Back catalogue:

Review: Intrallazzi and Dario Piana have been friends and Milanese scene contemporaries since 1981, when they both fell in love with the distinctive Afro-Cosmic sound of local DJ (and later Piana collaborator) Daniel Baldelli. Since then, they have both made records aplenty under a variety of aliases, but this EP on Leng marks their first joint release. The headline attraction is opener (and lead cut) 'Out of Control', a dubbed-out cosmic disco chugger propelled by echo-laden percussion and a deep, low-slung bassline, smothered in psychedelic synth and guitar sounds. Fellow Italian producer LTJ Experience remixes, offering up a stripped-back and acid-flecked interpretation. Elsewhere, 'Lazise' is a TB-303-sporting cosmic shuffler and 'Saocraffen' is a Baldelli-influenced fusion of Afro-cosmic funk and ethereal Balearic sounds.

Review: Two Balearic musicians with no relation beyond chemistry, Kiko Navarro and Pere Navarro debut as a duo with three tracks that stitch together house and jazz with an intuitive ease. Kiko's Mallorca-honed sense of deep, groove-led house is given new colour by Pere's nimble trumpet work, rooted in his training and practice across Ibiza's jazz and club scenes. 'Byrd's Groove' opens with dusty swing, its crisp drum programming softened by Pere's sunny phrasing and melodic asides. 'Keepn On Loving Me' is the standout, built on a chunky low-end and looped vocal that moves like classic New Jersey house, with trumpet lines that smoulder and lift. 'Blown Flow' closes on a dubbier, more headsy tip i less peak-time, more sunrise session i giving a stylish finish to an impressively coherent first outing.

Review: Just in time for a hot disco summer, Fatty Fatty kicks out this essential 12" packed with glittering and golden grooves. The irresistible EP has three tracks that have never before been available and showcases Pablo & Shoey's range. Side A opens with 'Raw Human Emotion Part 2,' which is one of those end-of-the-night anthems that will lodge long in the memory and no doubt bring tears in the right setting. It's soulful disco perfection. On the flip, two rediscovered bangers from their Do It Backwards EP emerge: 'Shoey's Acid Trip' is a euphoric acid-disco slammer, and Pablo's warped, rave-ready 'Air Raid Dub' does exactly what it says on the tin. With support from tastemakers like Severino from Horse Meat Disco already in the bag, this one is perfect for late-night mayhem and festival sunsets alike.

Review: C&C Music Factory lynchpin Eric Kupper takes on 'BackStabbers' with a considered touch, reinforcing its groove while preserving the essence of its original 1982 recording. Captured at Virtue Studios by a powerhouse ensembleiincluding MFSB and Salsoul Orchestra greats like Earl Young, Ron Baker and Vince Montana, Jr.ithis session defined the lush, orchestrated soul of Philadelphia. Joe Freeman's lead vocal remains the focal point, its urgency cutting through Kupper's updated mix, which tightens the percussion and adds a refined low-end punch. Side A presents the vocal mix, where the track's layered instrumentation breathes with new clarity, while Side B strips it down to an instrumental, letting the intricate arrangements shine. US-based Kupper, a veteran of over 1,400 remixes, treats the material with the respect of a historian and the instincts of a modern dancefloor craftsman, balancing nostalgia with crisp, club-ready sonics.

Review: Two of James "Gem" Prewitt's two early 80s disco-funk tracks, 'My Love Box' (1981) and 'Juicy' (1983), come courteously reissued via AOTN, raring a snapshot of his exceptional talents and entrepreneurial funk fastenings. Recorded in St. Louis, Missouri, 'My Love Box' marked the beginning of Prewitt's journey, with the 27-year-old attending Forrest Park Community College at the same time as establishing his own label, Keyes Production. Not only did he write, produce, and perform all these tracks, but local success with 'My Love Box' inspired him to team up with Loretta Mathison for the creation of 'Juicy', which ensues here as the orally honeyed slow jam of choice, and which picks up the pace at the midpoint through gospel operatics and wooing coos. This collaboration led to a two-year singing tour, firelighting them from beneath and propelling them from the Philippines to Germany.

Review: Caught in a Prince Buster fever, Rock-A-Shacka complement an eagerly awaited release - the third album from the legend so named, offering 12 tracks spanning Jamaican funk to rocksteady to early reggae - with a promotional 7", bolstering the full-length's legitimacy with an as-it-was 45. Here 'Funky Jamaica' and 'Clap Your Hands' coincide. The first is an early dancehall phenotype, its strong tresillo matching a heady array of audio-mancer's chants; instructive shouts from Buster himself. Then the B-side follows, a brilliant James-Browned toasting of an uptempo pre-ska progression, put together against a rhythmic cage of swift, proficient drums.

