Back catalogue: Funk

Review: Space Echo returns with a bold funk-fuelled trip here that is powered by irresistible rhythms built on downtempo grooves. The track reflects on war-driven forces destabilising communities and Gianluca Petrella's trombone work channels pure Fred Wesley-esque funk energy while 1970s-inspired choral arrangements amplify its introspective message. Alongside this, Agosta's remix of 'Mother Forgive Us' from The Invisible Session's Echoes Of Africa transforms the track into a futuristic Afro-funk odyssey with tribal percussion tubing up next to pulsating electronics. A great package with a message of climate urgency that calls for a reconnection to nature.

Review: Voodoocuts returns to Matasuna Records with another officially licensed 45, this time putting his expert touch on two disco gems by South African legends The Movers. Active from the late 1960s through the early 80s, The Movers were instrumental in shaping the country's vibrant music scene. Voodoocuts tackles 'Soweto Disco' and 'Shanana,' two tracks from their late-70s catalogue, and gives them his trademark treatment with pinpoint precision. The result is a fusion of South African rhythms with international influences like jazz, funk, and disco, transforming the originals into dynamite for any dancefloor. These reworks elevate the raw energy of the originals while remaining true to the spirit of the band. 'Soweto Disco' pulses with infectious grooves, while 'Shanana' offers a more laid-back vibe, but both are packed with the flair and soul that The Movers were known for. A perfect blend of local and global, these edits are a must-have for any record bag, seamlessly mixing South African funk with universal disco sensibilities.

Review: Should you stumble on an original copy of N'Draman Blintch's 1980 album Cosmic Sounds for sale, it would cost you upwards of 1,000 Pounds. This, then, is a much-needed reissue. It contains four fine cuts that showcase the Ivory Coast-born musician's distinctively intergalactic take on Afro-disco, where spacey electronics and mazy synth lines rise above bustling, high octane grooves. The album does contain one decidedly laidback and loved-up slow jam - closer "She Africa (Ton Tour Viendra)" - but it's the celebratory brilliance of the set's dancefloor workouts that most impress. Check, in particular, the anthem-like strut of title track "Cosmic Sounds" and the hot-to-trot, solo-laden Afro-disco explosion that is opener "Self Destruction".

Review: Back in 2018, Sticky Buttons dipped into the vast back catalogue of Nigerian synth-funk supremo Dizzy K Falola and served up Sweet Music, a superb double-vinyl retrospective of his hard-to-find work. As the title makes clear, this is the inevitable sequel - a similarly impressive collection largely made up of tracks first showcased on the artist's final three albums of the 1980s. The music on show is colourful, attractive and effortlessly soulful, with Falola expanding his trademark Afro-boogie and Afro-synth sound via references to US r&b, soca and synth-pop. Highlights include, but are in no way limited to, the superb 'Afrikan Jamboree', Afro-electro gem 'Traffic Jammer', the stuttering excellence of 'Bad Boy' and the percussion-rich 'Dance Africa'.

Review: Prepare yourself for a wry chuckle, as we impart the fact that the compilation you see hyperlinked before you was not at all prepackaged, with work cut out for its curators. Rather, it came from the source, having first manifested as a pile of Ghanaian highlife LPs buried at the bottom of DJ Jerry Frempong's wife's garden. Frempong is the son of one of one of the most prominent former Ghanaian-British label owners, Anthony Roberts Frempong of Asona Records, whose founding movements in the South East London district of Peckham proved highly popular helping disseminate highlife music in the English capital. BBE Music owner Pete Adarkwah caught wind of the serendipitous discovery and approached Jerry to discuss the reissue of this historic catalogue, which you hear here. The sweetest of early and untrodden highlife highlights are heard here, including sparklers by Kantata, Jewel Ackah, Sam Yeboah, Mr Cee and even Thomas Frempong himself.

Review: The impeccable Soundway Records is back with another essential companion, this time in the form of Nigeria Special Volume 3: Electronic Innovation Meets Culture & Tradition 1978-93, which presents a collection of 19 tracks capturing the unique musical transformation in Nigeria during a pivotal era. This compilation reflects the fusion of drum machines, synthesisers and Western influences like pop, reggae, disco and soul, all blended with traditional Nigerian genres like highlife and juju. It represents a period of innovation where new technology was used to reimagine and refresh cultural sounds and what results is a bold new sounds that is going to be lapse dup by fans of names like Steve Monite and Charles Amoah.

Review: Strut continues to explore the vast archives of Disque Debs, a long-running, Guadalupe-based label that, over the course of half a century, released a wealth of music from the Caribbean. In the process, Henri Debs imprint helped launch the careers of countless French-speaking artists while not only showcasing stylistic movements such as zouk, bouyon and merengue, but also bold, colourful and tropical takes on existing Caribbean, Amercian and European sounds. Highlights include - but are in no way limited to - the slowly unfurling, synth-heavy shuffle of Sadi Lancreot's club-ready 'Dou Se Vou Ki Siwo' and the horn-heavy tropical disco brilliance of Dominuque Parol's 'Come On Baby'.

Review: Strut introduces the highly anticipated third volume in the Disques Debs International series, diving deeper into the archives of one of the greatest French Caribbean labels, Disques Debs, based in Guadeloupe. Founded by Henri Debs in the late 1950s, the Debs studio naturally doubled as a record label and ran for over 50 years, releasing more than 300 7" singles and 200 LPs, cementing it as one of the foremost record labels to prize Caribbean music history. Not just limited to Guadeloupean musicians but also Martinicians and Parisians, the likes of Jocelyn Mocka, Mariz, Dominique Parol, Christian Yeye and Alex Rosa make this a thixotropic record, mercurial and restless as it is rooted in forms of zouk, biguine, gwoka and, of course, the nascent electronica. This third volume flaunts the label's dynamic latter-day period, as it interpreted the analog electronic dreams of the 1980s.