Be With レコード& CD

Review: It was only last year Lewis Taylor returned after 18 years with the warmly received NUMB. As an unconventional spirit within the modern British soul scene, he's always pursued his own path whether recording in the late 80s as Sheriff Jack or working with Gnarls Barkley. In 2002, in the wake of a deal with Island Records, he struck out on his own with two-part psychedelic soul opus Stoned, and here we get a reissue of Stoned - Part II laid down on wax for the very first time courtesy of Be With. If you have a thing for blue-eyed soul as well as Shuggie Otis' dreamy approach to songwriting and instrumentation, you're going to love this record.

Review: One of the great unsung talents of 21st Century British soul, Lewis Taylor's legacy in fact reaches back to the 80s and long stints as a solo artist and collaborator. He even signed to Island Records at the turn of the millennium, but after a couple of albums went independent and conjured up a double-album opus over the course of two years which begins with this hidden gem, Stoned - Part I. Now Be With have done the right thing and revisited this and other greats from Taylor's catalogue and given it a proper vinyl pressing, giving you the chance to savour his blue-eyed psychedelic songwriting all over again, or perhaps indeed for the first time.

Review: Lewis Taylor has been around the block with his music, originally releasing pyschedelic music in the 80s as Sheriff Jack, and then coming through as Lewis Taylor in 1996 with his self-titled debut LP. Hitting a sweet spot in the inventive realms of neo-soul, he enjoyed considerable success with a run of LPs over 10 years before stepping back to work as a musical director and bassist for Gnarls Barkley and other projects. Now he's back with his first solo record in 17 years, exploring a range of moods and production styles while stitching everything together with his evergreen soulful croon.

Review: Lewis Taylor self-released self-titled 1996 album is often spoken of as his masterpiece. It remains a modern classic more than a quarter of a century later as it stylishly and effortlessly mixes up neo-soul, pop and laid back funk. Original copies are incredibly hard to find let alone affordable so this is another timely reissue form Be With. The music has shades of every from Price to Gaye to Hendrix. It can be intimate and vulnerable as well as bold and empowering and is always hugely sensitively charged at all times. Highlights include the likes of the swinging, sombre funk of 'Whoever' and bittersweet feels of 'Betterlove.'

Review: .Lewis Taylor has always roamed fairly creatively freely with his music. He emerged at first releasing psychedelic music in the 80s under the name Sheriff Jack, then as Lewis Taylor in 1996 he offered a self-titled long player debut that explored the neo-soul sound of the day. He put out plenty of albums after that, an even played bass with Gnarls Barkley. Much of his work is being reissued right now including Lewis II which mixes up soul and breaks, funk and beats, with plenty of percussive grooves and expressive vocals that fans of James Lidell will love.

Review: British library musician and composer Alan Tew has one of his many magnum opuses, Drama Suite Part II, reissued by KPM. With the label keen to flaunt its first edition's going rate on Discogs, Tew's follow-up to the first part is a holy grail for library music collectors, owing to its performative subtlety, breadth of mood, and doubtless bottling of several modish styles of the time: noir, dark jazz, explotiation theme music. The track 'Stonechange' in particular hears many coded rerubs, with many versions and sub-versions, as was of the factual, rationalistic and methodical approach to the library music of the 1970s and early 80s. It's also got an indelibly clean sound: as with all KPM reissues, the audio for Drama Suite Part II comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis.

Review: Todd Russell and The Dangerous Coats (aka. Scotty Coats and Erick "Todd" Coomes) are destined to impress with their of psychedelic rock and ethereal electronics on their latest single, Playa Larga. Touted as "in very real danger of being lost forever", this is an unearthing of two of their private downtempo-ish recordings, which both come on a double A-side 12" adorned with artwork by Arizona artist Frank Gonzales. Hailing from LA, they wear their hometown on their sleeve here, charting the mood of heat-hazed convertible sweats and brand boulevard cruisings, albeit with a humid rainforested twist.

Review: Emergency! is the debut double album from US jazz great Tony Williams' fusion group The Tony Williams Lifetime, which brought John McLaughlin in on guitar and Larry Young in on organ for a session widely hailed as a landmark in the development of jazz fusion. Williams' drum work is central to the fierce rock energy which courses through the record, while elements of free jazz, modal and post-bop all spill into the mix over a thrilling 70-minute run time. Way ahead of its time in 1969 and now rightly recognised for the influence it's since wreaked, it's an essential document for anyone serious about their jazz history.

Review: Slow (Motion And Movement) was originally released on the Sonoton label back in 1980. It is a cult favourite now, much revered for its chipped, cut and edited takes on library breaks. The super sought after record gets a full reissue here from the good folks at Be With and is full of some of the most heat, dubbed out, slow and twisted library breaks you could ever imagine hearing. In between those monstrous moments are plenty of new age and synth style tracks that are all just as good. This most varied and vital selection is an essential one for all serious diggers.

Review: Vecchio's Afro-Rock is one big horn-heavy, bass-blasting, Latin groove funk-rock party. Only now, you're all invited because this, ladies and gentleman, is officially... a grail no more. With copies currently starting at 400 Euros for an original, this beautifully presented reissue, part of Be With's fresh campaign with Music De Wolfe, is well overdue. A magnificent and somewhat obscure library set that's just a total, cohesive joy from start to finish, this here is the soundtrack to all your smokin' summer BBQs and communal cookouts.

Review: At the time of his passing in 2017, the late, great soul star Leon Ware was working on a new album with long-time collaborator Taylor Graves. Although he never finished it, Be With has decided to put together a final posthumous album that contains the five songs he finished for the set - which, impressively, include cameos from the likes of Kamasi Washington and Thundercat - and six cuts from an obscure, Japan-only CD from 2013. It's a wonderful listen from start to finish, with the Latin-tinged soul-jazz of "For The Rainbow", the head-nodding boogie business of "Sigh" and the synth-laden, strangely swung brilliance of "Are You Ready" amongst the highlights.

Review: Not to be confused with Klaus WeiB, the East Germany-born handball hero of the Summer Olympics 1972, although born in the same era, this Klaus Weiss is in fact the man who started out as a jazz drummer before expanding his remit to other instruments and genres, winding up pretty prolific in the world of movie and TV scores. As can be heard here.

While not directly linked to, taken from, or inspired by screen work, Open Space underscores (ahem) many of the same totems. It's un-rushed, yet tracks are relatively brief, not much more than interludes. Each feels similar to the next, but they clearly invoke very different emotional responses. Somewhere between synth-laden fantasy soundtracks of yore, and medieval court music, it's like going into the future only to realise civilisation has gone backwards while retaining some of its tech prowess.