Ubiquity Us レコード& CD

Review: Having landed his debut album Bosq Y Orchestra De Madera on Ubiquity Records back in 2013, Bosq will be returning with his second long player on the Californian label later this year. Take Over is the second 12" laid down as a precursor of what Bosq has up his sleeve and the Boston-based Whisky Baron is certainly on good form. Known for his towering vocal contributions to Fela's Egypt 80, Benin-born / Nigerian-raised singer Kaleta once again lines a Bosq production in lead cut "Take Over", and it might just be their heaviest collaboration yet! The Less Patient edit adds a bit of dancefloor weight to the track. Flip for the dense, delay heavy afrobeat burner "Bounce And Pull Up" which features some devilish horns from Evan Laflamme.

Review: Manuel Holcolm has said that he was more involved in the creative process on this tune that he was given credit for on the original label. Either way, the tune was first put out in 1969 and is all about war veterans returning home from Vietnam only to find out their lady hadn't waited for them. It's rough and raw, real and emotional as you would expect, despite the fact that it is all imagined feelings as Holcolm himself never actually served javelin started his career almost a decade earlier in 1961 in the Motown Studios.

Review: Headed up by Benin-born Kaleta - a guitarist who has previously worked with Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade and Lauryn Hill - Super Yamba Band is a New York collective whose decidedly psychedelic fusions of Afrobeat, Highlife and Afro-funk have been getting rave reviews. "Medaho" is their debut album and it more than lives up to the hype. With Kaleta's variously fuzzy, sun-kissed and flash-fried licks to the fore, the band trips its way through nine mostly dancefloor-friendly workouts that wrap heavy funk instrumentation, rousing horns and Afrobeat style organ riffs around polyrhythmic drums that recall the distinctive swing of Tony Allen. It's a stylistic blend that guarantees results, as the sheer volume of highlights triumphantly proves.

Review: Kaleta's first full-length collaboration with the Super Yamba Band, 2019's "Medaho", was something of a slept-on treat: a fiendishly psychedelic Afrobeat affair that was every bit as heavy, colourful and vibrant as you'd expect. Here, one of the album's standout tunes gets the remix treatment courtesy of long-serving, party-starting musical fusionist Bosq. The Ubiquity and Soul Clap stalwart delivers vocal and instrumental passes of "Jibiti", both of which make great use of Kaleta's vocals and Super Yamba Band's fuzzy, Fela Kuti-style horn lines. Bosq's groove is closer in feel to Afro-disco than the original album version, though the bassline, organ stabs and vocals are pure Afrobeat gold.

Review: Mistura Pura is an alias for Italian jazz funk artist Federica Grappasonni, who first came to light via the 2018 album Hollywood Spritz on Ubiquity. After a follow-up two years later, finally Grappasonni is back with this classy 7", which we can only assume precedes another long player for Ubiquity soon after. 'Vamo Vive' and 'Ed E' are everything you could wish for from her welcome return, bursting with infectious groove and exquisite musicality. Cop this smoking hot single now and be the first to spread the good word about this stellar artist and her latest sounds.

Review: Mistura Pura has a playful sound that results from the fact the artist behind it, Federica Grappasonni, has spent 25 years as DJ, singer and vinyl collector exploring all different genres, eras and scenes. She brings all that together on this new 45rpm for Ubiquity: 'Mah 'Wah' Funk' is a colourful gem with deep disco drums and plenty of bendy guitars full of psyched out magic. Expressive vocals and boogie bass complete a vibrant and vivid picture. 'Love Is Full Of Colours' is a kaleidoscope of tumbling melodies and twinkling synths with a more far-sighted cosmic feel.

Review: So far spring has been a real wash out here in the UK. As this is typed, the drizzle has been falling non-stop for 12 hours. But as soon as the first few bars of these Flying Mojito Bros Refritos versions of Rudy Norman's 'Bacl to the Streets' play out, our mood is lifted. There is sunshine b the lush keys, warmth in the bass and feel good groove in the gentle rhythms. The original is included and has a more angular and arts feel, while the dub is the most cosmic and rolling of the lot. You can always rely on Ubiquity for some sunny goodness

Review: Since taking up music production following a career-ending football injury, 20-something Leeds lad Reuben Vaun Smith has delivered two tropical-tinged, Balearic-inspired albums for Soundway. On his third full-length (his first for long-serving Californian label Ubiquity Records), the Yorkshireman refocuses a little more on the dancefloor, offering up a range of attractive cuts that combine his love of mid-tempo, dubbed-out disco with African, Latin and Middle Eastern vocals, rhythms and instrumentation - as well as a heavy dose of psychedelic sounds and trippy effects. It's a smart shift that's undoubtedly paid dividends, with our picks of a very strong bunch including 'Beams', the dreamy 'Mali' (a track inspired by that country's vibrant musical culture), and the life-affirming dancefloor shuffle of 'The Waxing Gibbous Moon'.