Review: DFA Records prime mysterious new Brighton signees Proper Monday Number with a sure start, flicking the proverbial Rube Goldberg machine into gear with a banging remix of their otherwise unreleased debut track 'High Horse'. Here, of course, it's LCD Soundsystem / DFA's very own James Murphy at the remix controls, together with resident DFA DJ and "decent human" Matt Cash. Toolroom dance moods extend over a lusciously simple seven minutes, bringing home FM stabs and LinnDrum faceslaps aplenty. And the lyrics: "stop what you're doing now... you ain't got no crown! get off your high horse! turn this ship around!" In our day and age, we need more anti-stagnation, ego-teardown anthems like this, so we welcome the sentiment by the masked duo.

Review: Last year, Groove Culture Music established the Groove Is In The Heart series as a vehicle for showcasing on vinyl some of the various gems from the label's digital-only releases. In effect, what we get is the cream of the crop - guaranteeing high quality throughout. Certainly, the second EP is packed full of tried-and-tested treats. To kick things off, label chiefs Micky More and Andy Tee rework Prospect Park's 'I Got This Feeling', where the legendary Taka Boom sings soulfully atop and jaunty and celebratory disco-house groove, before Groove Assassin re-imagines Lou Casablanca's 'Gimme Your Love' as an organ and bongo-rich soulful house gem. Over on side B, Da Funk Junkies and Discogalactix's deliver the sweet disco-house rush of 'Holding On', before Massimo Beradi lays down the piano-powered soulful house delight that is 'Who I Am'.

Review: Intime Anthem is a new label that makes a suitable impressive debut here with a various artists offering that explores a leftfield disco sound. Ramozel's 'Nomentum' has deadpan indie vocals and stark mechanical drums with cold wave synths. Parker Bjoske wars monads with twisted synth modulations and slow, purposeful kicks on 'Tempo.' Naimer then switches the mood with a more playful and 80s-inspired sound, bright retro synths and euro-dance grooves on 'Wildejoe.' There is a supple acid-laced majesty to Ivaj Odnode's closer 'Atillol,' which makes this as vital as it as varied.

Review: Disco Tape 4 is a compelling collection that navigates the full spectrum of disco's evolution, seamlessly blending house and late-night techno grooves. The Mechanical Man's 'eyes supreme' stands out with its melodic hook that gradually intensifies the energy. It's a slow-burning groover featuring soulful disco lyrics, creating an atmosphere that's both beautiful and entrancing. 'with you' by Just Guess and Tecam takes a funkier route, with a vibrant guitar riff and a soulful house vocal reminiscent of the best Naked Music releasesiideal for setting a warm, inviting vibe. Other great highlights include the other Mechanical man track 'Space Exploration,' a track that dives into deeper techno territory. Its wicked atmospheric groove adds a layer of sophistication, perfect for those late-night moments when the dancefloor craves something more introspective. Closing out the highlights, Ohn De La Noise's 'good afternoon' offers a smooth deep house sound that blends late-night disco into house, creating a seamless transition that's both elegant and satisfying. A very well-rounded record, expertly capturing the diverse influences of disco's enduring legacy.

Review: Use Vinyl looks back to two iconic tracks from the 70s and 80s here for source material for a new remix EP by the Vannelli family. Joe T remixes 'Thrill Me' by The Wonderland Band into the sort of direct and funky house sound that brims with early dance music charm while the Vannelli Bros offer their rework of 'Party On' by Pure Energy which comes with plenty of energy for club contexts. Both tracks are presented as Classic Mix versions and bring plenty of new life to the original hits without forgoing the timeless, catchy and meaningful melodies that define the originals. House music like this is as authentic as it gets.

Review: Inspired by his neon-lit walks around London's docklands, crate digger Ilan Pdahtzur's 2019 compilation Night City Life marked him out as a dusty-fingered crate digger and record collector with a distinctive, synth-heavy musical vision. It made him the toast of the selector/collector community, but more than that it was a genuinely superb selection of obscure, hard-to-find cuts. This belated sequel is every bit as essential and filled, unsurprisingly, with rare and lesser-known gems. Highlights are too plentiful to mention, but our current favourites include Sharon & Tracey's 'The Sheik' (a belly-dancing inspired slab of TB-303 bass-driven house hedonism), Jennifer's 1992 Euro-house gem 'Come Into My Life', Scicilian musician Claudio D'Ignoti's boogie-era treat 'Ache Per Noir', and the fashion scene inspired leftfield synth-pop of Lena's 'Embrasse-Moi (Strumentale)'.

