New releases this week: Funk Soul & Jazz

Review: Naya Beat's modus operandi is to champion the OG sounds of the South Asian underground through the lenticular funnel of dance music. Their latest in this effort is a breakout wonder in V/A form, herding together three contemporary club titans for a jolly trans-national dialogue over the original stylings of an inimitable key player in proliferation of Bhangra music, Manjeet Kondal. The late great Kondal hears one original piece, 'Pyaar', reissued, alongside two exclusive versions of 'Ishkaan De Mamle' by digger extraordinaire Mr. Scruff, followed by a closing, straight-from-the-stems downtempo acid dub tribute by modern day remixers and DJs Turbotito & Ragz. This is an honorific tribute to the crossection of late 80s to early 90s Bhangra music with acid house, carefully modelled after the aesthetic sensibilities of the time.

Review: The blistering, one-of-a-kind West Coast disco-funk record 'U Need Me' by LA Propinquity surfaces as part of a new body of historic productions initially intended for compilation on a full-length LP. For reasons undisclosed, this never happened; instead, Italian sonic exhumers Cannonball Records have been afforded the privilege of reissuing these tracks across a series of 7"s themselves. Hardly and criminially under-recognised in their day, the L.A. Propinquity were nonetheless composed of the angelic city's finest, with drummer James Gadson forming a prominent part. A blast from the 1970s, 'U Need Me' is a beaming slice of unrequited longing, set to delicious funk tones that are as maximized as they are unstrained.