John Morales presents:
The M+M Mixes Volume 3:
BBE Records:
Out Now:
8/10
The third in a series of triple-CDs exploring the less obvious but more than adequate soul, disco and funk stormers from the '70s and '80s, given a tweak and a fine-tune by one half of classy production duo M+M, namely John Morales. They themselves provided countless remixes in the latter decade, most notably Jocelyn Brown's Somebody Else's Guy and Shakatak's Down On The Street - basically, if you didn't have M+M on the mix, you were doomed (or you had the amazing Tom Moulton, of course).
On the three CDs here you have chart-bothering bangers such as Third World's Now That We've Found Love, Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds' Rock Creek Park, Marvin Gaye's plaintive and superlative I Want You and the ubiquitous behemoth of filthy squeezing, Barry White and his lovely Never Never Gonna Give You Up, rubbing sequined shoulders with Jean Carn's Was That All It Was, Loleatta Holloway's Hit and Run and Arthur Russell's Loose Joints asking Is It All Over My Face. Out of the 24 tracks on offer, absolutely none are rubbish, a few are a tad humdrum but the remainder are bang on the money, making this the strongest of the M+M collections so far and worth it for the irresistible brassy underground funk bubbler Up Jumped The Devil by John Davis and the Monster Orchestra.
Shalamar:
Friends:
BBR Records:
Out Now:
9/10
Now this is precisely how to do reissues - two discs of just about every version of tracks recorded for a specific album, a pin-sharp professional booklet with nerdy liner-notes and facts and great repros aimed at the fan and the collector. Friends is one heck of a pop-album, recorded without losing sight of its disco-funk roots and memorable for four straight smash-hits. Basically, life for Shalamar would never be the same after the likes of I Can Make You Feel Good and A Night to Remember bothered UK airwaves, especially after that Top Of The Pops episode with Shalamar's Jeffrey Daniel moonwalking his way across our screens.
Unlike many other disco-soul albums of that era, Friends delivers on many levels with little in the way of insipid filler. Don't Try To Change Me and On Top Of The World are as memorable as the big four with vocalists Howard Hewitt and Jody Watley on top form, while US single Help Me might be a slow number but is far from the tune you don't want to smooch to - that accolade goes to I Don't Wanna Be The Last To Know, easily the album's achilles-heel in terms of melody. Thankfully straight afterwards comes the resplendent title-track which, if there were any justice, should have been a chart-topper. Killer. By this time we've only just reached the second-half of the album with There It Is and I Can Make You Feel Good selected as album closers, fer gawd's sakes.
Also on this reissue are a few tracks from the commercial failure and preceding album Go For It (they're pretty decent, as it goes) and a plethora of remixes, edits and extended versions that only serve to force home the fact that Shalamar in 1982 were at the top of their game and the biggest-selling soul-disco act in the UK for a while. Then there was Michael Jackson. And guess who started moon-walking soon afterwards....?
Mighty Diamonds/The Diamonds
Planet Earth:
Hot Milk:
Out Now:
8/10
This is the second Hot Milk release from the Cherry Red offshoot and perhaps a slight step up from the Keith Hudson re-issue that kicked the series off. Planet Earth is prime Diamonds and appeared straight after one of their poorest efforts, Ice on Fire, an album that almost caused a premature termination of their career. The twenty tracks on this reissue include the full vocal album and its sister dub album initially issued on Virgin's Frontline imprint. As you might expect, it's rootsy, laid-back and utterly masterful and almost, almost, as faultless as their debut-album Right On Time, issued in 1976.
Where is Garvey?, Let The Answer and Strugglin', the latter with its insanely catchy brass hook throughout, are three examples of why everybody vaguely interested in harmonies, Jamaican folk-music and riddims should shell out on at least one Mighty Diamonds album - hell, you may as well make it this one. Just one irritating quirk - the insistence of assembling the tracks as vocal, then dub, then another vocal then its dub and so on. They were issued as two separate albums and should therefore be presented as ten vocal versions followed by ten dubs. But it's a minor quibble - use the program button on your CD player and problem solved unless you like your reggae albums like that of course. Thing is, Planet Earth is just so good vocally, you don't really need it interrupted with the equally good studio-trickery.
Various Artists:
Acid - Mysterons Invade The Jackin' Zone:
Soul Jazz:
Out Now:
9/10
Soul Jazz's sense of fun continues with another Mysterons-branded foray into the mecca of electronic dance-music, this time with the seemingly-futuristic '80s sound of acid-house and jackin'. Some of the Chicago (and beyond) classics are here across the two discs - Mr Fingers' Washing Machine, Phuture Pfantasy Club's Slam, JM Silk's Music Is The Key and Housemaster Boyz' House Nation, alongside lesser-known works such as Virgo's Go Wild, Bizzy B's The Night Calls and the intense I Believe by A Black Man, A Black Man and Another Black man plus loads more key examples of 303s on overdrive. Some of it is primitive, much of it minimal and all of it essential to anyone who remembers those House Sound of Chicago compilations and Darryl Pandy writhing around on the floor of the Top Of The Pops studio during one track that perhaps is a glaring omission, Love Can't Turn Around.
