Back catalogue: All genres

Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***


The new album by Quantic - aka. multi instrumentalist, DJ, composer and producer Will Holland - is in many ways an evolution. Now twenty years into his career, Dancing While Falling is the British-born, New York-based artist's most live sounding, euphoric and, in his own words, grown-up release to date. Capturing the beginnings of every good person's revelatory movement from an individual to a collective spirit, Holland originally began the album in his Brooklyn studio, before realising that he didn't just want to make a record that reflected his 'singular pandemic wormhole', but rather one that tapped into the essential togetherness of the human condition. So too does this record explore themes of connection felt through, and made more intense by, the antagonistic bouts of loneliness that characterised COVID-19. Influenced by legendary artists in the scene like Bohannon and Larry Levan, Quantic wanted to make a disco -eaning album at first; "I'm really interested in Latin music and Afro Caribbean rhythms and I think there's a really amazing point in history where the emergence of those rhythms and its combination with American soul sparked what we now know as disco," he says. This PIAS extended edition comes one year on from its initial 2023 release, Quantic here expands on his work by adding a ream of extended versions.

Review: Half a century young, the third album from America's genuinely iconic leather-clad glam queen Suzi Quatro was a bit of sidewinder, seeing her switch from the brash rock pop fusion of her first two LPs to take in a funk influence, still working under the winning production duo of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn. Check the title track and its echoes of Sly & The Family Stone or Steve Wonder, wonderfully twinned with Quatro's sassy vocal attitude, for evidence of the stylistic refresh, her distinctive and groove-heavy bass playing pushed further into the centre of the sound. 'Can't Trust Love', meanwhile, is a headnodding, blunted delight, too, while the futuristic synths of 'Strip Me' are closer to Herbie Hancock's Headhunters than The Sweet in vibe. Well ahead of its time, this is timeless stuff.