…includes three bonus tracks: covers of Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time,” William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
“Johnny can do what he wants,” Sturgill Simpson told Uncut when his new alias debuted on 2024’s Passage Du Desir, which found him rolling through Paris streets “like a cork in a bottle” while listening to ‘70s soft rock and Serge Gainsbourg.
His first five albums proper had burned Nashville bridges during an odyssey through outlaw country, psychedelia, synths and Kentucky bluegrass, while tracing the five metaphysical phases of the Western soul.
Johnny Blue Skies blew this preordained cycle away. He feels more real this time round, not…
Category: funk
In the glory days of Italy’s library music session scene, Giancarlo Barigozzi and his cohorts were like Milan’s answer to L.A.’s legendary Wrecking Crew — if the latter were cutting one-size-fits-all soundtrack music for film and TV licensing. One main difference is that The Wrecking Crew never got to put their names on the records.
Sax/flute wizard Barigozzi and his peers worked on tons of sessions — and not just library music. They would get the call to come play when American jazz heavyweights blew through Italy, be it Joe Venuti or Gerry Mulligan. But in the wide-ranging world of library sessions, Barigozzi could wail in a genre-agnostic way, whether he was diving into electroacoustic experimentalism, chamber-jazz impressionism, early-adopter…
Returning with Ayô Dele, meaning “joy comes to me” in the Yoruba language, Afro-French collective Ireke serve up a suitably joyous blend of Afrobeat, soul, funk and more. At the centre of the sonic storm is Julien Gervaix, who plays sax, keyboards, bass and programs beats. His musical accomplice Damien Tesson offers up further percussion, guitars, keys and dub effects, while vocal duties are shared by a number of featured singers. The most notable of these, Beninese-Nigerian vocalist Nayel Hóxò, raps and sings in Yoruba and English with joyful abandon on slinky Afro-funk number ‘Ta Logbe Jongo’. She adds similar punch and verve to the smooth yet funky ‘Soulshine’. Elsewhere, regular vocal collaborator Agnès Hélène brings beautifully languid vocals…
Brian Jackson has always been an enigma. The multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger was Gil Scott-Heron’s songwriting and recording partner on nine albums, and the architect of the Midnight Band’s sound melding poetry, soul, jazz, blues, and funk. Following their split, he kept a low profile. Later he played sessions with everybody from Roy Ayers and Oneness of Juju to Kool & the Gang and Charnett Moffett.
Along the way he cut his own records, including 2021’s instrumental Brian Jackson JID008 and 2022’s This Is Brian Jackson. 2026’s Now More Than Ever, is a 19-track multi-disc set that revisits his material with Scott-Heron (the cover mimics the 1976 album It’s Your World). It was cut in collaboration with New York production…
Fela Kuti has been rediscovered all around the globe in the last 20 years in ever changing inspirational ways. Probably there is no major city in Europe or the US today without an ensemble that heavily references Fela Kuti.
…Fela Kuti in Dub takes us to one of Germanys hubs of Fela Kuti admiration: a small studio in the bluecollar district Untergiesing in Munich. This is the workspace of drummer, producer, dub fanatic, and DJ: Captain Yossarian. The studio complex is home to an illustrious group of musicians: Krautrock pioneers Embryo, Poets of Rhythm mastermind Jan Weissenfeldt, Franz Ferdinands guitar player Nick Mc Carthy or local (also Fela Kuti loving) Express Brassband who all work here. Occasionally bands visiting Munich…
Sixteen killer 70s reggae funk and soul cuts from the likes of John Holt, Lee Perry, Cornel Campbell, The Cimarons , The Chosen Few and more featuring superb reggae takes on songs by artists including The Jackson 5, William DeVaughn, Diana Ross and The Supremes, War, The Temptations, Roberta Flack, The Stylistics and others!
Well-documented is the influence of American black music on Jamaican styles of the 1960s – from the birth of ska music, when The Skatalites ska-ified the jump-up southern USA rhythm and blues music of Rosco Gordon, Louis Jordan and Fats Domino, through to the creation of rocksteady when Jamaican artists like The Techniques, The Paragons, Alton Ellis and The Melodians turned to the slower rhythms…
Fresh off the success of 2025’s Boleros Psicodélicos II, another star-studded collection of romantic ballads, Adrian Quesada formed Trio Asesino and took a slightly different path on their self-titled debut album. With his guitar providing the melodies, Jay Mumford’s drums the backbone, and Joshy Soul’s array of keyboards the texture, the set touches on hip hop, funk, jazz, laid back cumbia, and as it snakes and shimmies through eleven songs that won’t change anyone’s life but they will make it just a bit cooler for a while. The feeling is similar to his 2022 album Jaguar Sound, but where that felt like a producer’s album, this showcases Quesada the guitarist and prioritizes capturing a live band in a room. To that end, the sound is both punchy and relaxed, the group…
Free Your Mind…And Your Ass Will Follow is the second album from funk innovators Funkadelic. Arriving in 1970 mere months after their trailblazing debut, the record saw the band honing their songcraft, while still allowing plenty of space for mind-bending exploratory jams. The album’s origin story famously involved a single marathon session on LSD. It marked the official introduction of legendary keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and would go on to chart at No. 92 on Billboard’s Pop chart.
