New releases last four weeks: Funk/Reissues

Review:  Loveland, Ohio's Colemine label offer a 7" indie exclusive on this furtive freshener from house engineer and regularly featured artist Leroi Conroy, returning after his last 45 in 2017 with a sharp double-sider flaunting his rhythmatic flair and deeper verbal intuitions. 'No Return' outlays crisp boom-bap drums wrapped in fluttering flute lines from Michael Sarason (of Say She She) and shimmering harp hallelujahs, courtesy of Cincinnati handywoman Rachel Miller. There's a distinct nod to Dorothy Ashby's work here, but reimagined for a 2025 palette; the flip leads the way to the 'Path Of Man', stripping the bark back to murkier moods, pulling from the darker corners of Conroy's upcoming full-length. He's come a long way since vacationing from the cutting lathe, representing himself in a new soulful and cinematic light, one which is yet raw and unpolished where it counts.

Review: London soul-jazz composer and producer Andrei Nikolsky - formerly of the equal-parts Palace Records favourite The Kanpai Quartet - now broadcasts yet two more heavy-hitters from straight from the label whose logo pulls from the iconographic Crystal Palace Transmitter. 'Botchit & Scarper' is heard far and wide, hijacking the airwaves with what sounds at face value like an unsound moral principle - but on second listen to its slack-shouldered ease, whimsied brass and scaphoid drumming, might function just as well as a principle for free living. Of course, if something's worth doing then it's worth doing "botched", though Nikolsky currently hasn't botched this one. 'Wafty' follows as the blue piano sojourn, replete with plinking ninths and a hiss-hummed rhythms section.