Still, with an ace graphic novel-style booklet and 22 definitive choices, Acid is a chemically-enhanced uncut rush through an era of hedonistic and simplistic anthems. And they don't come any more simplistic and intoxicating than Mr Fingers mellow Can You Feel It? If you want to know what inspired Warp and R&S, this is a great place to start.
Niney The Observer:
Dubbing with The Observer Allstars at King Tubby's:
Jamaican Recordings:
Out Now:
9/10
Winston Holness, aka Niney The Observer, apparently lost one of his ten fingers whilst in a workshop - if he'd lost all of them, you get the impression that his contributions to recordings by the likes of Dennis Brown, Delroy Wilson, The Heptones, Johnny Clarke, Slim Smith and Jacob Miller would still be remarkable. As indeed are these super dubs from the King Tubby stable, recorded originally as rhythm tracks for Dennis Brown in the main and transformed into bowel-deep echo-filled epics designed to scare speakers and crumble amps. One listen to Rebel Dance, Silver Bullet and the killer title-track should be enough to confirm how good The Observer's ear for a sound was and Tubby's finger on the right pulse was so ahead of its time. Three extra tracks add to the mood perfectly and Dubbing With The Observer remains a must-have for fans of dub.
Shuggie Otis
Inspiration Information and Wings of Love:
Epic:
Out Now:
8/10
2013 is slowly becoming the year of the forgotten songwriter finally becoming a somebody. Like Rodriguez, the more soulful Shuggie Otis has been overlooked until recently, not because he should have been but because in 1974 when Inspiration Information first appeared, there were enough hippy-soul singers already doing their thing. What makes Otis so interesting is that, in 1974, he was 20 years old and already up to album number three - no mean feat.
The young protege and son of guitar-wielding Johnny Otis, Shuggie's vocal style sits more comfortably with the likes of Tim Hardin or Albert Lee, than that of his more soulful peers such as Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone. Trippy and hazy, much of the first album in this two-fer set is understated nu-funk that treads a fine-line between folk, psychedelia, soul and blues, examples of which include Aht Uh Mi Hed and Sparkle City complete with basic Rhythm-King drum-boxes and sumptuous strings. The second half of this set features unreleased material originally intended for a follow-up to Inspiration Information and named Wings Of Love - you won't be surprised to learn that much of this material is also very good.
Alexander O'Neal:
Hearsay:
Tabu:Demon:
Out now:
8/10
O'Neal's career is an odd thing, especially when studying the man's chart-form back in the days when it mattered. Already a popular soul star with a couple of hits, namely If You Were Here Tonight and his duet with Cherelle, Saturday Love, Alexander O'Neal's success shot through the roof with second album Hearsay. Nothing strange about that, you might think, yet he only spawned one Top 5 hit from it, the pin-sharp barbed electro-disco tune Criticize. The other five singles didn't even break the Top 20 and considering how incredibly memorable they were, it's a surprise and a bit of a travesty.
Take Fake, for example. It is a thundering disco roller that best exhibits producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis talents, a duo at the top of their game. During the '80s, Jam and Lewis knocked out quality beats and breaks for Janet Jackson, SOS Band and Change but, sure enough, Fake is a ridiculously tight piece of programming. Then there's the lead-off track, What Can I Say To Make You Love Me, a huge brash pulsating piece of boogie-pop that ranks as one of the best track 1s in history. Period. Add in the superb Never Knew Love Like This (a duet with Cherelle), The Lovers and the final slowed-right-down ballad Sunshine and you have a pretty fault-free album with Hearsay.
What set this album apart from other typically run-of-the-mill RnB long-players was its risky concept - sequenced to sound like a party, complete with bitchy gossip interludes and a suite of intros and snapshot conversations, Hearsay was a go-to album when I worked at Our Price - 45 minutes of prime wide-eyed soul from a great vocalist and Jam and Lewis at the controls.
This double CD also gathers up a couple of handfuls of remixes, edits and dubs of most of the singles, including a few too many versions of Criticize, plus a cracking bonus beats version of The Lovers. Hearsay '89 sucks though, an ill-advised offcut from the grim All Mixed Up album shambles that followed Hearsay a year later. If O'Neal had chosen to record an album of Lithuanian folk-songs while strumming the mandolin, he'd have inflicted less damage on his career than the countless sub-house remixes of his finest work. Stick to the originals.
The M+M Mixes Volume 3:
BBE Records:
Out Now:
8/10
On the three CDs here you have chart-bothering bangers such as Third World's Now That We've Found Love, Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds' Rock Creek Park, Marvin Gaye's plaintive and superlative I Want You and the ubiquitous behemoth of filthy squeezing, Barry White and his lovely Never Never Gonna Give You Up, rubbing sequined shoulders with Jean Carn's Was That All It Was, Loleatta Holloway's Hit and Run and Arthur Russell's Loose Joints asking Is It All Over My Face. Out of the 24 tracks on offer, absolutely none are rubbish, a few are a tad humdrum but the remainder are bang on the money, making this the strongest of the M+M collections so far and worth it for the irresistible brassy underground funk bubbler Up Jumped The Devil by John Davis and the Monster Orchestra.
