Be With 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: This is one of those albums that is for the real heads - a deep, dark, moody mix of new soul and hip-hop from the great vocalist you might well have recognised from Roni Size/Reprazent's seminal New Forms album. Released in 1996, it showcases Bahamadia's distinctive flow and insightful lyricism with tracks like 'Uknowhowwedu' and '3 the Hard Way' effortlessly navigating intricate beats and soulful samples to deliver messages of empowerment and introspection. As such the LP embodies the essence of 90s hip-hop in the way it blends jazz-infused production with Bahamadia's smooth delivery. As a pioneer for female MCs, Bahamadia's influence should reverberate through generations.

Review: Tommy Guerrero's sublime debut album Loose Grooves And Bastard Blues carved out his name as a musician, and followed hot on the heels of an already established skateboarding career. It's not often we can name an artist whose talents lend just as well to the axe as they do to the deck, but it's plain to see on this insouciant jazz/bossa nova collection: Guerrero is one dextrous bloke. With the skate career held firmly in mind, we can easily imagine these numbers as the backing cuts to a fish-eyed trickstyle video; it's a great testament to the pure joy of music-making too, with Guerrero insisting: "it was never meant to be released. I was just recording for the fun of it - still my fave. Oh so naive!"

Review: Guitarist, composer and skateboarder Tommy Guerrero hears several of his earliest albums reissued now via Be With, of which 2008's Return Of The Bastard was his fifth. Still evidently deep in the throes of recording for the pure fun of it, this fifteen-track album reflects a pure lyricless enjoyment that few other of Guerrero's contemporaries could ever hope to share. Perhaps it's the meditative truck of his earlier skate career that course-corrected his frame of mind to pure creative meditativeness; here driving noisy drum machines, lightly-amped two-tones, the occasional kalimba and faint vocals all collide for the perfect accompaniment to an implied visual narrative.

Review: Vocal Shades And Tones is a miraculous leftfield library classic from the genius mind of celebrated UK composer/singer/vocal arranger Barbara Moore. It's a heavenly groove-based blend of jazz, Latin, soft-psych, folk-funk, and gospel soul. Recorded for the legendary Music De Wolfe in 1972, it's an audacious start-to-finish listen, as dizzying as it is dazzling. It's a perfect snapshot of a musical era, supported by Moore's glorious vocal arrangements. Widely regarded among collectors, DJs, and lounge/easy-listening acolytes as an absolute essential, it is viewed as the holy grail by many production music heads, rarely appearing for sale and disappearing in a flash when it does. Indeed, originals now go for over L300, and it's easy to see why. Just one of the reasons why this fresh Be With reissue, part of a wider De Wolfe reissue campaign, is so utterly crucial.

Review: Maurice Fulton has delivered countless killer remixes over the last two and a half decades, including plenty that for one reason or another remain hard-to-find. This remix of LA r&b/indie-pop fusionists Rhye - first released 11 years ago - fits in that category. Fulton's version, showcased on side A, is a typically atmospheric, spaced-out affair rich in trademark crunchy disco drums, fluid and wayward electronic synth-bass reminiscent of his Syclops project, elastic bass guitar, effects aplenty and tactile female lead vocals. As the B-side original mix - a piano-laden downtempo pop number that swims in similar sonic waters to Sebastien Tellier's 'La Ritournelle' - shows, Fulton's mix is a genuinely radical re-build that exemplifies the very best of remix culture.

Review: British library musician and composer Alan Tew has one of his many magnum opuses, Drama Suite Part II, reissued by KPM. With the label keen to flaunt its first edition's going rate on Discogs, Tew's follow-up to the first part is a holy grail for library music collectors, owing to its performative subtlety, breadth of mood, and doubtless bottling of several modish styles of the time: noir, dark jazz, explotiation theme music. The track 'Stonechange' in particular hears many coded rerubs, with many versions and sub-versions, as was of the factual, rationalistic and methodical approach to the library music of the 1970s and early 80s. It's also got an indelibly clean sound: as with all KPM reissues, the audio for Drama Suite Part II comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis.

Review: Slow (Motion And Movement) was originally released on the Sonoton label back in 1980. It is a cult favourite now, much revered for its chipped, cut and edited takes on library breaks. The super sought after record gets a full reissue here from the good folks at Be With and is full of some of the most heat, dubbed out, slow and twisted library breaks you could ever imagine hearing. In between those monstrous moments are plenty of new age and synth style tracks that are all just as good. This most varied and vital selection is an essential one for all serious diggers.

Review: Vecchio's Afro-Rock is one big horn-heavy, bass-blasting, Latin groove funk-rock party. Only now, you're all invited because this, ladies and gentleman, is officially... a grail no more. With copies currently starting at 400 Euros for an original, this beautifully presented reissue, part of Be With's fresh campaign with Music De Wolfe, is well overdue. A magnificent and somewhat obscure library set that's just a total, cohesive joy from start to finish, this here is the soundtrack to all your smokin' summer BBQs and communal cookouts.