Unidisc Canada Vinyl & CDs

Review: Canadian soul and boogie man Goldie Alexander dropped his most well-known hit 'Knocking Down Love' in 1981 on the TGO label. It now lends its name to this longer collection of his work which takes in all the tracks off his one and only studio album - 1983's Fool In Love - as well as various different club and dub mixes of those tunes. It makes for a heartwarming mix of disco, electronic grooves and smoochy soul sounds with Goldie's, well, golden, tones front and centre. A great one to have for more intimate dancefloor moments.

Review: Canada's Unidisc has got a bunch of classic disco reissues arriving this summer and they don't get much more classic than Jocelyn Brown's Somebody Else's Guy. Not only is this the name of one of her biggest ever smash hit singles but also of her debut album from 1990. The lead single climbed high in US and UK charts and still soundtracks drunken wedding parties and parochial club nights up and down the land every single weekend. The rest of the tracks on the album are no slouch either, with Jocelyn's belting soul vocals front and centre over plenty of catchy grooves.

Review: Buffalo, New York born artist Patrick Cowley is well known as one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in electronic dance music of the seventies and eighties. He studied it in San Fran at the City College of San Francisco then mastered it in the studio over the ensuing decades. Megatron Man was his second studio album , released in 1981, and is a standout of the era thanks to the gliding and funky main tune 'Get A Little' with its great use of vocoder. The rest of the record in true Cowley fashion takes in hi-nrg disco, slow cosmic, electronic funk and boogie all with an erotic and libidinous overtone.

Review: The musical treats of Record Store Day and Black Friday 2023 continue to fall in our laps with this special 25th Anniversary Edition of Dubmatique's La Force De Comprende, a classic hip-hop album if ever there was one. It arrives on limited brown vinyl and soon takes you back to the late 90s with its golden era boom bap production. The bars are in a mixture of English and French so recall sthe likes of MC Solar though come with a more smooth and seductive tone. Other or not you know this one from the first time around, it's well worth adding to the racks.

Review: Indeep's 'Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life' is one of the most recognisable disco tunes of its generation, but also the title of the group's 1983 album. The New York outfit never had a tune as big as that one again but when something is such a fine mix of boogie, funk and soul as that and loved by everyone universally, does that even matter? The rest of the album which is now being reissued is packed with plenty of other more than useful dancefloor cuts with big hooks, buoyant drums and colourful synth work.

Review: Lakeside's Fantastic Voyage dates back to 1980 and is also the name of the number one hit the Dayton, Ohio group had in 1981. The song topped the r&b chart and marked their one and only ever entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 55. Sample hounds may know that hip-hop star Coolio used parts of this song for his own hit of the same name in 1994. The rest of the tunes are just as much a great and funky fusion of soul, disco and r&b with great vocal harmonies, guttural male growls and infectious drums.

Review: Lakeside - perhaps the unsung counterparts to Kool & The Gang (though they were just as great) - are routinely hailed as one of the earliest purveyors of funk-disco in its entirety, and we can more than believe that when taking in their fifth album from 1981, Your Wish Is My Command. Hugely ahead of its time, the production on this album is unmatched, with bombshell beats and ultrafilterswept synths making for unparalleledly glitzy backdrops for the Ohio nine-piece's watertight ows and yowzas. Our faves from this classic have to be 'Something About That Woman' and 'The Songwriter', the beats on which land like shoulder-slaps. Also, notably, this album features a rare hidden rerub of the Beatles' 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', which sets total fire to the original.

Review: Closer is the second album by disco producer and singer Gino Soccio, originally released in 1981 on Atlantic Records and RFC Records. The album features six tracks of catchy and groovy disco music, with influences from funk, soul and pop. The album includes the hit single 'Try It Out', as well as 'Street Talk', a smooth and soulful track with its guitar riff and a saxophone solo. This is one of those truly classic disco albums and showcases the legendary Canadian producer's talent and style.

Review: French Canadian disco producer Gino Soccio is the man behind the disco studio group Witch Queen whom he assembled and produced having first dropped this solo album Outline in 1979. He had a US Hot 100 entry with his 1979 tune 'Dancer' and 'Dance To Dance' both off this album, then hit top spot on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart with later single 'Try It Out' in 1981. His electronic blend of disco, funk and soul is embellished with horns, percussion, drums, flute and guitar from an array of musicians who joined him in the studio. This version comes on purple marble vinyl.

Review: Following two sold out farewell shows at the Scotiabank Arena in their hometown of Toronto at the end of January 2025, Canadian early 2000s pop punk megastars Sum 41 have bowed out gracefully upon their own terms. With that sombre farewell in mind, what better time to repress and revisit their surprisingly dynamic back catalogue of records, including 2007's much underrated Underclass Hero? Their fourth full-length (or possibly fifth, as many fans still often debate whether 2000's Half Hour Of Power can be considered their debut album) marked the first of two consecutive projects without founding lead guitarist Dave "Brownsound" Baksh, who would amicably depart to focus solely on his Brown Brigade solo-work. Following up the thrash-metal indebted mature left turn that was 2004's Chuck, which truly began to take shape on 2002's snarling The Offspring-worshipping grunge-punk career height Does This Look Infected?; losing their highly skilled axeman known for his juxtaposition of face-melting guitar solos next to anthemic hooks, led to somewhat of a revert to the more familiar pop-punk joviality of their earlier work, yet bolstered by more seasoned songwriting chops. Utilising an extensive array of acoustic guitars, synthesisers and a more expansive sonic scope to make up for their whittled down line up, the material has often been compared to that of Green Day's high-concept theatrical opus American Idiot or My Chemical Romance's even bolder The Black Parade. At a hefty (by punk standards) 52 minutes, this was the band's lengthiest LP to date, boasting some of their most dynamic and heartfelt cuts such as the triumphant opening title-track as well as the emo-tinged skate-punk longtime fan favourite 'Walking Disaster', culminating in a (now) near two-decade old pop punk rock opera. A bold swing for the fences in search of new direction, the Underclass Hero deserves your sincere reappraisal.