soul an FUNK
Gettin' down is critical to a quality lifestyle and as James Brown sang so succinctly "Papa Don't Take NO Mess", we don't think so either. Start here or use the search window above. Free your mind and your ass will follow...
Long awaited 2nd album. Young soul sensation adopts a more contemporary R&B approach while staying true to his signature style.
Over the years, different members have traded production and composition duties from album to album. On the new album''Fu Chronicles''Amayo leads us through a thrilling sonic journey of kung fu meets Afrobeat, weaving together the strands of Edo and Yoruba cultural memory from Nigeria with his training and study in Chinese martial arts. Recorded in the Summer of 2018, over seventeen musicians and singers crammed into the storied Daptone House of Soul in Bushwick to record the massive body of work. With live versions and arrangements stretching up to thirty minutes, Perna, Amayo, and Roth worked tirelessly to preserve the hypnotic power of the long-form live arrangements into six concise and powerful album tracks.
Black Pumas has announced their highly anticipated debut album set for release on June 21. The band is led by the creative partnership between Grammy Award-winning guitarist / producer Adrian Quesada and 27-year-old songwriter Eric Burton. Burton is a relative newcomer who arrived in Austin in 2015 after busking his way across the country from Los Angeles, while Quesada has a storied reputation for playing in bands like Grupo Fantasma and Brownout.
After the two connected via friends in the Austin scene, they began to collaborate on a new sound that transmutes soul into something idiosyncratically modern. Reminiscent of Ghostface Killah and Motown in equal measure, this original sound ensured that Black Pumas weekly residency at C-Boys quickly became the hottest party in town (Austin-American Statesman).
As menacing and unhinged as ever, the pride of Staten Island is back with their fifth full-length offering, V. Raw and absent of the modern technological trappings, the Budos pick up where they left off with 2014s Burnt Offering, and finds the group expanding on the brooding, fuzz-fueled riffs, whilst harkening back to the Ethiopian inspired rhythms and percussive proclivity that put Budos Band on the map.
Charles Bradley's forthcoming LP, Black Velvet is an extraordinary collection of 10 tracks making their LP debut. In addition to fan favorites like Charles covers of Nirvanas 'Stay Away', Neil Young's 'Heart Of Gold', and Rodriguez's 'Slip Away' - this album features 4 never-before-heard tracks from Producer Tommy 'TNT' Brenneck's vaults. As a one-time pressing for the super-fan we have a gorgeous black velvet wrapped box set that includes the following: 180g vinyl version of the standard LP, a bonus 12 45rpm EP with stripped down mixes of 4 CB classics, an exclusive slip-mat, 2 printed heavy-duty inner sleeves sporting a surreal painting of Charles and the interview in which he explains the origin of the painting, a 12x12 photo-book with extensive liner notes from Producer Tommy 'TNT', an exact replica of Charles' original Black Velvit business card, and last but certainly not least...a seeded DL Card (once you've retrieved your DL, you can plant the card and wildflowers will grow in memory of Charles).
Charles Bradley's forthcoming LP, Black Velvet is an extraordinary collection of 10 tracks making their LP debut. In addition to fan favorites like Charles covers of Nirvanas 'Stay Away', Neil Young's 'Heart Of Gold', and Rodriguez's 'Slip Away' - this album features 4 never-before-heard tracks from Producer Tommy 'TNT' Brenneck's vaults.
In the fall of 2012, Jones left his small-town in Louisiana for the foothills of Indiana. Alto saxophone in tow he enrolled in the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Being a singer was never part of the plan, Jones admits. But soon enough he found his way in front of a rowdy rock-n-roll band belting out a rambunctious rendition of Dock Of The Bay, to a basement full of drunken undergrads. That rowdy band unfolded into The Indicationscomprised of Aaron Frazer (drums), Blake Rhein (guitar), Kyle Houpt (bass) and Justin Hubler (organ). Inspired by a handful of dusty and obscure 45s bearing names like The Ethics, Brothers of Soul and The Icemen, The Indications set out to make a record steeped in heavy drums, blown-out vocals, and deep grooves. Gathered around a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and a case of Miller High-Life, the group spent their Sunday evenings re-cording into the early hours of the morning. With comparisons from Charles Bradley and Lee Fields to Al Green, the only thing that separates this band from those greats is their youth. Having now taken their raucous live show all across the US, the band have galvanized a following that are ready to take them to the next level.