Review: Pacifico is the debut album from Italian-born, LA-based multi-instrumentalist Francesco Perini under the Pearz guise. It tracks a five-year sonic journey through Florence, London and Los Angeles and takes in all the sounds of those places so blends disco, electro, nu-jazz and Japanese City Pop into a rich, genre-spanning sound. True to its name (Pacifico means "peaceful" in Italian) the album captures the reflective calm of travel's end and has collaborations with artists like Kuntessa, VANBASTEN, Natalie Findlay, Jules Apollinaire and others bringing their own depth to the project. The result is a multicultural tapestry of sound that is full of warmth, groove and introspection.

Review: This compilation is a vibrant celebration of Gnonnas Pedro, the legendary Beninese composer and musician. Spanning his career from 1967 to 1985, it showcases Pedro's remarkable versatility and eclectic musical palette; featuring 21 tracks that traverse genres with ease, from the Afrobeat energy of 'Pas De Petard' and 'L'Indomptable Gnonnas Pop' to the salsa rhythms of 'Tembleque' and the soulful grooves of 'How Much Love Naturally Cost'. Pedro's music is a fusion of influences, blending traditional African sounds with funk, soul and Latin flavours and highlights here include the irresistible 'Dadje Von O Von Non', the funky 'Yiri Yiri Boum', and the soulful 'Bailando Mi Solo'.

Review: Pellegrino & Zodyaco's skillfully intertwine Neapolitan disco, funk, jazz and world music while channelling a spirit of creative escape of this new album, which is inspired by Henri Laborit's 'Eloge de la fuite'. It explores conscious escapism as a return to authenticity and seeks a "common language" through sound by merging Mediterranean melodies with global rhythms, vintage instruments and ethnic percussion that all bridge past and present. Four years after his last outing, Morphe, Pellegrino is still in top form here with a soulful, genre-blurring portrait of modern Naples that reflects the fact that, in the city, musical traditions meet modern experimentation.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


A fresh compilation album documents the best of the late 70s disco-funk-jazz-everything band Phyrework, synthesising a pyrotechnist's hand and a cutting engineer's ear. The Texan group were signed to Mercury in 1978 and released a hotly acclaimed debut album, and while their talents matched the likes of Sly And The Family Stone and Earth, Wind & Fire, they remained criminally under-world, resulting in the band's disbandment after the release. So this is a salvaging effort worth your while; a whopping nine of the songs have never been heard before, and only a complementary two appeared on the original early 80s single. All produced by Michael Cooper of Con Funk Shun, the likes of 'My Funk', 'Never Felt Like This' and 'What Happened To Us' command an extra jerkiness and synthweight bolshiness not nailed by many of their much-more-famous contemporaries.

Review: French twosome Polo & Pan spent the first part of their career giddily fusing tropical house and synth-pop into attractive new shapes, before exploring the world of chillwave on 2021 sophomore album Cyclorama. Four years later, and now signed to major label Virgin, they've once again upped their game, delivering a set of accessible, attractive and sun-drenched fusions of synth-pop and dance-pop that draw inspiration from a variety of musical cultures around the world. For proof, check highlights including the effortlessly dreamy 'Pareidolies', the immersive nu-disco chug of Beth Ditto collaboration 'Petitle Etoile', steamy, Air-esque Balearic shuffler '22:23' (with Vico and Antonin) and string-drenched, Gainsbourg-influenced closing cut 'La Nuit' (with Arthur Teboul).

Review: NPG Records and Paisley Park Enterprises, in partnership with Warner Records, are pleased to announce the release of a brand-new audiophile Blu-ray featuring 2024's Dolby Atmos mix of Prince and the Revolution's iconic 1984 album, Purple Rain, as well as Prince's original 1984 stereo mix, in high-definition 24bit / 96kHz audio.

Prince shattered all expectations and made music history when he released the album Purple Rain, followed by the hit movie of the same name weeks later. The 9-track LP went on to win two Grammy awards ("Best Rock Performance by a Group" & "Best Album of Original Score Written For A Motion Picture"), two American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. In 2012 the Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry, which only accepts sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." Purple Rain spent 24 weeks at #1 on the Billboard album charts, sold over 25 million copies worldwide, and appears on countless 'Best Of' polls, most recently achieving the #4 spot on Apple Music's Top 100 Albums Of All Time.

