Hundreds of hours were spent researching, interviewing, re-mastering, and compiling the history of Bandit and the life of Arrow Brown. Unearthed in the process were two cassette tapes worth of acappella rehearsals that we've done our best to preserve in their lo-fi, in-the-red state. Numero 003 might be the deepest we'll ever dig. No map, no shovel, just a stack of 45's and a city of three million people.

The album was mostly recorded at Dan Auerbach's (The Black Keys) Easy Eye studio in Nashville, as well as L.A. and Budapest, and was produced by both Dan Auerbach and Kevin Augunas (Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Florence & The Machine).

180g Colored Vinyl with heavy-duty card sleeve!

Original recordings remastered

Classy jazzy soul from Caro.

Bow down to the 'Screaming Eagle Of Soul'! Download code for the full album is included.

"Fire Walker" is Jungle Fire's sophmore single that's blazin' up dancefloors around the world!

Classic big bucks Northern Soul sides on nice lookalike label reissue 45!

This might be the Gil Scott-Heron track next to 'The Bottle' that lights up dancefloors everywhere. Now reissued on a handy 45!

As then, calypso carries the swing. There are four more Lord Kitchener songs — in consideration of his wife leaving him for a GI, cricket umpires, a fling onboard an ocean-liner and West Indian poultry — besides a hot mambo cash-in, cross-bred under his supervision, and an uproarious, teasing Ghanaian tribute to him in Fanti by London visitors The Quavers.
Other calypsos range compellingly from the devaluation of the pound through jiu jitsu, big rubbery instruments, football fans, heavyweight champ Joe Louis and the sexual allure of English women police. The Mighty Terror contributes the woe-begotten, cautionary tale of his beloved Patricia's change of heart: 'I cannot believe, not for one moment / She gone with Millicent... / You may think I am jocular / But this really happened in Manchester / I felt so ashamed, my friends laughed at me / I had to take a train for London city.'
Ambrose Campbell is back, with six more shots of prodigal, limber, melancholic, visionary West African highlife. Also the Rolling Stones' favourite Ginger Johnson, with a percussive Latin scorcher; and Mona Baptiste, with some wonderful, soulful exotica.
Jamaican mento makes its first entry in the series, with a brace by Tony Johnson: a drily witty drinking-song, and a love-letter to Marilyn Monroe. Also finally getting some dues, the path-breaking Latin-African-jazz experiments of Ghanaian drummer and percussionist Buddy Pipp, with spine-tingling playing by the great Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott.
Expert jazz idioms course sophisticatedly through all the selections, which include a straight-up, South London version of Duke Jordan's Jordhu, something from Dizzy Reece's soundtrack — brokered by Kenneth Tynan — to the British crime film Nowhere To Go, and a trio of magnificently hybrid, hard-swinging instrumentals led in turn by master-guitarist Fitzroy Coleman, Kitch's innovative arranger Rupert Nurse, and trumpeter Shake Keane — named after Shakespeare because of his love of poetry — from St. Vincent.

Songs Volume One is a collection of material written, produced and recorded by Dwight Sykes on 4-Track Cassette, in his home studio L.U.S.T. Productions.

One of the finest voices in Southern Soul, George Jackson’s success as a writer meant he wasn’t pushed as an artist and so his vinyl output is disappointingly small. Kent Records is rectifying that with this 12-track LP.

BigM Productions is back full force!

14 tracks feat. Raashan Ahmad, The Real Fake MC, Jehro & others!

We recommend Matthew E White for no particular reason, just for his beautiful music! Give it a try!

Limited Edition 45 with custom sleeve designed by Lucky Alvarez.

ORIGINAL RECORDINGS - REMASTERED

"Psychic Welfare" was produced by Pink Skull and Jeff Zeigler (Kurt Vile, War On Drugs) between the band's Philadelphia studio and Brooklyn, NY. Contending with the seismic swells in both the macro and micro worlds around him, Grefe refracted the polluted waves in a fantastical fit to write the 13 songs of "Psychic Welfare". The album is a map of time and space portals in which the listener can navigate from the corroded corners of machinated life to boundless, amorphous space in mere seconds. Across the album's pull-out poster artwork for "Psychic Welfare" is a hand-scrawled poem by the late NYC sage Ira Cohen entitled "Blind Assemblage". In the poem, Cohen describes the decay of society and struggles to find civility within tragedy, a sentiment mirrored in Grefe's lyrical content of Psychic Welfare, if not masked by a new found pop propensity. The lead track on the album, "Hot Bubblegum," a Television-inspired piece of pop perfectly pushes this dichotomy of psychotic playfulness. "Mu" is a sprawling instrumental spread of blissed-out 80s funk, complete with a tin rooftop sax solo by Billy Dufala (Man Man). "Janine Aubergine" fictionalizes Grefe's girlfriend's bluegrass fiddle-playing aunt as a psychedelic maven over a tango groover, while "Bee Nose (Put Yr Face On)" is a woozy, hazy late-night phone call from the warped Scottish countryside circa 1998. "Summer Reading" feels like a Transformer-era Lou Reed bullying Mark E. Smith around a disco bouncey castle. Tracks from Psychic Welfare were remixed by Brassica, Higamos Hagamos, Ray Mang, and Worst Friends. Each of these remixes will be released as single support and included alongside additional original tracks as bonus downloads. The artwork of Psychic Welfare is taken from a a series of visual synth feedback experiments conducted by the band and video artist Adam Carrigan. The LP edition features a 48" x 96" heavy-stock pull out poster.

