Soul-Funk

Audiophile reissue, lacquered directly from Axelrod’s original EQ’ed master tapes at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster, housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket “Songs of Experience was supposed to have a different feel than Song of Innocence. You see, music is a great outlet. And regardless of what the titles say, and as close as I wanted it to be to William Blake, what was going on in my life took precedence.” – David Axelrod Songs of Experience is visionary composer/arranger/producer David Axelrod’s second album, it was recorded after the death of his beloved son Scott. Experience is an ominous affair, an album concerned with mortality and spirituality – the solitary, pastoral musings of William Blake set to the urban bombast of a full Los Angeles orchestra, with Wrecking Crew vets grounding the proceedings with dark funk. This is the next Now-Again issue in a series of reissues centered around Axelrod’s Capitol Trilogy – Song of Innocence, Songs of Experience and Earth Rot – which will see release through 2018. Contains oversized, 28 page booklet that delves into Axelrod’s incredible life and music, replete with never before published photos and an interview with Axelrod by Eothen Alapatt and Wax Poetics’ Brian Digenti. “There are very few people who see the Grand Picture of the Universe and understand the Nothingness that it all comes from. There are even fewer who can express these ideas through music - David could do it all.” – T-Ray

The album We Want A Piece Of The Pie is the product of a joint effort between Los Angeles songwriter/producer Anthony Browne and the Woolfolk Brothers of Oklahoma, with their seven-piece funk band, Septimus. The two parties sent tape reels back and forth to each other in the mail to assemble this masterpiece of buoyant and spiritual R&B... and 36 years later, those tapes have found their way into the hands of Cultures of Soul Records! Remastered from the original tapes, this new edition of We Want A Piece Of The Pie presents the legendarily rare LP to a broad market for the first time, radiating all its sunny optimism and infectious dance grooves.

Following up on the massive worldwide success of their debut album 55, Bacao Rhythm & Steel band is back with another heavy duty offering. Picking up where they left off and incorporating a ton of new recording techniques they take a huge step forward with The Serpent’s Mouth. Named after the eight-mile strait between the island of Trinidad and the coast of Venezuela, The Serpent’s Mouth is a journey through both originals and covers, combining classic elements that wide-eared music fans already know, and mashing them up in new and unique ways.Take “1 Thing” – on it, the group attacks the galloping, chopped Amerie smash hit, with singing pans that follow the R & B vocal. The sound is crisp and up-front, arguably more muscular than the 2005 original. On “Great To Be Here,” they take on the Jackson 5 B-Boy favorite (which stretches back to the Zulu Nation / Bronx block party days) – uncoincidentally, the original version featured a guitar lick that emulated a steel pan run. Here, it gets an even more pulsating groove, adding open-drums breaks throughout, to get DJs salivating. The group veers through more inventively-constructed covers as the album’s sequence continues, including Gang Starr’s “All For The Cash”, Mary J. Blige’s “I Love You”, and the recently unleashed first single, “XXplosive” and “Burn,” paying tribute to both Dr. Dre and Mobb Deep for a bi-coastal funk party. And, as band leader Bjorn Wagner states, “My favorite cover on the album is probably ‘Crockett Theme,’ which is the theme to ‘Miami Vice.’ I always loved the melody, and the cosmic vibe of the song, and I was honestly surprised that it worked without synthesizers.”This time around the group’s originals are even stronger, as evidenced by cuts like the flute-fueled break-fest of “Hoola Hoop”, the slow and spacey “Touchdown”, and the album’s title track, the future-epic-adventure-movie-soundtrack cut “The Serpent’s Mouth.” Wagner explains, “I wrote the song with Bernhard Hummer as an instrumental fantasy story – think of pirates, smugglers and a dangerously beautiful sea passage towards the island. It became an allegory for our mind travels into the world of the steel pan.”The Serpent’s Mouth is sure to please past fans and newly-minted ones alike. It seems like a new era for Steel Drum music is upon us, and Bacao is firmly leading the way into the hearts of music fans around the world.