Funk
Track: The Allergies – ‘Move On Baby’: Let the Bristol sunshine in with this Latin-inflected banger
HIGH SUMMER, nearly solstice time already – and bringing the necessary hip swing to the longest days are The Allergies, the ever-dependable Brizzle groovers, who today drop two phials of bottled rays from the golden orb: on the A you gots “Move On Baby”, fashioned in Latin brass, swingin’, tough breaks and whistles. Yes, there’s …
Track: Glenn Fallows and Mark Trefell – ‘Faith In Time’: Brighton duo bring the louche soundtrack funk fo’ yo’ soul
ARE YOU a sucker for an imaginary soundtrack, film-score funk? Hell, I am. Ever since the days of Barry Adamson’s inestimably influential Moss Side Story, the score for a Manchester crime flick yet to be made, and its strapline: “In a black and white world, murder brings a touch of colour”. And it really did, …
Track: TOMÁ – ‘Blind War (feat. Ben LaMar Gay)’: eclectic future soul breaks herald a rising talent sans frontières
ATOM is the forthcoming and wholly anagrammatical album of the Austrian-based, Bulgarian-born leftfield beats investigator Tomá Ivanov, known for the purposes of music as TOMÁ. His particular thing, he tells us, is “avant-garde lo-fi-jazz-psychedelic-pop”, which sounds appetisingly eclectic; and which eclecticism your ears will be pleased to confirm after taking a dip into his debut …
See: Blood Wine or Honey feat. KT Tunstall – ‘Attraction’: a blue-chip songwriting friend helms a Bond theme for a fractured dream
COMING to us from the scene in Hong Kong, and comprised of multi-instrumentalists James Banbury (synths, bass, percussion, cello) and Joseph von Hess (vocals, clarinet, sax, percussion), Blood Wine or Honey describe themselves as hypno-tropicalia and fashion a technicolour haze of brazen sax, declamatory spoken word, Jimi Tenor-type pixieish funk and groove. We were pretty …
Track: Gizelle Smith – ‘Better Remember’ (They’re Controlling You)’: stellar conscious soul winds us towards her album
STELLAR frontwoman of the excellent funk freestylers The Mighty Mocambos Gizelle Smith has followed up her out-there-in-orbit cover of Kate Bush’s “King Of The Mountain” with a double drop of conscious, expansive, neo-psychedelic soul, “Better Remember (They’re Controlling You)” and “Miss World (Less Is More)”; and we’ve got that digital A-side for you to listen …
See: Blood Wine or Honey feat. Zoe Brewster – ‘Testing Time’: popping with colour, welcome this hypno-Afro-tropicalia funk into your world
THEY call their particular thang hypno-tropicalia, and it certainly is that; and whoah! so much more. Much more. They paint their irresistible, off-the-wall, deliciously weird groove styles in the brightest colours, and it’s kinda, hmmm, hypno-Afro-tropicalia-jazz-funk-disco, strongly declamatory, punk-funk-jazz, all the compounds and inversions of that. It’s out there on an underlit dancefloor in the …
Track: The Allergies feat. Dynamite MC – ‘Lean On You’: reach out to each other and glory in some quickfire fun
THANK the good lord for the fun. The Allergies kept us keeping on through the trials and tribulations of last year with so many great single drops – “Get Yourself Some” and “I’m On It”, “Just Got That Feeling”, more – and a party-vibe fourth album, Say The Word, which helped a lot, brought the …
Album review: Nubiyan Twist – ‘Freedom Fables’: the sound of the summer we deserve
WHEN all of this (gestures expansively at the pandemic) is over we’re going to want live music. We’re going to need live music. Hell, we’re going to deserve live music. Freedom Fables, Nubiyan Twist’s follow up to their acclaimed Jungle Run from spring 2019, on Strut Records, feels like the gig we need; the gig …
EP review: Toronto’s The Luvmenauts release electro-jazz delight, ‘Extravehicular Activity’
Shapeshifting, genre defying and pleasantly eclectic; a true transcendental journey into space
Album review: El Michels Affair -‘Yeti Season’: Big Crown kingpin proves he’s a 10th dan at soundtrack funk magic
Yeti Season? Pretty stunning. Leon is a soundtrack music 10th dan; an absolute master of the craft. Slip Yeti Season onto the decks, you have the most diverse, exciting, retro-soundtrack waiting there for you; there maybe no one better at this kind of the thing in the world right now. One moment R.D. Burman with Piya his Lata Mangeshkar, another Lalo Schifrin, another Piero Piccioni; all are here, ten short films in themselves, these tracks, scenes from a film so ace you have to make it. In your head. Pick yourself up Adult Themes, grab a giant bucket of popcorn, make it a double bill. Absurdly brilliant. Buy.