Freestyle 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Rare Groove Spectrum Vol. 2 on Freestyle back in January was a superbly well received collection of reworks and imaginings of soul classics. Now Lance Ferguson follows it up with a tidy 7" that features his take on 'Mango Meat' as well as his unique Latin soul cover of Gladys Knight's classic 'Got Myself a Good Man.' It's a bustling jazz-funk gem with glorious flutes bursting out of the mix and rollin drum rhythms. 'Mango meat' goes a litter deeper with its more rolling drum work and psyched-out guitars and big horns.

Review: Jazz-funkers Menagerie carry the torch of broken beat and jazzdance into the bleeding-edge present day with 'The Shores Of Infinity'. The Australian band, led by Lance Ferguson, is nominally guided by the spiritual jazz movement of the 1970s, but their sound reflects little of its usual beatless freakouts and croony, culty improvisations. Rather, this LP runs the entire gamut of what could be considered spiritual jazz, moving through, in their own words, myriad zones of "cosmic consciousness, transcendence, and interconnection". In fitting fashion for the genre, just six long-form tracks appear, three on each side, making for a neat, coin-flipped, symmetrical statement in jazz; the balance of the universe reflected in a cosmick vinyl void.