Be With レコード& CD

Review: This is one of those albums that is for the real heads - a deep, dark, moody mix of new soul and hip-hop from the great vocalist you might well have recognised from Roni Size/Reprazent's seminal New Forms album. Released in 1996, it showcases Bahamadia's distinctive flow and insightful lyricism with tracks like 'Uknowhowwedu' and '3 the Hard Way' effortlessly navigating intricate beats and soulful samples to deliver messages of empowerment and introspection. As such the LP embodies the essence of 90s hip-hop in the way it blends jazz-infused production with Bahamadia's smooth delivery. As a pioneer for female MCs, Bahamadia's influence should reverberate through generations.

Review: Tommy Guerrero's sublime debut album Loose Grooves And Bastard Blues carved out his name as a musician, and followed hot on the heels of an already established skateboarding career. It's not often we can name an artist whose talents lend just as well to the axe as they do to the deck, but it's plain to see on this insouciant jazz/bossa nova collection: Guerrero is one dextrous bloke. With the skate career held firmly in mind, we can easily imagine these numbers as the backing cuts to a fish-eyed trickstyle video; it's a great testament to the pure joy of music-making too, with Guerrero insisting: "it was never meant to be released. I was just recording for the fun of it - still my fave. Oh so naive!"

Review: Guitarist, composer and skateboarder Tommy Guerrero hears several of his earliest albums reissued now via Be With, of which 2008's Return Of The Bastard was his fifth. Still evidently deep in the throes of recording for the pure fun of it, this fifteen-track album reflects a pure lyricless enjoyment that few other of Guerrero's contemporaries could ever hope to share. Perhaps it's the meditative truck of his earlier skate career that course-corrected his frame of mind to pure creative meditativeness; here driving noisy drum machines, lightly-amped two-tones, the occasional kalimba and faint vocals all collide for the perfect accompaniment to an implied visual narrative.