New releases last eight weeks: Broken Beat/Nu Jazz/Nu Soul

Review: Bread & Souls is a new project dreamt up by Italian entrepreneur and music lover Franco Fusari. For this he invited Mark de Clive-Lowe to direct and produce his roving vision: a series of collaborations with the cream of boogie and jazzdance's best performers and instrumentalists, including the likes of Bembe Segue, Vanessa Freeman, Paul Randolph, Rich Medina, Tommaso Cappellato and more. Under the banner of Bread & Souls, these eight originals and six remixes hit hard yet smooth, sliding down the proverbial aural gullet like a well-made Manhattan.

Review: Natacha Fink's 'Pirarublue' delivers a sexy lounge vibe with hints of jazz rock, characterised by its catchy rhythms and melodies, while on the flip Nimalan Yoganathan presents 'Unseen Songlines,' an ambient piece rich in field recording atmosphere and experimental textures. With its unique sounding hord structures and ample use of echo, this track transports listeners on an introspective journey through soundscapes. Overall, the EP showcases the label's commitment to showcasing eclectic and boundary-pushing music from emerging artists.

Review: Jihoon links with some talented musicians including Thomas Xu, Omar Meftah, Eric Meftah and Ian Gold on this brilliant new three-tracker on One Spoke. It kicks off with the sublime 'Good In The Bad' which is a jazzy viber with flute lines dancing their own dance above lovely contemporary broken beats. 'There Is No End' layers chords, synths and jazz drums into a richly atmospheric groove before last of all the whole of the flip side is given over to a Thomas Xu & Ian Gold remix of 'There Is No End' that is gloriously sunny jazz-fusion at its finest. These will keep you warm no matter the weather outside this winter.

Review: Last year, the Expansions label kicked off a wonderfully intriguing 10" series featuring classics from soul music's rich canon complemented by contemporary cover versions and so far it's seen Blue Note troupe Quasimode tee off against Johnny Hammond and Bembe Segue challenge Norman Connors. A third edition duly arrives and hints Expansions are really enjoying the creative challenge the concept allows them with the jazz funk classic "Zaius" from Eddie Russ joined by a cover from the celebrated UK funk veterans Incognito. Originally appearing on the 1976 LP See The Light, "Zaius" is a blinding example of why Russ is described a master of the keyboard and it's complemented well by Incognito's B Side cover which appears on vinyl for the first time. Don't sleep!

Review: Melbourne, Australia based sextet The Traffic, headed up by Ivan 'Choi' Khatchoyan, serve up a special MJ feature funk 45. Presented in a special pressing in red vinyl with black splatter, we get awesome renditions of Michael Jackson tracks 'Beat It' and 'Thriller' from his iconic Thriller album from 1982. The big band energy of the players make these cover versions worthy your attention, with a killer horns section imitating the king of pop's falsetto to great effect.

Review: Tyler Daley is a UK hip-hop mainstay and the vice of the brilliant Children of Zeus. Here he branches out with his own solo album, Son of Zeus - see what he did there? It comes on the band's home label of First World and bares plenty of their signature sonic hallmarks - dusty, undercooked production, lazy hip hop beats, and gorgeous vocals that sit somewhere between neo soul, golden era boom-bap from Tribe and something else a little unique. It's a warm world where yearning bars, lush harmonies and hooky melodies all float around the stripped back but bumping beats. Superb stuff.

Review: The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series clocks up its eighth entry here and the honour is given to drummer Karriem Riggins who offers up To The Jungle. He is someone who can play the sticks with real conviction and shows that here across another superb album in this series. It really makes use of the chance given to him to stretch himself and create the sort of music he might not dare to otherwise. It has all been created with a view to be ing given one-stop clearance for use in mim and TV and plenty of this one surely will because it is so evocative.

Review: Waajeed is a top tier talent - a producer, DJ, expert beat maker and label head at Dirt Tech Rack who moved away from his deep house sounds to cook up this masterful hip hop record back in 2006. It now arrives on vinyl almost 20 years later but time has not diminished its quality. It finds the Detroit native, who thrives on breaking conventional boundaries, telling the story of the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst as an emblematic American tale that he pairs with a raw beat framework that taps into the vibes of artists like J Dilla and Slum Village. It is a serious work from a serious artist.