Broken Beat/Nu Jazz/Nu Soul charts

Review: Just What The World Needs returns to their own self-titled label with a 14th outing of fiery disco heat. This is potent music that melds together jazz, funk and soul with a lashing of synth goodness. The opener is a real driver with emotive gospel vocals and mad jazz keys. Second is a slower jam with a more dreamy feel then the flip side comes on strong with jazz say leading the way beneath vaping chords and funky, smooth drums. Last of all is a supercharged leftfield bomb with explosive cosmic synths and the sort of energy that stands out in any set.

Review: Theo Parrish's masterful Sound Sculptures Vol 1 on triple LP format gets a timely repressing!! In total here there are 9 of the 27 tracks from the full double CD version but these still run the gamut of Theo's inimitable talents, from rough and tumble disco edits to saccharine soul, raw beatdown and leftfield esoterica. Be sure to check the Omar S- featuring "Synthetic Flemm" and long time Juno favourite "Flotation Device". If ever there was a selection of tracks that fully showcased the incredible breadth of production talent this man has, this is it. Not to be missed!

Review: The Moving Music label continues to unearth some ridiculously odd and inspired Norwegian movie soundtracks. Their latest is taken from 1978's Operasjon Cobra, a "youth movie" with a plot that involves a group of Oslo teenagers foiling a terror plot. The soundtrack, which appears to be one of the first to be completed by obscure Norwegian composer (and former prog rocker) Pete Knutsen, flits between Blaxploitation-inspired jazz-funk, cheery, horn-and-Clavinet-heavy post-disco instrumentals, experimental jazz, creepy synthesizer soundscapes, jazz guitar-rich ambient and heavy funk-rock. Throughout, the production is admirably lo-fi, with Knutsen keeping the tracks largely free of effects or post-production trickery.

Review: DJ Soulist and Fulgeance aka Souleance are a formidable French pair who serve up their impressive new album here on First Word Records in collaboration with Heavenly Sweetness. Beautiful is an apt title, too, because that describes their particular take on disco sounds with plenty of lush synth lines and sophisticated melodies all accompanied by a range of influences from jazz to Afro to funk. Some killer basslines define the likes of 'A Onda' and guests heighten grooves like the summery and laidback 'Out Of Touch' (feat Kit Sebastian) and shimmering broken beats of 'Lightweight' (feat Jenny Penkin).

Review: A few years back, legendary Alt-jazz saxophonist (and original Philip Glass Ensemble member) Dickie Landry handed LCD Soundsystem's Korey Rich a tape of a very NYC-sounding punk-funk track he recorded in his native Louisiana way back in 1986. Finally out, 'Hang The Rich' sounds like a long-lost downtown dub-disco gem that joins the dots between Patrick Adams' more eccentric disco productions, Bristolian punk-funk mavericks Maximum Joy, and McFadden & Whitehead after a fistful of psychedelics. Optimo's JD Twitch provides the obligatory 21st century dancefloor tweak - a stretched out, DJ-friendly revision blessed with bonus jacking drum machine rhythms and some trippy synth motifs. It's breathlessly brilliant, as anyone who has heard him and Optimo partner Jonnie Wilkes DJ over the last three years will confirm.

Review: Back in 2017, Four Flies Records unearthed and released a previously unheard "Afro-cosmic funk" EP from Italian soundtrack and library music legend Alessandro Alessandroni. Three years on, they've decided to give the 1978 recording the remix treatment. Bolissa and guests Calibra 35 kick things off with a densely percussive, out-of-this-world take on "Afro-Voodoo", before Pad re-imagines "Afro Darkness" as a chugging chunk of beatdown-disco laden with colossal chords, arpeggio bass and intergalactic electronics. Over on side B the "Jolly Mare Lifting" version of "Afro Discoteca" is a veritable leftfield disco stomper notable for its low-slung bass and spacey Moog lines, while Luca's "Quirky Version" of "Afro Darkness" is the kind of hallucinogenic, Marimba-tinged number that you can imagine Daniele Baldelli playing at the Cosmic Club circa 1981.