Ten years ago, Ikebe Shakedown began pushing the boundaries of instrumental music. Each new track and live set has sent them deeper into combining the primal elements of '70s soul, raw psychedelic style, and cinematic Western soundtracks with powerful grooves and soaring melodies. Now, with their new release, Kings Left Behind (Colemine Records), the band is giving listeners more mystery and majesty than ever before. The album features the entire group collaborating to produce tracks that deliver punches right to the gut, even as dreamy guitars and lush horn melodies and string arrangements capture the imagination. The album was recorded by Ikebe's bassist, Vince Chiarito, at Hive Mind Recording. Opened with Ikebe's saxophonist, Mike Buckley, and another collaborator in 2017, Hive Mind has become a home base for the band, leading to more experimentation with the textures and sounds of a genre they define as Instrumental Soul.
One of the truly timeless albums in soul music history and the one that launched the career of Isaac Hayes, putting him firmly on the map as a musical force to be reckoned with and a source on musical inspiration for generations to come. This new vinyl reissue, complete with replica old-school style tip-on jacket, features audio remastered from the original analog tapes by leading engineer Dave Cooley and pressed on 180-gram vinyl.
Jamila Woods has a voice and lyrical sensibility that transcends generations, and so it makes sense to have this lush and layered album that bounces seamlessly from one sonic aesthetic to another. This was the case on 2016's HEAVN, which found Woods hopeful and exploratory, looking along the edges resilience and exhaustion for some measures of joy. Her new album, Legacy! Legacy! Is the logical conclusion to that looking. From the airy boom-bap of "Giovanni" to the psychedelic flourishes of "Sonia," the instrument which ties the musical threads together is the ability of Woods to find her pockets in the waves of instrumentation, stretching syllables and vowels over the harmony of noise until each puzzle piece has a home. The whimsical and malleable nature of sonic delights also grants a path for collaborators to flourish: the sparkling flows of Nitty Scott on "Sonia" and Saba on "Basquiat," or the bloom of Nico Segal's horns on "Baldwin." More than just giving the song titles the names of historical black and brown icons of literature, art, and music, Jamila Woods builds a sonic and lyrical monument to the various modes of how these icons tried to push beyond the margins a country had assigned to them. On "Sun Ra," Woods sings "I just gotta get away from this earth, man / this marble was doomed from the start" and that type of dreaming and vision honors not only the legacy of Sun Ra, but the idea that there is a better future, and in it, there will still be black people. Soul music did not just appear in America, and soul does not just mean music. Rather, soul is what gold can be dug from the depths of ruin, and refashioned by those who have true vision. True soul lives in the pages of a worn novel that no one talks about anymore, or a painting that sits in a gallery for a while but then in an attic forever. Soul is all the things a country tries to force itself into forgetting. Soul is all of those things come back to claim what is theirs. Jamila Woods is a singular soul singer who, in voice, holds the rhetorical demand. The knowing that there is no compromise for someone with vision this endless. That the revolution must take many forms, and it sometimes starts with songs like these. Songs that feel like the sun on your face and the wind pushing flowers against your back while you kick your head to the heavens and laugh at how foolish the world seems.
Driving anywhere in Texas can cost you half a day, easy. For example, it'll take you over four hours just to get from R&B singer Leon Bridges' hometown of Fort Worth down to Houston, where the psychedelic wanderers in Khruangbin hail from. The state is vast, crisscrossed with rugged expanses of road flanked by limestone cliffs and granite mountains, forests of pine and mesquite, miles of desert or acres of sprawling grassland, all depending on what part you're in. And it's all baking under the Texas Sun that lends it's name to Bridges and Khruangbin's new collaborative EP. "Big sky country, that's what they call Texas," Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee says. "The horizon line goes all the way from one side to another without interruption. There's something really comforting about that." On Texas Sun, these two members of the state's musical vanguard meet up somewhere in the middle of that scene, in the mythical nexus of Texas' past, present, and future-a dreamy badlands where genres blur as seamlessly as the terrain. It calls equally to the cowboys boot-scooting at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth, the chopped-and-screwed hip-hop fans rattling slabs on the southside of Houston, the art-school kids dropping acid in Austin, the cross-cultural progeny who grew up on listening to both mariachi and post-hardcore out on the Mexican borders of El Paso. All of these things, overlapping in a multicolored melange, purple hues as vivid and unpredictable as one of the state's rightfully celebrated sunsets. A journey through homesick reminiscences, backseat romances, and late-night contemplations, the kind of record made for listening with the windows down and the road humming softly beneath you. Like the highways that inspired it, Texas Sun is guaranteed to get you where you're going-especially if you're in no particular hurry to get there.