The 2024 Atmos presentation of Purple Rain featured on this Blu-Ray, was meticulously mixed from the original multi-track master tapes by Prince's protege and Best Engineered Grammy nominee Chris James. It was released via all participating Digital Service Providers on June 21, 2024. "In 2024 we started our year-long celebration of the 40th anniversary of Purple Rain, we are thrilled to present Prince's masterpiece in ATMOS, providing an immersive, surround auditory experience of Prince's legendary album. This highly crafted release will present Prince's iconic work with more space and depth while preserving the beautiful songs that have shaped music and popular culture, and touched the lives of countless fans around the world." - Paisley Park Enterprises

Region code: universal

Review: Rock-A-Shacka enthuse the new, long-awaited third album from Prince Buster, one of the many leading lights of the early Kingston rocksteady movement. This treasure trove of 12 tracks covers Jamaican funk, rocksteady, and early reggae; over seven previously unreleased and/or alternative tracks (it's cleverly kept under wraps as to which are which), we've extended versions of 'A Tribute To The Toughest' (aka. 'Ghost Dance'), on which Buster pays tribute to his late rudeboy friends, as well as trad gems including an alt-take of 'Dark End Of The Street'. The are covers of James Brown's 'Bring It Up' and Beginning Of The End's 'Funky Nassau', and Lee "Scratch" Perry shows up in a resplendent, phone-a-friend cameo feature on 'Call On Me'. Cherry-topped by a version of Gregory Isaacs' 'Dancing Floor' and the stunning 'Black Soul' instrumental, this is as ultimate a companion to Buster's contribution to Caribbean music history as you're likely to ever get.

Review: Prince Buster, born Cecil Bustamente Campbell in 1938, was a key figure in the birth of ska and rocksteady, and infamously embodied the term "rude boy"; he'd come to enshrine a symbol of rebellious youth culture in Jamaica. A leading conspirator in early soundsystem culture, Buster's story stretches as far back as the days of systems such as Tom The Great Sebastian as well as variou Kingston-bound stacks operated by Coxsone Dodd. Now this eagerly awaited third volume from Rock A Shaka continues to compile Buster's best works, the standouts among them being 'A Tribute to The Toughest' from 1967 - believed to be a precursor to the long-loved 'Ghost Dance' - and his cover of James Carr's 'Dark End of the Street,' Ernest Ranglin's 'Come Get Me,' and Winston Samuels' 'I'm Still Here.'

Review: This Price album was originally part of the 2023 Diamonds and Pearls Super Deluxe box set, but now the triple vinyl live recording arrives on standalone yellow vinyl in a fancy triple gatefold sleeve. It was initially captured on January 11, 1992, at Prince's Glam Slam club in Minneapolis and is a performance that showcases Prince and The New Power Generation at their creative peak, just ahead of their epic world tour. Spanning over 100 minutes and 14 tracks in all, the still electrifying set focuses on material from the Diamonds and Pearls era and includes a preview of the then-unreleased 'Sexy M.F.' to make for a fine snapshot of a new era in Prince's evolving sound.

Review: Alex Puddu dropped his last album, Deliria, only back in September, but has been busy in the studio since then cooking up more of his international disco grooves. Professione Reporter is a stylish funk, soul and disco-pop workout all sung in Italian and recorded at Piero Umiliani's legendary Sound Work Shop in Rome. The album follows the cinematic story of a photojournalist who becomes a gigolo entangled in a glamorous underworld of money, romance and danger. Around that vocal narrative, Puddu delivers sleek, seductive grooves and plenty of authentic vintage flair with a sharp ear for melody and melodrama. Professione Reporter feels like a lost soundtrack to an Italian crime film that is moody, playful, sexy and irresistibly cool from start to finish.

Review: If you at first mistakenly read the title of the new Pye Corner Audio box set as "Where Things Are Now: No Tomorrow", you're not alone - Martin Jenkins' effortless blend of retro-nostalgia and forward-facing production is a keen match for reflexive cynicisms like this. His use of sizzling vintage audio-tropes could only have been achieved in the 21st Century and helps foster a reinstated optimism. The name of the full series is actually Where Things Are Hollow; and while two volumes have been released already, a third original one now comes added here, on top of a full remix roundoff featuring Alessandro Cortini, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and John Talabot, producing this rather banging four-volume set.