GREGORY PORTER 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Ella Fitzgerald has a spotless discography that is packed with many a classic tunes but for plenty of fans and critics alike, Let No Man Write My Epitaph is one of her ultimate standouts. She recorded the album back in 1960 with backing from the pianist Paul Smith. The album takes its name from the movie in which Fitzgerald starred and hits some truly rare depth of emotional understanding. It helped secure Ella's status as one of the finest translators of the Great American Songbook and now Verve's Acoustic Sounds Series transfers the originals from analog tapes and has remastered them on to 180-gram vinyl complete with deluxe gatefold packaging.

Review: Second time around for Teflon Dons' legendary 1999 collaboration with soul sensation Gregory Porter, who at the time was a virtually unknown artist whose greatest commercial successes were still some years off. The EP begins with the 'Main Mix', a blend of Kenny Dope style broken deep house beats, sumptuous chords, garage-house bass and slick lead vocals from Porter, before we're treated to a 'Bonus Beats' version that wraps spacey synths around the Dons' hot-stepping drums. Over on the flip, the Teflon Dons reach for weighty sub bass, reverb-laden vocal snippets and oceans-deep chords on a superb dancefloor dub, before the 'Original Mix' - a warmer, sunnier and more soulful vocal deep house excursion - rounds off a must-have reissue.

Review: Two UK Battle Weapons fresh from the guys over at the eponymous edits label. On the A, we’re hit with a new one by a frankenstein whom we can only guess, by syllogistic intuition, is an invention of the label - LL Smooth K, with ‘Fix Up The Seed’, a rope-burning mashup incorporating acapella verses from Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp’. Then there’s DJ Snatch’s version of Gregory Porter’s bluesy ‘Liquid Spirit’ on the B, a surprisingly pacy curveball compared to the cutthroat injunctions of the A.