Back catalogue: Funk

Review: For many Londoners, it wouldn't be summer without the Notting Hill Carnival and Norman Jay's long-running Good Times Soundsystem. The hat-wearing MBE owner is celebrating 30 years of carnival parties this summer. What better excuse, then, for another breezy, party-centric trawl through the veteran DJ's epic record collection. As usual, the Good Times 30th Anniversary Edition features a selection of festival-friendly grooves, from dusty old disco, flute-sporting funk and classic soul to bouncy disco-house, head-nodding hip-hop and Red Stripe-swigging reggae riddims. By now, we all know what we're getting, but it's still great fun!

Review: For many Londoners, it wouldn't be summer without the Notting Hill Carnival and Norman Jay's long-running Good Times Soundsystem. The hat-wearing MBE owner is celebrating 30 years of carnival parties this summer. What better excuse, then, for another breezy, party-centric trawl through the veteran DJ's epic record collection. As usual, the unmixed Good Times 30th Anniversary Edition features a selection of festival-friendly grooves, from dusty old disco, flute-sporting funk and classic soul to bouncy disco-house, head-nodding hip-hop and Red Stripe-swigging reggae riddims. By now, we all know what we're getting, but it's still great fun.

Review: This is what happens when one of the leading modern bands who excel in international music team up with a bona fide Afrofunk legend... Together with Orlando Julius, The Heliocentrics have explored the Nigerian pioneer's earliest ideas and never-before-recorded songs to result in an emphatic homage to Africa's rich funk heritage while celebrating modern production techniques and dynamics. Progressive, often cosmic and galvanised with a natural jazzy character (thanks to the awesome horn work) and sturdy funk backbone (thanks to the dense drums and tight guitar work), this is a one-off collaboration that needs both attention and celebration.

Review: This is what happens when one of the leading modern bands who excel in international music team up with a bona fide Afrofunk legend... Together with Orlando Julius, The Heliocentrics have explored the Nigerian pioneer's earliest ideas and never-before-recorded songs to result in an emphatic homage to Africa's rich funk heritage while celebrating modern production techniques and dynamics. Progressive, often cosmic and galvanised with a natural jazzy character (thanks to the awesome horn work) and sturdy funk backbone (thanks to the dense drums and tight guitar work), this is a one-off collaboration that needs both attention and celebration.

Review: It's been nearly ten years since the first release of Orlando Julius and The Heliocentrics' first ever collaborative album, Jaiyede Afro, which did thorough justice to the creative possibilities of Nigerian Afrobeat that arguably haven't been represented so well since Fela Kuti's last releases. Deft rhythms, and loosely-laid-down layers of guitar and horn, ride over each other like harmonious, health-giving backings for life across this short statement of nine tracks. Now reissued via Strut, we're reminded of its spiritual mood of tricky electronics and wahhing ambiences, as it slowly expands outwards into a holistic psychedelia, more than the some of its easily discernible parts.

Review: Having offered up two previous mixes full to bursting with tongue-in-cheek New York disco classics and little-known underground anthems, this third instalment in the Horse Meat Disco series sees residents Jim, James, Luke and Severino broaden their horizons. The first disc, in particular, focuses more on recent disco scene hits, with notable re-edits from Gazeebo, Todd Terje and Leftside Wobble sitting next to contemporary productions from Mungolian Jet Set, Wild Geese and the Glimmers. Yet it's the second CD of lesser-known older nuggets - proto house, string-laden disco, wonky synth-pop etc -that really hits the spot, with a clutch of superb HMD re-edits, a dash of disco-funk and Marcel King's slept-on Hacienda classic "Reach For Love".

Review: The third edition of Horse Meat Disco's cowbell revue arrives on Strut at a time when the genre is in the midst of a golden period and thus it's no surprise to see the concept behind this collection mirrors that. Whilst the two previous editions have focused on the underground NYC disco sound of the late 70s/early 80s, this third selection bridges the gap between then and now with the first twelve inch strictly contemporary productions chosen by Jim Stanton and Severino. It's a smart selection too ranging from the gritty arpeggiated funk of Leftside Wobble's revision of L.I.F.E.'s proto house cover of Marvin Gaye to Yam Who's bottom heavy diva anthem "I'm In Love" and Tom Trago in glistening disco pump mode. James Hillard and Luke Howard take the controls for the more vintage sounds, with the camp flex of Rose Lauren's "American Love" and the MOR Philly disco of Idris Muhammed particular delights. Presented in a gatefold sleeve that's lined by some insightful notes from the excellent Daniel Wang, it makes for another killer release from the Strut stable.