Light In The Attic US Vinyl & CDs

Review: This is a remastered edition of Crashin' From Passion, the fourth studio album by unfortunately maligned "pre-punk" pioneer Betty Davis, underground singer-songwriter and punk-funk icon, who was notably married to Miles Davis in the late 60s. Ten tracks of raw, gritty, synthy, funky uncategorisables come as explorations of sex, love, passion and empowerment, with Davis' distinctive voice resting powerfully atop each mix like sceptre-wielding queens on thrones. Though it was first recorded in 1979, it was shelved by Island due to its explicit content and ostensible lack of commercial appeal, but that didn't stop Light In The Attic Records, who threw a collective "up yours!" to the short-sighted Major and have been reissuing Davis' catalog ever since.

Review: Betty Davis may have had had an unjustly short run in the public eye when she recorded her seminal 70s funk albums, but she left a lasting impact. As a potent creative force she wrote, recorded and produced her music with the backing of her own band Funk House, but the machinations of the industry hampered her progress until she retreated from view after this record from 1979. Light In The Attic have gone some way to righting the injustice by giving her stellar albums the reissue treatment they deserve, and on Crashin From Passion you can hear Davis spread her wings stylistically without dulling the impact of her hard-bitten soul. This edition comes pressed up on clear blue wax - an essential gem for anyone who takes the evolution of funk seriously.

Review: Hold tight all serious funk heads, you won't want to miss this one. Betty Davis is finally getting her dues as a true funk pioneer, but there are still dimensions to her brief and brilliant music career which have taken their time to reach our ears. After three knockout LPs she laid down a fourth in a rural Louisiana studio with her band Funk House, but it was shelved by the label and remained in obscurity for some 30 years. Finally, Light In The Attic are giving Is It Love Or Desire the release it deserves, capturing Davis at her rawest and packing the unfiltered funk in with rare photos, archival material and all the good stuff in between.

Review: Betty Davis was a true firebrand of soul who needs more recognition than she gets, and that's where Light In The Attic came in with their reissue campaign around 2009. Amongst some of Davis' other classic albums from the mid-70s, the label also helped unearth this previously unreleased gem of truly next level funk which shows Davis at her sensuous, uncompromising best. There's a grittiness to the likes of 'It's So Good' which lays bare the raw talent at the heart of Davis' work with her band Funk House. The idea the label shelved it is unfathomable, and that no doubt had a hand in curtailing Davis' career, but at the very least the music can get the recognition it deserves now.

Review: With her first album in 1973, Betty Davis arrived like a stick of TNT sizzling her fuse right down and ready to blow the funk scene wide open. A woman singing, writing, recording and producing her music herself, the world wasn't ready for her, and on this debut album you can hear how fully-formed and charismatic she was even at her rawest. Backed by her band Funk House, she lays it down any way she pleases, which more often than not is strongly seductive. Light In The Attic's dedicated reissue series is shining a light back on Davis' landmark run of records and this is without a doubt one of the best of the bunch.

Review: Light In The Attic's diligent repressing of their Betty Davis reissues completes with this fresh run of 1979 album Crashin' From Passion'. The album came after Davis had been knocked back by her criminally shelved album Is It Love Or Desire, but she was able to regroup with some of the members of her band Funk House and other players broadening her sound for this final album. It's less gritty than her previous works, taking in a wider reach of styles and looking to the broader horizons the end of the 70s presented. Davis remains a potent force of nature, her songwriting as acerbic and infectious as on the rest of discography, and it's another reminder her talent should have been nurtured and encouraged more at the time - for now, celebrate a bona fide legend of the 70s funk explosion.

Review: The Light In The Attic retrospective of Betty Davis' work has covered all her major studio albums before she disappeared from view, and we can only hope they serve to remind everyone what a visionary force of nature Davis was. After the raw, hot and heavy run of early works, Crashin' From Passion saw Davis broaden her palette and work with other musicians, but it's still fundamentally her own vehicle for her inimitable personality. This particular edition of the much-celebrated reissues comes cast in purple, all the more luxurious to sink into these peerless grooves.

Review: Stone Flower was a little-known, short-lived record label licensed exclusively to Sly Stone himself. It produced but four singles in the period 1970-74, and beyond that, saw to a short run of LPs from the likes of Gladys Knight, Herbie Mann and Eddie Jefferson. However, thanks to a series of retakes and bonus material, LITA were able to reproduce this compilation; a compendium of all the best music the label had to offer, with choice bits from Joe Hicks, Sly, Little Sister and 6ix in tow.

Review: U.S label Light In The Attic has previously served up compilations exploring various Japanese takes on Western music, most notably folk, rock, ambient and new age. Here they switch tack, curating a brilliant double-album set that showcases the best Japanese synth-pop, AOR and boogie recorded between 1976 and '86. The quality threshold remains impressively high throughout, from the blue-eyed-soul breeze of Taeko Ohnuki's "Kusuri Wo Takusan" and the Chaz Jankel-meets-Thompson Twins style throb of Haruomi Hosono's "Sports Men", to the talkbox-sporting late night AOR-pop flex's Hiroshi Satoh's "Say Goodbye" and the glistening, Latin-influenced jazz-funk brilliance of Masayoshi Takanaka's steel pan-sporting "Bamboo Vender".