Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Legendary turntablist and acclaimed beat maker DJ Yoda is back with a new album Prom Nite this month. Just before the full-length drops comes this single from it on essential 7". It follows on from the well-received 'Feel Like Home' 45rpm last month and this time offers more well-conceived and carefully sought-out fusions. The a-side 'My Energy' features Eva Lazarus. It is a lovely soulful slow jam that has a breakup melancholy to it and lovely doo-wop vibes. Completing this package is the flip side 'Lesson 1956' (feat Jamie Cullum & DJ Woody) which is another great revisiting of Americana.

Review: Colemine step up with another sure shot of impeccable modern soul, this time coming from Australian outfit Dojo Cuts. 'Here We Are' is a slow jam with sadness in its heart, but it hits hard. That's in no small part down to the impassioned vocal turn from Carlton Jumel Smith, who gets his message across with conviction on this classically styled ballad. One for rainy days and poignant moments, with the instrumental on the flip when you want the music to carry you away.

Review: Strap in for this potent new 7" from Killa B which brings the energy across to fizzing new dancehall cuts. The a-side 'Speedy Love' sounds quite a bit like an early Missy Elliott production but reworked into a dance hall framework. The vocals are menacing and delivered with a snarling edge over snappy snares and hefty bass. On the flip is a version called 'Blow You Mind' that is only subtly tweaked - the vocals take on different characteristics but the rhythms remain punchy and compelling.

Review: It's been a long time between drinks for Outer Space, a Barcelona based six-piece who last appeared on wax in 2019 via a private press edition of their 2017 set Into The Unknown. You'll be delighted to hear that they're in fine fettle on this Rocafort Records-released "45. A-side 'Not Even Light' is a languid but floor-friendly affair, with ear-catching electric guitar melodies, jazz-funk flourishes and snaking horn lines rising above a chunky, loose-limbed funk break. Over on the flip Catalonian singer Gemma Humet handles lead vocals on 'Dead Planet', a filmic affair with subtle jazz overtones that's as atmospheric as they come.

Review: Emotional Rescue returns to early 1980s Manchester with the previously unreleased music of Michael James Pollard and his beautiful distillation of indie pop in Too Confusing and bedsit cover version of Ashford and Simpson's Surrender.

While studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic, (MJ) Pollard lived and played in a band in a ramshackle house in Walley Range. In the cellar studio he would write and record his own songs using their guitars, fretless bass and keys, as well as his own Casio VL-Tone VL-1 and Simmons Clap Trap to augment his drums onto a 4 track TEAC.

By 1983, and now solo, he was recording out of Dislocation Dance's studio (ERC111), had secured a Peel Session and via Factory Records' Lindsay Reade, was discussing with Fundacao Atlantica about releasing an album.

Working with singer Sioux Goddard as a duo, they put down 8 songs in 2 weeks in summer '84. However, Fundacao Atlantica's financial difficulties and soon closure meant the songs were lost until now.

Recovered off the original tapes and lovingly restored, Too Confusing captures the optimism of the sessions, a summer love melody of forlorn youth. Surrender accompanies, recorded back in that cellar in '81, with friend Stephanie Danziger on vocals, its lo-fi simplicity is a perfect take on an all-time classic, making this a newly prized gem of British indie pop history.

Review: Joey Quinones and his band Thee Sinisters deliver a retro new one, testifying their ability to operate masterfully in an old style of soul while releasing new music all the while. This split 7" 45 finds the LA falsetto lending his services to lo-fi reggae on the A side (There Myst Be Something'), before giving in to the bittersweet past on the B-side ('Love Me Like You Used To'). Expect a pleasing foray through hurt, tripletty slow-jam soul.

Review: See other format for review

Review: Happenstance can be a fortuitous element. A union-funded single discovered in a dusty store, a long disbanded band found, leads to unreleased post punk dubs in a box of unreleased demos.

Formed during the mid-80s in the downbeat town of Walsall, their music is a blend of disparate influences from 50's crooners, blues and reggae to Killing Joke and The Bunnymen; Ron's Neighbours were out of step with the perfect pop of the C86 indie generation.

Their only single - "To The Fight" - a split 7" was supported by the Trade Union Resource Centre, while many gigs were benefits for striking miners, leading to a loyal local following.

Engineered by Ozzy Osbourne's brother Tony, tracks were recorded at an 8 track bedroom / home studio, while a terraced house served as rehearsal space. Here Ron Next Door was born. When a tape recorder was left running it captured the long-suffering neighbour for posterity. His outburst gave the band and song, its name.

Experimenting with drum machines, the resultant jam track, here in its "Alternative Mix", languished unheard until now. Ron's 'Black Country' tones lead to driving bass / percussion against crashing Stratocasters and repeating, refrained vox - a post punk dub turned symphony.

The B side, Sitting On Top of the World, is an indie anthem, becoming their theme, a blend of grandiose and banal that characterised their songs.