Shalamar:
Friends:
BBR Records:
Out Now:
9/10
Unlike many other disco-soul albums of that era, Friends delivers on many levels with little in the way of insipid filler. Don't Try To Change Me and On Top Of The World are as memorable as the big four with vocalists Howard Hewitt and Jody Watley on top form, while US single Help Me might be a slow number but is far from the tune you don't want to smooch to - that accolade goes to I Don't Wanna Be The Last To Know, easily the album's achilles-heel in terms of melody. Thankfully straight afterwards comes the resplendent title-track which, if there were any justice, should have been a chart-topper. Killer. By this time we've only just reached the second-half of the album with There It Is and I Can Make You Feel Good selected as album closers, fer gawd's sakes.
Also on this reissue are a few tracks from the commercial failure and preceding album Go For It (they're pretty decent, as it goes) and a plethora of remixes, edits and extended versions that only serve to force home the fact that Shalamar in 1982 were at the top of their game and the biggest-selling soul-disco act in the UK for a while. Then there was Michael Jackson. And guess who started moon-walking soon afterwards....?
Mighty Diamonds/The Diamonds
Planet Earth:
Hot Milk:
Out Now:
8/10
Where is Garvey?, Let The Answer and Strugglin', the latter with its insanely catchy brass hook throughout, are three examples of why everybody vaguely interested in harmonies, Jamaican folk-music and riddims should shell out on at least one Mighty Diamonds album - hell, you may as well make it this one. Just one irritating quirk - the insistence of assembling the tracks as vocal, then dub, then another vocal then its dub and so on. They were issued as two separate albums and should therefore be presented as ten vocal versions followed by ten dubs. But it's a minor quibble - use the program button on your CD player and problem solved unless you like your reggae albums like that of course. Thing is, Planet Earth is just so good vocally, you don't really need it interrupted with the equally good studio-trickery.
Various Artists:
Acid - Mysterons Invade The Jackin' Zone:
Soul Jazz:
Out Now:
9/10
Still, with an ace graphic novel-style booklet and 22 definitive choices, Acid is a chemically-enhanced uncut rush through an era of hedonistic and simplistic anthems. And they don't come any more simplistic and intoxicating than Mr Fingers mellow Can You Feel It? If you want to know what inspired Warp and R&S, this is a great place to start.
Niney The Observer:
Dubbing with The Observer Allstars at King Tubby's:
Jamaican Recordings:
Out Now:
9/10
Shuggie Otis
Inspiration Information and Wings of Love:
Epic:
Out Now:
8/10
The young protege and son of guitar-wielding Johnny Otis, Shuggie's vocal style sits more comfortably with the likes of Tim Hardin or Albert Lee, than that of his more soulful peers such as Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone. Trippy and hazy, much of the first album in this two-fer set is understated nu-funk that treads a fine-line between folk, psychedelia, soul and blues, examples of which include Aht Uh Mi Hed and Sparkle City complete with basic Rhythm-King drum-boxes and sumptuous strings. The second half of this set features unreleased material originally intended for a follow-up to Inspiration Information and named Wings Of Love - you won't be surprised to learn that much of this material is also very good.
Alexander O'Neal:
Hearsay:
Tabu:Demon:
Out now:
8/10
Take Fake, for example. It is a thundering disco roller that best exhibits producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis talents, a duo at the top of their game. During the '80s, Jam and Lewis knocked out quality beats and breaks for Janet Jackson, SOS Band and Change but, sure enough, Fake is a ridiculously tight piece of programming. Then there's the lead-off track, What Can I Say To Make You Love Me, a huge brash pulsating piece of boogie-pop that ranks as one of the best track 1s in history. Period. Add in the superb Never Knew Love Like This (a duet with Cherelle), The Lovers and the final slowed-right-down ballad Sunshine and you have a pretty fault-free album with Hearsay.
What set this album apart from other typically run-of-the-mill RnB long-players was its risky concept - sequenced to sound like a party, complete with bitchy gossip interludes and a suite of intros and snapshot conversations, Hearsay was a go-to album when I worked at Our Price - 45 minutes of prime wide-eyed soul from a great vocalist and Jam and Lewis at the controls.
This double CD also gathers up a couple of handfuls of remixes, edits and dubs of most of the singles, including a few too many versions of Criticize, plus a cracking bonus beats version of The Lovers. Hearsay '89 sucks though, an ill-advised offcut from the grim All Mixed Up album shambles that followed Hearsay a year later. If O'Neal had chosen to record an album of Lithuanian folk-songs while strumming the mandolin, he'd have inflicted less damage on his career than the countless sub-house remixes of his finest work. Stick to the originals.