Kendra Morris' stellar and soulful debut album 'Banshee' is finally back on vinyl for the first time since 2012. Originally released via Wax Poetics, Colemine Records is now proud to make this album widely available again on record shop shelves, right where it should be. Pulling influences from late-60s and early-70s psychedelic R&B and funk, Kendra adds her own rock twist in collaboration with producer/guitarist Jeremy Page. The album is a rich sonic tapestry, with hip-hop references and beats weaving throughout. All of this sets the perfect backdrop for Kendra's known powerhouse vocals. 'Banshee' effortlessly blurs the lines between sounding old and new, and has left a lasting impression over the last decade. Kendra, in her own words, "howls like a banshee... and roars like a wolf."

Limited edition of 1,000 copies! Features remixes by highlyacclaimed artists such as ELUVIUM, DNTEL, MICE PARADE, HERSPACE HOLIDAY, MANUAL, and more! For Fans of BJÖRK, SIGUR RÖS, MUM, THE POSTAL SERVICEFollowing the release of ,Verdugo Hills" - the second album from CAROLINE, the Japanese electronic-pop songstress and MICE PARADE alum - a slew of her peers graciously answered our calls for remixes and reinterpretations of every song from the acclaimed album. Not surprisingly, the results are more successful and less ephemeral than most remix albums - a testament not only to the ingenuity of the various remixers on deck, but also CAROLINE's weightless, angelic vocals which transcend even the most jarring sonic manipulations. Along with CAROLINE's bandmates in MICE PARADE, remixers include: ELUVIUM, MANUAL, DNTEL, DEAD WAITER, LUMIA, HER SPACE HOL...

THEESatisfaction are Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White. The pair live/laugh/love/dance and create in Seattle, WA. They write, produce and perform their own material: funk-psychedelic feminista sci-fi epics with the warmth and depth of Black Jazz and Sunday morning soul, frosted with icy raps that evoke equal parts Elaine Brown, Ursula Rucker and Q-Tip. Immediately embraced for their singular sound, unflinching commentary, and immortal groove, Stas and Cat made friends, fans and family from coast to coast via their own immaculate grind; a combo of sharp digital hustle and self-booked, self-financed tours that connected them to like minds everywhere. E...

Essential pick! These buddy's "Baby" was recently covered by Hype Williams on their "Ebony" album, and both tunes are hella fresh!

Pacific Northwest isolation mixed with wide-eyed ambition, a strong sense of family and the gift of music proved to be quite the combination for teenage brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson. Originally released in 1979, Dreamin’ Wild is the sonic vision of the talented Emerson boys, recorded in a family built home studio in rural Washington State. Situated in the unlikely blink-and-you-missed-it town of Fruitland and far removed from the late 1970s punk movement and the larger disco boom, Donnie and Joe tilled their own musical soil, channeling bedroom pop jams, raw funk, and yacht rock.

Spurred on their high school’s music program, Donnie and Joe received a further push from their lifelong farmer father, who drew up a contract stating that he’d support his sons lofty ambitions with their very own recording studio as long as they focused on original material, sage advice for a man with zero experience in the music business. After taking out a second mortgage to help cover costs, Don Sr. also built his children a 300-capacity concert hall (dubbed Camp Jammin’) replete with ticket booth, stage, and fully functioning snack bar. The only problem was that the projected audience never quite materialized, despite a prime time TV profile entitled “The Rock And Roll Farmers” from nearby Spokane, Washington. Even the Emerson brother’s school pals were nonplussed at their privately pressed long player; hand distributed to local music stores, but not as far as Seattle, five hours away from their rural home. Somewhat rejected by the muted response, but never surrendering, both Donnie and Joe continued down a musical path and are still active as performers today.

Smoove is the archetypal B-Boy made good. Despite his huge international success with Smoove & Turrell and his ability to craft jazz, soul, latin, hip hop and funk into world beating dancefloor killers – he can still be found every weekend he's not playing live jumping on a plane or a train to go and DJ in Germany, Italy, Ibiza or just down to Manchester, Bristol or London wherever his diary tells him he has to go..
Wherever it is, his incredible skills behind the decks mean that he gets asked back and the breadth of the music seamlessly joined by his turntablist skills jumps from disco to funk, jazz to soul, hip hop to house and back again.
The endless flights, trains and hotel rooms are dead time to some DJ's but Smoove is always creating new tunes for his set on the fly and working his different influences into the remixes and productions he is currently on. There were at least 40 remixes that could have been included on this album but in the end he chose the ones that worked best together and made the album flow like one of his legendary DJ sets.

In the late '70s, three do-right women from Cleveland forged a brief partnership with Ohio's everything man, Lou Ragland. Unlike the prefabricated singing combos of the day, Lily Pearson, Annette Warren, and Avetta Henry swapped lead duties as situation demanded. When a Ragland-centric publicity stunt preempted a concert appearance, Love Apple disintegrated, abandoning this rehearsal tape within the lo-fi confines of Thomas Boddie's cherished Eastside studio. Devoid of bass, the sparse instrumentation (only Lou on guitar and piano and Hot Chocolate's Tony Roberson on drums) accentuates each vocalist's aptitude, showcasing some of Ragland's finest songwriting in the process. During any given take, Ragland can be heard calling audibles, directing his singers to repeat a passage, or lending his own sweet tenor to the vocal mix. Never intended for release, Love Apple's six-song sketch is the perfect companion to I Travel Alone, bringing Ragland's unique musical vision into sharper focus.

Collectable vinyl reproductions of Big Bucks classic Northern Soul.

A 7" of the mega classics!

Finally available on single LP format! All 5 parts of Dam-Funks magnum opus!

Finally available on single LP format! All 5 parts of Dam-Funks magnum opus!

Finally available on single LP format! All 5 parts of Dam-Funks magnum opus!