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings' final studio album, Soul of a Woman is a lush, orchestral masterpiece. A true testament to the life and career of Daptone's fearless leader and one of the world's greatest performers. In the year prior to her death from pancreatic cancer in 2016, Sharon Jones toured and performed tirelessly, and was also the subject of Miss Sharon Jones!, an acclaimed documentary by Oscar-Winning director Barbara Kopple. Yet somehow, the beloved and heroic soul singer found time to complete a studio album. Soul of a Woman features eleven songs which reveal that the emotion, dynamics, and drama of Jones' voice remained at full power until her final days.
The songs on Soul Of A Woman exemplify two distinct sides of the band s sound. Side One showcases the grittier, bluesier material like Matter Of Time and Sail On giving Sharon the room to flex her vocal prowess, creating a liveness that few studio albums posses. Side Two takes on a more sophisticated orchestral mood. Tracks like When I Saw Your Face and These Tears (No Longer For You), capture a soft vulnerability in Sharon's vocals that draws you deep inside, and yet they remain nuanced with the signature toughness that never allow you to forget she's steering the ship. The finished product is an album that captures a band and a singer at their peak. Includes download card.
HIVE MIND is the new album from THE INTERNET, and is the follow up to 2015's critically acclaimed and Grammy nominated album Ego Death. With this new album, THE INTERNET present enormous growth in their creative chemistry and prove they are a five-person force whose singular talents created one phenomenal whole. The album is written and produced entirely by THE INTERNET - Syd (vocalist/songwriter), Matt Martians (producer), Steve Lacy (guitarist/vocalist/songwriter), Patrick Paige II (songwriter/bassist), and Christopher Smith (songwriter/drummer). And it is with a sense of togetherness - not just for them, but for everyone - that the band chose to highlight as a major theme for Hive Mind. "After making a few songs we realized that we really want to use this album to live by example and promote camaraderie amongst young black people," Syd reveals. "We realized that we're the only band of our kind. And we want to really solidify ourselves as that, as the best." With the chaos of the current world considered, all of THE INTERNET wanted to champion good feelings and the joy of following your heart and passions, in addition to using their own positive relationships and experiences to inspire their community. The band unearthed an even deeper purpose as they collaborated on HIVE MIND. The result is not just one of the greatest records in the band s already phenomenal catalogue, but is easily one of the best albums of 2018, from five amazing people already leaving an indelible mark on pop music.
The musicians and production team behind the great CHARLES BRADLEY present DUNHAM RECORDS newest sensations! Direct from Staten Island, The SHA LA DAS (a play on their surname, Schalda) are a musical family in every sense of the phrase. Don't get confused here, folks. We're talking real-deal, shoot-from-the-hip group harmony of the highest order. The group is comprised of Patriarch, BILL who honed his skill and cultivated his ear for harmonies at an early age, singing on the streets of Brooklyn with other neighborhood kids and his sons WILL, PAUL, and CARMINE, all musicians in their own right (THE EXTRAORDINAIRES, SWIVS, PAUL AND THE TALL TREES.) The genesis of the Sha La Das came to fruition when an old friend, TOMMY BRENNECK (Dunham/Daptone producer and musician), called upon the Schalda boys to sing back-ups on CHARLES BRADLEY S now classic Victim of Love. The second Tommy heard the four Schaldas sing he knew he had to make a record with them. This idea soon developed into a passion whose fruits have been cut into the 12 masterpiece we humbly present here. From the opening atmospheric guitar strum of Open My Eyes via a walk along the Coney Island boardwalk catching the last glimpse of sunlight at dusk of Carnival to the sublime crescendo of harmonies of the winsome Love in the Wind, each song evokes a deeply personal yet universal yearning that none of us can escape. Quite simply every song yields magic. So sit back, close your eyes and take in the SHA LA DAS Love in the Wind. Let the full realization of their harmonies wash over the lush instrumentation of MENAHAN STREET BAND, and float into the starlit summer s night.