Search results: Get Ready!

Review: Congo Natty celebrates a decade of revolutionary jungle music with this anniversary reissue of a classic. Originally released in 2013, this album remains a cornerstone of the genre, blending reggae, hip-hop, and jungle influences into a powerful sonic tapestry. With timeless tracks like 'UK Allstars' and 'Jungle Souljah,' Congo Natty captures the spirit of the underground rave scene with infectious beats and socially conscious lyrics. This anniversary edition breathes new life into the record with remastered tracks and additional content, reminding listeners of the enduring legacy of jungle music and Congo Natty's vital contribution to its evolution.

Review: From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, the English hard rock supergroup fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also managed Bad Company until 1982. The group's eponymous 1974 album debut decidedly proves the band is proudly not progressive - the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing 'Seagull' - reducing their rock 'n' roll to a strong, heavy crunch; compare 'Ready For Love,' a tune Ralphs brought over from Mott the Hoople, to the original to see how these quartet members keep their heads down as they do their business. All the hallmarks of a top-notch Analogue Productions reissue are here for your pleasure: mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and cut at 45rpm.

Review: Serge Geyzel debuts on Mechatronica with a killer collection of hypnotic electro, twisted acid lines, futuristic breaks and gut-wrenching machinefunk. Prioritizing the low end before anything else - and letting any further high end strokes spit through the top end like hard-limited overflows of dry ice - the likes of 'Ready?' and 'Sag' lift all embargos on the more involuntary-movement-inducing aspects of the electro sound, importing a huge sense of weight sure to rattle tweeters and bins alike. It makes sense for Geyzel to join the Mechatronica ranks; he's all but surrendered to our Landian machine overlords with this one, toning down any remaining semblance of humanism for a logcial continuation of the "kamikaze" approach explored on his Love Kamikaze project from 2022. A whopping sextet of tracks, facing the promise of our impending apocalypse head-on.

Review: Hardened music nerds may roll their eyes at the thought of the Now That's What I Call Music series turning its attention to disco, but this quintuple LP compilation does provides a great starting point for those dipping their toes into the sound for the first time or looking to grow their disco collection. A few needless pop hits aside, the set contains a wealth of sing-along party favourites ('Car Wash' by Rose Royce, Diana Ross's 'Upside Down', Lipps Inc's throbbing 'Funky Town' etc.) and genuine disco anthems that still get regular airings on club dancefloors today (Thelma Houston's 'Don't Leave Me This Way', Candi Staton's 'Nights On Broadway', Cheryl Lynn's 'Got To Be Real' and Sylvester's 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' included).

Review: Since the early 90s, Ministry of Sound's yearly Annual compilations have done an excellent job in chronicling crossover dance hits, mainstream dancefloor killers, and popular underground workouts that make their way into the wider public consciousness. This year's edition (confusingly dated 2024, despite being released in late 2023) continues the successful franchise via two unmixed discs of radio-friendly dance favourites. It naturally ticks all of the usual boxes, contrasting breakout big room hits by underground heroes (Young Marco, Adelphi Music Factory, Ewan McVicar) and sizable tracks from established dance heavyweights (Chemical Brothers, Sub Focus and Dimensions, Rudimental, MK), with gigantic EDM works (Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding) and the odd out and out dance-pop hit (Kylie Minogue).

Review: Contemporary oddball dance pushers Exarde have been responsible for breaking many new artists of late, their latest being Mar.C, who professes a vampiric, gothic edge to his latest productions. Allegedly, Mar.C is part of a unique cabal of revellers who can see what others can't, with the liner notes of this EP mentioning "the dancing vampires you often see at parties"; of course, the artist is from Transylvania. Whether you hear vampirism in this collection of tracks or not, 'Tranceformative' is nonetheless a curious set of tunes, each of which get progressively weirder, culminating in the spine-tingling closing remix from P O.

Review: In soul terms, The Spinners are one of the greatest to ever do it, and box sets like these serve as the perfect way to get across some of their finest work. This seven-disc CD collection gathers together their legendary Atlantic studio albums produced by Them Bell, plus an additional 25 bonus tracks covering single edits, non-album B-sides and tracks from the group's very first Atlantic studio session. The Philly soul legends' biggest hits are present and correct, from 'I'll Be Around' to 'The Rubberband Man', plus scores more songs remastered by Nick Robbins to ensure they sound the best they ever have.

Review: Surely one of the most iconic of all the British funk bands of the 90s, The Brand New Heavies split the difference between the heads-down seriousness of the rare groove scene with a sharp pop instinct which found them great success. This best of collection gives you hit after hit, and as soon as the irresistible groove of 'Never Stop' kicks in you'll be taken right back to that era. There's a house sensibility to some of the tunes which speaks to their proximity to Soul II Soul, but this is a funk band first and foremost, and their dynamic flow as a group is what resulted in such evergreen hits as 'Shelter' and 'Apparently Nothing'.

Review: For all the Paul Oakenfold material we tend to burn through, it was only a matter of time before we reached Bunkka. Oakenfold's debut album, it was first released on the little-known Maverick label, but Oakenfold lived up to his patron's name, commenting at the time that - "I hope (my fans) realise that in any forms of music you need to push the boundaries." It's for that reason that Bunkka isn't just a straight-up trance record, instead working in more fashionable elements from styles that were also popular at the time, from big beat to trip-hop, perhaps helping prototype "psybient". Among its many collabs, even writer Hunter S. Thompson is credited on the track 'Nixon's Spirit', reflecting the full pull of Oakenfold's esoteric influences.

Review: It's now a quarter of a century since Terry Callier released his Timepeace album, which was his first after a 15 year break. The record won the United Nations's Time For Peace award for outstanding artistic achievement and for "contributing to world peace." It features standout tunes like 'People Get Ready' and 'Brotherly Love' composed by Curtis Mayfield, as well as a guest spot from Pharoah Sanders on tenor-saxophone on the title song 'Timepeace' and seven other wondrous tunes that showcase soul, jazz, folk influences. This reissue includes an insert with lyrics and liner-notes by Tom Terrell.