Wewantsounds Vinilo y CD

Review: Wewantsounds is set to reissue Steve Beresford's highly coveted 1985 album, Dancing the Line, originally released by the French label nato. Drawing inspiration from the fashion of French designer Anne Marie Beretta, the album features contributions from Beresford's Alterations bandmate David Toop, Alan Hacker, and Kazuko Hohki of Frank Chickens, with lyrics by Andrew Brenner. The music blends sophisticated ambient pop, driven by an RX11 drum machine, with synth funk and experimental elements. Tracks like 'Tendance' and 'Comfortable Gestures' have achieved underground classic status over the years. This reissue marks the first time the album has been re-released, with newly remastered audio by Translab in Paris, the original gatefold artwork, and a four-page insert with liner notes by nato's Jean Rochard. Steve Beresford, a prominent figure in British and international music since the early 70s, began his recording career with the Portsmouth Sinfonia and has collaborated with artists such as Derek Bailey, John Zorn, and Thurston Moore. In 1985, introduced to Anne Marie Beretta by Rochard, Beresford and Brenner crafted songs inspired by Beretta's designs. The resulting album, released in France in October 1985, features a blend of ethereal pop, funk, piano ballads and free instrumentals, making it a favourite among DJs and collectors worldwide.

Review: DJ Notoya returns with another expertly curated selection of Japanese gems, this time delving into the funky, soulful, and city pop sounds of King Records. Spanning the years 1974 to 1988, this compilation is a treasure trove of forgotten classics and hidden gems, a sonic time capsule that transports listeners back to the neon-lit streets and vibrant nightlife of 1980s Japan. Buzz's 'Garasumado' kicks things off with an infectious groove and funky guitar riffs that could rival any Western funk classic. Mami Ayukawa's 'Sabita Gambler' adds a touch of soulful sophistication, her smooth vocals gliding over lush instrumentation. Keiko Toda's 'Fade In' is a city pop gem, its dreamy melodies and catchy hooks evoking a sense of carefree optimism and urban cool. Elsewhere, Johnny Yoshinaga's soulful ballad 'The Rain' provides a moment of introspection, while Kumiko Sawada's disco-infused 'Your Love's Away' will get you moving and grooving. The compilation closes with the feelgood sounds of Masatoshi Kanno's 'Day By Day', a perfect encapsulation of the city pop aesthetic.

Review: Adding to the fervour around Japanese city pop - the genre is still a clogged but speculative seep for reissuers, who are keen to capitalise on the mainly Tokyo-born genre's still underground, under-recognised reserves of music - comes DJ Nutoya with a fresh and terse ten-tracker compilation: Tokyo Bliss. This breezy selection centres on the all-rounder genre's favourite international foci, boogie and funk: frissonic formulas for sensational home listening. Most tracks here make their debut on vinyl outside of Japan; from Buzz's pristine tremolo'er 'Garasumado', to Keiko Toda's escape-noteworthy 'Fade In' and Yuji Mitsuya's delirious summer disco dirge 'After Five At Caf-Bar', this is an impeccable curation job.

Review: Donna McGhee's "Make It Last Forever" has long been one of the most sought-after disco albums around, in part due to the quality of Greg Carmichael and Patrick Adams' production and the seductive nature of the superb title track. It's been reissued on vinyl a few times over the years; here it gets a rare outing on CD thanks to Wewantsounds. 41 years after it was released, the set still sparkles, with highlights including the dewy-eyed disco-soul bliss of "Do As I Do", the warm and super-sweet "Mr Blindman" and the total insanity of "I'm A Love Bug", which is a fantastic overhaul of Carmichael and Adams' earlier Bumble Bee Orchestra cut "Love Bug".

Review: It would be fair to say that "The Adventure Of Kohsuke Kindaichi" is a "cult album". While many will have heard snippets of some of its tracks in hip-hop tracks and via dusty disco re-edits (a number have been given the scalpel treatment in the past), few outside of Japan have been able to get the album since it was released way back in 1977. The premise is odd - composer Kentaro Haneda created the disco and jazz-funk set as a soundtrack to a series of detective novels - but the music is superb: a zany but hugely entertaining mixture of nods to various soundtrack styles underpinned by killer disco grooves and swirling orchestral movements. We'd heartily recommend checking out the clips ASAP.

Review: Funk and soul group Sho Nuff were already beneficiaries of such greats as Stax Records and Malaco before their fourth LP, now reissued here through Wewantsounds, came out via the Japanese music racket King Records. Whilst their earlier records saw wide promotions in the US, Body Pressure heard the sextet relocate their appeal to the Japanese market, after having toured regularly in the Eastern isle after their prior album Stand Up For Love saw only modest sales success. Now well into their early-mid 80s embrace of boogie, the likes of 'Body Pressure', 'Monster Monster' and 'Is This For Real' hear unique pan-Asian collaborative panaceas, with recordings from Japanese funk jazz guitarist Takao Naoi standing out most notably on this sizzler.

Review: Some compilations are clearly a labour of love. That's certainly the case with Sharayet El Disco, a superb collection curated by Amsterdam-based Egyptian DJ Disco Arabesquo (real name Moataz Rageb). It dips into his ever-expanding collection of hard-to-find Egyptian disco and boogie cassettes released between 1982 and '92, offering up a selection of colourful dance tracks that frequently add Arabic vocals and instrumentation to authentic, American style disco and boogie grooves. Highlights are plentiful, from the stomping disco surge of Afaf Rady's 'Tany Tany' and the glossy, fretless bass-sporting synth-pop of 'Merci' by Simone, to the low-slung Arabic synth-funk of Frikit El Azdeqaa's 'Eqleb El Sheret', and the dreamy boogie brilliance of Americana Show's 'Yom Wi Lilah'.

Review: On their latest must-check compilation, Wewantsounds has brought together a bunch of rare early disco and disco-funk gems originally released by Bod Shad's Mainstream Records - an imprint better-known for its jazz and jazz-funk output - during the mid 1970s. Most of the material on show was originally released on now hard-to-find 7" singles, allowing Wewantsounds to present both vocal and instrumental takes of a handful of killer cuts. Highlights include the Clavinet sporting, low-down disco brilliance of The Grand Jury's 'Music Is Fun To Me', the soaring, disco-soul brilliance of 'We've Got Together (Brotherly Love)' by Chocolate Syrup, the classically orchestrated disco surge of Crystal Image's 'Gonna Have a Good Time', and the slow motion swell of The Electric Ladies' 'Nothing Between Us'.