Back catalogue: Soul

Review: A year after dropping his acclaimed album 'Billy Valentine And The Universal Truth' with Flying Dutchman and Acid Jazz Records, Billy unveils a fresh take on a soul classic. Recorded at LA's prestigious Henson Recording Studio, alongside producer Bob Thiele Jr. and a stellar band including Larry Goldings, Pino Paladino, Jeff Parker, James Gadson, and John Philip Shenale, he introduces three new tracks. His rendition of Gil Scott-Heron's 'Lady Day & John Coltrane', debuted on Gilles Peterson's BBC6Music, mesmerising live audiences. This special edition 7" includes a unique edit of 'Home Is Where The Hatred Is', not previously available on vinyl.

Review: One of four new vinyl issues, Numero Group deliver their compendium of regional funk and soul unknowns from Mel Alexander's Consolidated Productions label. The V/A forms a part of a new bundled volume of their longstanding compilation-compilation (yes!), made up of earlier funk cuts released by lesser-spotted interstate funk floggers throughout the 70s, including Tragar, Note, Saadia and Shoestring. Eccentric Soul is its name: first issued in 2004, this big splash homed in on the regional American delights in the genre, stretching as far as Wichita, Kansas, San Antonia, Texas and Norfolk and releasing an uncountable string of tracks by formerly unknown names based in small locales, who'd at that point only just caught onto the incipient funk movement. Here, you may dive into LA's cutthroat music business from 1961-1991, embodied in Mel Alexander's Consolidated Productions, which lay among the longest running Black-owned independent record conglomerates of the 20th century.