Factoring George Clinton’s surprise at hearing the voice of Martha Reeves during a retrospective playback of the ten-minute title track, there’s reason to doubt the Parliament-Funkadelic leader’s memory in his claim that Free Your Mind…And Your Ass Will Follow was recorded in a day.
Five years ago, Michael Cavanagh, long-time percussion expert for psych-rock powerhouse King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, made his solo debut under the CAVS moniker with a self-titled effort.
The ten-song drums-only effort was an exercise in the drummer’s ability to capture a listener’s attention with exclusively drum patterns, resulting in a groovy, atmospheric effort that ultimately didn’t catapult CAVS into the solo spotlight like similar artists of his ilk. The difficult transition from band member to lone musician is a bumpy, often misdirected endeavor that rarely seems to go well for the artist who dares undertake it. Still, in traditional Lizard Wizard fashion, Cavanagh wasn’t discouraged with the difficulties of his debut, but inspired.
In overseeing Club d’Elf since its inception over 25 years ago, founder-leader-bassist Mike Rivard has maintained a core lineup around which has revolved a colorful cast of collaborators as eclectic as the music they have played.
Loon & Thrush is no exception, yet its creation took place in the shadow of the passing of vocalist- multi-instrumentalist Brahim Frigbaine, not just an artistic contributor, but a practical point of reference for the group’s exotic pursuits. Much as Rivard collected himself to rally in the wake of serious illness prior to the gestation of the preceding Club d’Elf studio album, You Never Know (2022) so has he, with the customarily adventurous ensemble in tow, soldiered on in the wake of their departed comrade.
The satisfyin’ soul-pop group from the UK Mamas Gun are poised to follow up Cure The Jones with another collection that recalls what was great about American R&B in 60s and 70s. DIG! is their sixth studio long-player, featuring more of songs that take you back to the Motown, Philly Sound and Hi-Hat Memphis soul of the Impressions, Marvin Gaye, Spinners and Al Green, but with a contemporary vibrancy. It’s led by a gifted singer-songwriter and instrumentalist in Andy Platts (Young Gun Silver Fox) who has a limitless knack for hooks and blending vintage styles into a familiar but fresh approach.
Andy Platts’ got a gift for songcraft but even he get writer’s block sometimes. When he had the concept for a song mostly…
Khruangbin did not know if they were actually making an album. All they knew in the first frigid days of 2025, as they shivered in the Central Texas barn where they’ve recorded almost all of their music, was that the 10th anniversary of their debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, was steadily approaching. Months earlier, they’d bandied about ways to mark the occasion, debating orchestral arrangements or compendiums of bonus materials and alternate takes. Thing was, back before Khruangbin helped establish a new modern idiom of semi-instrumental and gently psychedelic American music, there had been no bonus material, no unused songs. And how interesting would alternate takes or symphonic extravagance really be for a band whose aesthetic-essential vibes…
From joyful dancefloor productions to funky Afro-pop, reggae and gorgeously melancholic numbers, David Walters’ new album is an expansive affair. With a gang of guest producers including Captain Planet, Blundetto and Art of Tones onboard, the Franco-Caribbean multi-instrumentalist continues along the vein of his 2023 Soul Tropical album: a maximalist channeling of eclectic Afro-Caribbean themes, so brightly coloured that it often masks the personal burdens carried in his lyrics.
Always a great collaborator, Walters is joined by Fatoumata Diawara, Keziah Jones and Philo, who add their wonderful vocal talents to standout songs. However, the soul of the record remains Walters’ clear voice and guitar, the full-bodied production never obscuring how…
Six years to the date of his last LP, Thundercat release his fifth studio album, Distracted, coming out via Brainfeeder. The new album features contributions from A$AP Rocky, WILLOW, Tame Impala, Channel Tres, Lil Yachty and a previously unreleased collaboration with the dearly departed Mac Miller.
