Review: Hip-hop super group Dinner Party is made up of Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin and 9th Wonder. They have a wide array of sounds and skills between them and put them to good use on their second album Enigmatic Society, which is presented here as a Japanese Edition on milk-clear white vinyl with the requisite obi-strip. This is super smooth material that mixes up hip hop, new soul, jazz and plenty of great samples to make for a laidback and romantic record full of lovely vocals from the likes of Phoenix, Orin Ray and Ant Clemens.
Review: Healing Force Project is prolific Italian artist Antonio Marini. Over the last decade he has dropped plenty of heat on the likes of Firecracker, Berceuse Heroique, 2 Headed Deer, Random Numbers and more. Drifted Entities Vol 1 is his latest offering and is an experimental take on dub, cosmic funk, jazz and drum & bass with the HFP signature unifying it all. 'Tiny Germs' opens up on dark, sparse drums that are kinda haunting then 'Upbeat Damage' is a deconctructed jungle jazz cut with squealing synths that bring the horror. The flip side continues in that eerie manner with fresh musicality and loose arrangements drawing you in.
Review: Hip-hop head and dizzyingly dexterous DJ J Rocca is back with another musical celebration of the exit from office of the worst president in the history of the United States of America. This is the 6th such volume of 'Impeach' and it is a tight woven tapestry and skilful mash-up of no fewer than 14 flips of surely one of the most sampled songs in the history of hip hop. Masterfully mixed together and limited to 500 copies, this is a strong sonic statement that will stand the test of time.
Review: Two formerly passed-over bonus tracks from two of Lettuce's earlier records, 2008's Rage! and 2012's Fly respectively. The US collective and Berklee College graduates, seasoned stalwarts of funk and soul, first featured 'Monorail 3000' and 'Star Children' as afterthoughts on their otherwise sprawling third and fourth records, both funded by Velour Recordings. The tracks alternate between dextrose sweetness on the light-rail A and cosmic rocketship B-side, demonstrating the great versatility of these all-heart alumni.
Review: New Digital Fidelity has been making sweet moves recently with a debut on the lauded Moods & Grovers label out of Detroit followed up by a single on his own Scopic Records. Now he brings his class to Crush On The Beachside and again shows off his love of Detroit house vibes. Opener 'Crush On The Beachside' is raw and intense with humid chords and jacked-up drums, then 'Shattered' brings more loose and jumbled beatdown grooves and 'Crush On The Beachside' (K15 remix) is then bubbly, jazzy and cuddly. 'Cracking' rounds out with more rich chord work and bristling drum funk.
Review: Theo Parrish is giving his new album with Maurissa Rose the full treatment - serving it up on his preferred vinyl, but also as a CD and here a cassette on his own label Sound Signature. It is a complete coming together of these two revered Detroit musical talents following a string of great singles with one another since 2019. As you can expect, the grooves are dusty, complex and rooted in house but with plenty of influences from soul, funk and jazz. The vocals from Rose are as smooth as you like and take the form of soulful streams of consciousness. Utterly vital.
Review: Oakland's SNDTRAK dropped his long awaited debut album back in 2021. It was a big hit right off the bat and now it gets a welcome reissue. These are snappy beats with rolling drums, deep hip hop instrumentals that bring the best of the dusty school to fresh new school thinking. Delicate melodies are buried within, soulful vocal smears drift in and out of ear shot and well played bass slowly rotate sunder the tunes to bring languid funk. Sunny and heart aching, heat damaged and stoned, this is a warming soundtrack on many different levels.
Review: Two years ago, Thomas Xu announced himself via a fine debut 12" on Sound Signature where he shared vinyl space with Julion De'Angelo. Here he launches his own label, Steady Flight Circle, via a first full solo EP of his own. It's really rather good, with Xu combining spacey jazz-funk synths, emotive chord progressions and rich musicality with beats that tend towards the jazzy, broken and off-kilter. All three tracks feel loose, warm and immediate, as if they were jammed-out in one take. While they clearly weren't, this improvised feel is hugely endearing. From the sounds of "Different Widsoms", Xu will clearly be a producer to watch in the months and years ahead.
Review: Thomas Xu from Steady Flight Circle and Tommy Kladis from Music Time with Friends come together on this new cassette-only release that captures three of their sessions at Kladis's studio. Xu was on synthesizers while Kladis was in charge of samples, drums and loops on the SP-555 and the final touch was lo-fi drums from John Shaughnessy. It takes the form of two extended jams that reach out to almost 15 minutes of dusty, ambient-laced soundscapes with distant percussive details and melancholic moods. 'Klaxu' has more darkness and more prominent rhythms to it but both pieces make for escapist listening.
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