Back catalogue: Blues

Review: Neo-soul chanteuse Bette Smith is an upcoming talent who lends her tones to the blistering blues guitar work of Kirk Flecther here. The pair take on a cover of The Rolling Stones' classic tune 'Brown Sugar' and do it with real gusto. The drums smash hard, the guitar riffs are big and angular and the vocals re delivered in sleazy fashion. The Tone's quirky pop dance hit 'Dance Monkey' then gets covered don the flip and turned into a psyched out bluesy guitar number with big vocals. It's a unique rework that makes this a collectible 7".

Review: Dynamite Cuts have got another red hot bit of funk on their hands here with Brian Auger's Oblivion Express the subject of this reissue of two of his most blissed out sounds. The first is a magic cover of Marvin Gaye's timeless 'Inner City Blues' from his most iconic album, What's Going On. In this outfit's hands the groove becomes a little more deep and languid, with funky guitars and steamy vocals sinking you into a real romantic vibe. The second is an original tune, 'Voices Of Other Times,' that explores more uplifting soul vibes.

Review: Miami's Far Produce are fresh faces, but their sound is full of respect for times past, building on classic soul jazz by bringing it a modern instrumental twist. Led by two Studio City, CA natives - Addison Rifkind on guitar and Michael Duffy on drums - Fat Produce deliver a veritable cornucopia of fruits and groceries to chew on here. 7" A-sider 'Sticky Beets' turns our inners red, as we're led to imagine chowing down on the perfect beetroot yield and the funky euphoria that inevitably follows ingestion of such a delicacy. B-sider 'Son!', meanwhile, draws on an amalgamation of several Bay Area-inspired grooves - Duffy is a walking rhythmic encyclopaedia - set against an improvised, on-the-fly groove first laid down by Rifkind, whose hook-worthiness is unmistakable here.

Review: It's hard to comprehend how significant it was when John Lee Hooker first recorded 'Boogie Chillen' in Detroit way, way back in 1948. Once the track was licensed to Modern Records, it went on to sell close to a million copies in the space of a year, at a time when recorded music was still finding its feet, and from that moment on Hooker's legendary status was confirmed until his death in 2001. Now Ace are commemorating 75 years since that landmark song was recorded, capturing two different takes of a track recorded by one man singing his honest truth and creating seismic shifts in popular culture, before such a thing even existed.

Review: Greg Jolly's 1981 jam 'It's Getting Sweeter' is the subject of this new tidy reissue on US label Enjoy. It's a real deep funk classic that has a lo-fi feel and vocals full of love and passion from both the male lead and the sweet female backers. The chords and drums are gently persuasive and it's a great way to ease yourself into an evening. This 45rpm is backed with 'Love Is' which picks up the pace and has a more funky and propulsive beat with acrobatic falsettos up top finishing it in style.

Review: The Mdou Moctar mixtape series started in 2021. It is music made from sounds captured in the back of a van while on tour including field recordings, cell phone voice memos, interview clips, conversations and more. The Niger EPs now continue on that theme and look closely at the roots of the band, which lay in long bus rides across West Africa sitting next to people and talking about music. As such the music here is solely from recordings in Mdou Moctar's home country of Niger between 2017 and 2020 when the band was at weddings, picnics, rehearsals, and impromptu house concerts.

Review: Mdou Moctar is a Tuareg, Niger musician best known for his personal sound; he calls it Tuareg guitar music, drawing on styles like takamba and assouf. His music was originally circulated not via the internet, but rather an informal trade network of memory sticks and mobile phones in the Sahel region of North Africa. This musical scarcity captured the imagination of the net-based musical audience at large, following Moctar's formation of a four-piece band and emergent touring schedule aided by motorcycle, not to mention his demo music being leaked on a compilation documenting the cellphone based music of the Sahel in the early 2010s. 'Niger EP. Vol. 2' tops up the artist's latest EP series, laying down a further four entrancingly electric songs recorded at various weddings, picnics and house concerts.

Review: A powerful Stax flashback of two tracks from Arkansas soul don Taylor's 1967 debut album Wanted One Soul Singer. As covered by the likes of Lou Rawls, "Ain't That Loving You" is heartfelt bluesy ballad with a sultry swagger and serious yearning on the choruses while the even rarer "Blues In The Night" closes the B on a super-tight floor-bound riff and gutsy delivery from Taylor. Both bonafide northern soul classics and confirmed rarities with both cuts regularly fetching triple figures, this reissue changes everything. For more reasons than one.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight surface mark on the record, but otherwise in excellent working condition***


Adia Victoria makes a thoroughly welcome return with her third album, A Southern Gothic. From her unmistakable vocal twang to the scratchy tone of her guitar and the bottleneck lurches behind her, she embodies the south of the USA with undeniable flair. Doubling down on that idea for her third record, she conjures up another stellar run of blues with acerbic wit and confessional intimacy woven together in potent fashion. Featuring the likes of Kyahona and Margo Price on 'You Was Born To Die' and Stone Jack Jones on 'My Oh My', this might just be her best album yet.

Review: .If the aim of any commissioned soundtrack score is to provide music that enhances and emphasises the on-screen action, then Anna Calvi's work on BBC smash Peaky Blinders is up there with the best of them. While Calvi only provided soundtracks to two seasons - five and six, both of which are presented on this limited double-disc release - the distinctive sound worlds she created suited series' dark and stylish visual tone. All low-slung basslines, dystopian effects, snarling riffs and squally, stretched-out guitar solos, the collected instrumentals stand on their own two feet while naturally conjuring up mental glimpses of key scenes for those who watched and loved the award-winning series.

Review: Danielle Nicole shares her debut album on Forty Below: The Love You Bleed. From its earliest recording sessions, Nicole knew this one would be different; for the first time, the whole twelve-track repertoire is about falling in love, not the fallout of it. Produced by Tony Braunagel (Taj Mahal, Eric Burdon, Robert Cray) and mixed by John Porter (B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Bryan Ferry), The Love You Bleed is an album-length sentimental ballad; full of love, loss, will, determination, and every residual ingredient of love. But that's not to say the album doesn't get sour with it; while lead single 'Make Love' is about consciously pushing past pain - choosing love, family, and community in life's difficult moments - 'How Did We Get To Goodbye' hits the listener quicker with its raw and twinging lyrics, documenting a soured love that bears no hero or villain, and asking how one might reach such a place of disrepair without even knowing it.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Talk about albums that make you realise how fine the line is between 'must buy' and 'lost forever'. Everyone who heard the first instalment in this series fell head over heels in love not just with the music itself, but the yarn it comes with. JCR was a sub-label of D-Vine Spirituals, both run and founded by none-other than the Baptist Pastor Juan D. Shipp. A radio DJ, Air Force veteran and major figure in the Memphis gospel and soul scenes, he set to trying to address the sound quality differences between the major sacred soul labels and smaller local operations. In doing so, the boss met Sun Records artist Clyde Leoppard, and found his Tempo Recording Studio. Together they would record more than 75 acts there, over 13 years. Those tapes would then be found, decades later, in a shack outside Olive Branch, Mississippi.170 or so reels pored over and restored to create this album, and its predecessor.

Review: It seems like every day we get a brand new and equally essential compilation from Wagram drop on our shelves. Whether it's techno, soul, rare funk or all manner of weird and wonderful world music forms, they know how to dig deep and come up with the goods. On this latest collection, the French curators look to the vast world of gospel. Specifically, this one serves to highlight Classics By Gospel Masters: Vintage Sounds so is a great introduction for anyone new to this world and wanting to hear some of the highlights from its golden era and richest voices.