Christiana Essien
Patience

Sind N'Bassa - Afro Funk music from the Togolese singer Mamo Lagbema. Records in a good shape but sound very noisy !

Theo Bijlhout is a Surinamese gospel singer from Paramaribo. It is there that he owns his own record shop in the centre of town and there where he recorded his small but well-formed discography in the late 1970s. This is one of the standout tunes from it and was his first-ever release in 1977. A good quality original copy is hard to find and relatively pricey but this reissue helps you out there. 'Get Down Cause Ain't Funky' is the real gem with its afro drumming, smooth grooves and lively vocals next to the big horns. 'It's Gonna Be Different Now' is a slower, more sentimental sound with a tender vocal and deeper sense of remorse.

There’s liberation on the dance floor in the songs of Matthew Urango – glimpses of revolution that glimmer beneath the disco ball. “I want my music to bring people together,” says the Californian pop innovator, best known as Cola Boyy. “Because standing together is our best chance at fighting this shit show.” The shit show in question is a broken, brutal system the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist has witnessed up-close. Urango was born with spina bifida and scoliosis in Oxnard, California: a town in which almost 30,000 are estimated to live in poverty. Prosthetic Boombox, his eagerly awaited debut album, might at first glance seem a joyous confetti-burst of pop eclecticism, engineered to sound like “scanning between stations on a car radio, landing on all these different sounds and styles” as Urango puts it. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll discover a simmering sense of rebellion. “The working class are injured, struggling to pay rent and struggling to put food on the table,” he says. “I want to represent that.” Prosthetic Boombox achieves that goal in a thrilling flurry of inventive indie, funk and soul: take Urango’s car radio analogy, place it in a time-travelling Delorean with Prince in the passenger seat, and you’re half-way there. Look no closer than Prosthetic Boombox’s euphoric opener, the Avalanches-assisted ‘Don’t Forget Your Neighborhood.’ The track – which Urango says mixes “the Beach Boys, French disco, house keys and ragtime piano, kinda like the Cheers soundtrack!” – ends with lyrics urging listeners to “fight for your town with your fist closed, strike it and make it more than just a memory.” It’s a reminder that the working classes need to “turn our fists against our oppressors instead of each other,” he explains. After that emphatic introduction comes a horn-laced funk wig-out titled ‘Mailbox’ – a song that gives Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia a run for its Studio 54-themed money, featuring rising Londoner JGrrey. Elsewhere, ‘Song For The Mister’ ventures into smooth R&B territory, before ‘Roses’ – a collaboration with Myd of Ed Banger fame – offers a bouquet of bustling disco guitars and Infinite Bisous of Connan Mockasin’s band drops in on the immaculate ‘Go The Mile’. Urango saves his most introspective moment for the album’s starry closer. ‘Kid Born In Space’, a cosmic collaboration with MGMT frontman Andrew VanWyngarden, sees the artist reflect on what he once had to overcome as a disabled person of colour. “I see them looking down on my dreams of being,” he sings tenderly. “I hear them making fun of my voice, but I keep on moving forward, I refuse to live in anyone else’s shadow.” Prosthetic Boombox, on this subject, is more than an album title – it’s a statement of intent.

A new star rises in the twilight of funky-soul-jazz as Ernie Hawks releases his debut album Scorpio Man on Timmion Records. The impressive trombonist/flutist is known to hold no punches when performing live in the ranks of The Soul Investigators. Here he delivers a fierce selection of S.O.U.L. and Cymande flavored instrumentals that also bring to mind some of the finest sample-fodder library music. Take a chance with the Scorpio Man, his sting will give you a high much better than what they sell in the streets.

This rather rare and emotionally raw disco bomb from Jackie Stoudemire & Al Stewart landed back in 1998 and often fetches upwards of L300, if you can find it. It now gets a full remaster and is presented with replica artwork for Record Store Day 2020. Opening salvo 'Dancing' is an uplifting jam with laid bare vocals soaring over a tight, kinetic rhythm section. After the dancing thrills of that one, 'The Two Of Us' is a more sentimental slow dance for lazy Sundays, and 'Running' closes out the triptych somewhere in between, with soaring strings and life-affirming Rhodes riffs.Jackie STOUDEMIRE / AL STEWARTDancing (remastered) (Record Store Day 2020)Tap

“Never before released 1974 recording of the Californian Soul Jazz outfit ‘HIGH RISK’ !”A unique musical experience that is oozing the spiritual freedom of the early seventies in a creative mixture of jazz, folk and blues – all fuelled with political lyrics.From an all-female band consisting of Virginia Rubino (of BeBe K’Roche fame) on keys, Cyndy ”Cynth” Mason Fitzpatrick (of flutemedicine fame) on saxes and flute, Bobi Jackson on bass and Sandy Ajida on percussion. The album features 6 original tracks including the full mix of Common Woman with all 6 poems by critically acclaimed poet and author Judy Grahn, who also contributed to the new liner-notes. Limited pressing of 500 copies, comes sealed in American style paste-on cover and with lyrics and poster inside.