Back catalogue: All genres

Review: The recent Tokyo Dreaming compilation on Wewantsounds was a huge success so the label does the right thing and follows it up with another collection of sounds from the Far East. This one again looks into the fascinatingly niche city pop sound with expert digger DJ Notoya at the wheels. He delves into the Nippon Columbia catalogue and turns out all manner of breezy and laidback gems from Hiroshi Sato, Hitomi "Penny" Tohyama, Midori Hara and more. In many cases, these tunes are making it tot vinyl for the first time. What's more, the audio has been newly remastered in Tokyo for this reissue making sure it sounds as good as possible.

Review: DJ Notoya returns with another expertly curated selection of Japanese gems, this time delving into the funky, soulful, and city pop sounds of King Records. Spanning the years 1974 to 1988, this compilation is a treasure trove of forgotten classics and hidden gems, a sonic time capsule that transports listeners back to the neon-lit streets and vibrant nightlife of 1980s Japan. Buzz's 'Garasumado' kicks things off with an infectious groove and funky guitar riffs that could rival any Western funk classic. Mami Ayukawa's 'Sabita Gambler' adds a touch of soulful sophistication, her smooth vocals gliding over lush instrumentation. Keiko Toda's 'Fade In' is a city pop gem, its dreamy melodies and catchy hooks evoking a sense of carefree optimism and urban cool. Elsewhere, Johnny Yoshinaga's soulful ballad 'The Rain' provides a moment of introspection, while Kumiko Sawada's disco-infused 'Your Love's Away' will get you moving and grooving. The compilation closes with the feelgood sounds of Masatoshi Kanno's 'Day By Day', a perfect encapsulation of the city pop aesthetic.

Review: Adding to the fervour around Japanese city pop - the genre is still a clogged but speculative seep for reissuers, who are keen to capitalise on the mainly Tokyo-born genre's still underground, under-recognised reserves of music - comes DJ Nutoya with a fresh and terse ten-tracker compilation: Tokyo Bliss. This breezy selection centres on the all-rounder genre's favourite international foci, boogie and funk: frissonic formulas for sensational home listening. Most tracks here make their debut on vinyl outside of Japan; from Buzz's pristine tremolo'er 'Garasumado', to Keiko Toda's escape-noteworthy 'Fade In' and Yuji Mitsuya's delirious summer disco dirge 'After Five At Caf-Bar', this is an impeccable curation job.

Review: Following the success of their previous Tokyo Glow compilation, Wewantsounds once again team up with Japanese Tokyo-based DJ Notoya to dig up the rich Electric Bird catalogue, and come with a subsequent, versatile selection of sunny jazz-funk gems recorded between 1978 and 1987 for the label. A tasty selection featuring Yasuaki Shimizu, Toshiyuki Honda and Mikio Masuda, together with a few American musicians such as Ronnie Foster and Bobby Lyle, most tracks here are making their debut outside of Japan, the album comes with a full annotation by Notoya and is a multifarious meander through every angle of the polygonal gamut of J-jazz, disco, city pop, and funk. Highlights include Masuda's 'Let's Get Together' and Foster's prototypical wonky funk number, 'Night Life'.

Review: On their latest must-check compilation, Wewantsounds has brought together a bunch of rare early disco and disco-funk gems originally released by Bod Shad's Mainstream Records - an imprint better-known for its jazz and jazz-funk output - during the mid 1970s. Most of the material on show was originally released on now hard-to-find 7" singles, allowing Wewantsounds to present both vocal and instrumental takes of a handful of killer cuts. Highlights include the Clavinet sporting, low-down disco brilliance of The Grand Jury's 'Music Is Fun To Me', the soaring, disco-soul brilliance of 'We've Got Together (Brotherly Love)' by Chocolate Syrup, the classically orchestrated disco surge of Crystal Image's 'Gonna Have a Good Time', and the slow motion swell of The Electric Ladies' 'Nothing Between Us'.

Review: Dating back to the 1920s, rai music emerged in Algeria as a synthetic hodgepodge of Islamic regional and religious musical styles with Western harmony and electronic instrumentation. Located in the major coastal city of Oran, rai music bisected a nighttime economy that emphasised bawdy nightclubs and cabaret, resulting in a distinctive Andalusian-Arabian style. This new compilation from Wewantsounds, joined with curating musician and rare vinyl record exponent Cheb Gero, documents the very cream of the rai scene from the time of the late 80s and early 90s. Cheb Zahouani, Chaba Zohra and Abderrahmane Djalti all epitomise the dashing verve of this mostly tape-bound scene.

Review: Some compilations are clearly a labour of love. That's certainly the case with Sharayet El Disco, a superb collection curated by Amsterdam-based Egyptian DJ Disco Arabesquo (real name Moataz Rageb). It dips into his ever-expanding collection of hard-to-find Egyptian disco and boogie cassettes released between 1982 and '92, offering up a selection of colourful dance tracks that frequently add Arabic vocals and instrumentation to authentic, American style disco and boogie grooves. Highlights are plentiful, from the stomping disco surge of Afaf Rady's 'Tany Tany' and the glossy, fretless bass-sporting synth-pop of 'Merci' by Simone, to the low-slung Arabic synth-funk of Frikit El Azdeqaa's 'Eqleb El Sheret', and the dreamy boogie brilliance of Americana Show's 'Yom Wi Lilah'.