Review: Osei Korankye hails from Accra, Ghana and is a talented musician known as one of his homeland's last remaining seperewa musiciana. These tracks throw it back to the heyday of the sound in 1970 but were recorded in Brooklyn, NY as well as Accra when Korankye linked up with Super Yamba bandleader and drummer Daniel Yount for a few gigs in New York City in 2017. It was an effortless collaboration that resulted in some super psychedelic funk tunes that are designed for carefree dancing.

Review: Gloria Ann Taylor, the famed soul singer from Ohio, is regarded as having recorded some of the most rare and sought-after singles of the 1970s. It may come as a surprise, then, to hear that Taylor has returned posthumously, this time for a collaborative new single with Estonian psych-funk and soul producer Misha Panfilov. 'Be Worthy' is a gospel-esque tune, with Gloria's incredible vocals and Misha's vintage production coalescing to form a fresh rendition of Taylor's original oeuvre, but with an unusually Balearic flair.

Review: Rose Robinson's debut album as Tigerbalm, 2022's International Love Affair, was a genuinely glorious affair in which she wrapped indigenous instrumentation and all manner of global music influences around grooves rooted in cosmic disco, nu-disco, proto-house, Italo and Balearic beats. This palette of influences once again comes to the fore on this remixed version, which boasts some of her favourite artists rework tracks from the LP. It's all killer, no filler - as the old saying goes - with our picks including Session Victim''s percussive deep house fix of 'Cocktail D'Amore', Isaac Soto's devilishly dubbed-out interpretation of 'La Brisa', a hybrid jazz-funk/Balearic soul re-build of 'Cosmic Camel' by Mystic Jungle, and a predictably proto-house leaning vocal interpretation of 'Tokyo Business' by Andrew Meecham AKA The Emperor Machine.

Review: Tigerbalm is the solo project from Nicola Rose Robinson, and it has impressed over the last couple of years with music on Peng and Ubiquity. Now she returns to the latter for a new single packed with great remixes. The original is 'Waiheke', a loose-limbed rhythm with bubbling drums, rich percussion and tribal vocals that will work any dance floor into a lather. The Alma Negra remix brings more funky bass, while the Bananas For Breakfast remix slows things down to a languid crawl. On the flip, the Demi Riquisimo mix is more minimal and deep and Quartz and Tiger Sunset then offer two different perspectives to close this vital EP.

Review: Second time around for Kon's fabulous re-rubs of Twilight's slept-on 1986 disco-boogie gem 'You're In Love', which first dropped on seven-inch almost a decade ago. Vinyl copies of the 45 are hard to come by, so this Ubiquity Records re-issue is most welcome. Kon's takes stick closely to the original - these are multi-track tweaks, rather than revolutionary remixes - while subtly beefing up the groove and highlighting the band's weighty synth bassline. On the A-side you'll find the full vocal take - all sweet vocals, crispy disco drums, colourful synths and clipped, Chic style guitar licks - while the flip-side 'Dub' is a marginally more minimalist, groove-focused affair, with delay-laden vocal snippets and swirling instrumental textures echoing across the sound space.

Review: "Huxley's Howl" by Bay-area keyboard savant Howard Wales was originally released as a 7in single in the early '70s on his own Costal Records imprint. Luv N'Haight is proud to present the first official reissue of this classic slice of mid-tempo, instrumental funk, loaded with stabbing horns, explosive Hammond organ and heavy drums with a nice dose of psychedelic vibes to round out it out. The B-side "My Blues" chugs along at a slower pace, with a "bluesier" sound as the title suggests while keeping the same killer psych flavor as the A-side.

Known primarily for his work alongside Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia on their collaborative album "Hooteroll" while also appearing on the Dead's seminal "American Beauty" LP, Howard Wales had already established himself as a talented player during the mid-1960's working and touring with the likes of Ronnie Hawkins, the Four Tops and the Godfather of Soul himself James Brown. A true original and progenitor of the oft-used but mostly maligned "Acid Jazz" genre, Howard Wales paved the way for the psychotropically enhanced excursions of 70s' Jazz, Funk, Soul and fusion.