Distracted was primarily created in close collaboration with a new creative partner for Thundercat – the superproducer Greg Kurstin, known for his work with some of the biggest names in pop like Adele, Paul McCartney, Sia, Beyoncé, Beck and more – with additional production turns on the record from Flying Lotus, Kenny Beats (Kenneth Blume), and The Lemon Twigs. Distracted vividly captures…
Reverence for the organ trio tradition of 1970s soul jazz remains Parlor Greens’ guiding light on sophomore album Emeralds. The trio was founded when Tim Carman-whose heavy blues rock trio, GA-20, releases music through Colemine’s catch-all subsidiary Karma Chief-told Colemine founder Terry Cole about his aspirations for an organ trio after which Cole called up guitarist Jimmy James and organ player Adam Scone. James did a seven-year stint in the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, while Scone played an integral role in the late ’90s soul revival as a member of The Sugarman 3 and as a session player with Daptone. Not only had James and Scone played in organ trios in the past, but they’d previously collaborated on Brooklyn to Brooklin, the 2022 full-length…
Coming off two excellent records released on Habbi Funk that showed off his skills as a beatmaker, sample wrangler, song crafter and arranger, the Lebanese musician Charif Megarbane teamed with the Indonesian trio Ali to make a record. Tirakat is the result of the pairing and it’s brilliant. Organic, genre-bending, flowing and free, the album was recorded in three days’ time and feels like a well-curated journey through an amazing record collection. They jump all over the map, trip through time, and visit as many styles as possible, all with a mix of precision and spontaneity that makes the record a joy to listen to.
They venture into disco on “Mosaics”, Arabic funk on “Kuda Arab”, tender balladry on Ahmad’s Lament”, dancehall reggae on…
Owelu Dreamhouse (pronounced Oh-WAY-lew) is a collaborative project masterminded by vocalist Nkechi Anele and multi-instrumentalist and arranger Nic Ryan-Glenie, both formerly of the band Saskwatch, with whom the pair helped shape the Melbourne soul renaissance. They now return with their new band, focused on a contemporary take on cinematic soul, supported by a myriad of musicians from their local scene.
Opener ‘Kellen’ sets their stall with its crisp percussion, sweeping strings, funk guitar licks and a searing trumpet solo in the track’s last leg. Anele lights up the record with her commanding vocals that vary from subtle and nuanced on ‘Tourist’ to searing intensity on the Afro-funk meets disco stomper ‘Struggle for Kasawa’.
The newest release from Buffalo, NY instrumental jamband, Organ Fairchild, continues their tripped-out grooves mixed with smooth flowing vibes that lovers of their live shows have come to cherish. BOOM! is a sweet collection that takes the listener on a journey with the band, knowing that the tracks will shift and morph when the group enters their natural habitat, the stage.
For this studio effort, Organ Fairchild (Joe Bellanti- organ and keyboards, Corey Kertzie- drums and percussion, and Dave Ruch- guitar) worked with Justin Guip (Hot Tuna, Levon Helm), who recorded, mixed, and co-produced, and Alan Evans (Soulive), who mastered the record.
Opener “Westside Bowl” mixes smooth lounge-ready sounds with chicken scratchy guitar…
New 2026 Edition of 600% Dynamite, part of Soul Jazz Records classic compilation series of Jamaican music, featuring killer reggae in all styles – ska, soul, rocksteady, dancehall, funk and dub. Originally released in 2003 this album has been out of print for nearly 20 years making it one of the most-collectible of Soul Jazz Records’ Dynamite! Series.
Newly remastered and relicensed for 2026, the album is packed with dancefloor classics and non-stop reggae anthems such as Tenor Saw’s ‘Golden Hen’, Johnny Osbourne’s ‘Buddy Bye’, Dennis Brown’s ‘Wolf & Shepard’ and Sister Nancy’s ’Transport Connection’ alongside hard-to-find cuts by Tall T and the Touchers, The Interns, Tetrack and others, making the album a superlative…
James Brown wants to know one thing before he and his band begin Sex Machine. “Can I get into the thing, really?,” he asks. His cohorts enthusiastically respond in the affirmative. And for the next hour and change, Mr. Dynamite gets into it and more, turning in a sweat-soaked, feet-moving, hip-swiveling, emotion-purging, in-the-red, drop-everything-you’re-doing-and-dance performance for the ages. Ranked by Rolling Stone among the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the sweeping 1970 effort towers as a testament to Brown’s inimitable legacy as well as the peak powers of his voice, vibrancy, and bands.
Sourced from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition hybrid SACD presents Sex Machine in audiophile sound for…