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Rita Lee & Tutti Frutti - Agora e ModaAgora e moda is a psychedelic, disco-boogie-groove monster, brought to our attention by Greg Caz and Sean Marquand aka Brazilian Beats Brooklyn. Originally released on her Babilônia LP on Som Livre in 1978. Rita Lee was lead singer of Os Mutantes and a hugely important figure in the Tropicalia movement. She remains one of the biggest personalities in Brazil, much loved both in and out of the music world. Perhaps not the most well known artist internationally, but within Brazil she is as well known as, if not more so, the likes and of Ben and Simonal.Pete Dunaway - Supermarket'Supermarket' is a Rare Groove/AOR masterpiece, killer baseline, drums and heavily string laden with a perfectly delivered English vocal! A lovely oddity. Pete Dunaway, real name Otavio Cardosa was a singer, composer, arranger and multi instrumentalist from Sao Paulo, who spent the majority of his time composing for TV themes and library instrumentals

Azimuth - A ManhaKey track from their all-time classic self-titled 1975 LP on Som Livre. Lush percussion laden, rhodes driven jazz-fusion groover.The legendary trio are one of the most well-known and most loved Brazilian exports, still regularly touring, including dates worldwide.Most prolific during their time signed to Milestone, where they released 10 LP's between 1979 and 1988.Osmar Milito e Quarteto Forma - America Latina'America Latina' is taken from the soundtrack to the Rede Globo soap opera "Selva De Pedra”, released on Som Livre in 1972. A cheerful, upbeat MPB song with a killer chorus drop. Milito began his career in 1964 artists as Nara Leão, Maria Bethania, Vinicius de Morais, Gilberto Gil, Jorge Ben and Elis Regina amongst others. He worked in the USA with Chico Buarque and Sergio Mendes for several years in the 70’s, also appearing alongside artists including Liza Minelli, Mark Murphy, Spanky Wilson and Sammy Davis Jr.As sampled on Madvillain ft. M.E.D 'Raid', and featured in the Floating Points and Fourtet Plastic People mix!

Marcos Valle is back again, this time with the almighty ‘Estrelar’, his most well known disco/boogie track co-written with Leon Ware. Added hints of Yacht Rock too!The video (see below), filmed in Rio in the early 1980’s, is particular special and is well worth 5 minutes of your time. Marketed as “workout music" at the time, ‘Estrelar’ was his best-selling record with a total of around 90,000 sales.‘Estrelar’ is taken from his 1983 self titled LP released on Som Livre.Robson Jorge & Lincoln Olivetti - Alleluia Two of the masters of the Brazilian Boogie sound joined forces to make a self-titled LP released in 1982 that epitamised the sound of early 80’s Rio de Janeiro. Synths and keys float over razor sharp samba, jazz and 2-step drum grooves backed by huge layers of horns. Production is as shiny, bright and ultra clean as it ever got!‘Alleluia’ is a mid tempo groover, with rich horns, guitar, synth and vocal lines. An end of the night jam if ever there was one.Released on the LP mentioned above and also on 7” in 1983.https://youtu.be/r7oAAUsKssE

Habibi Funk is Jakarta Records's first sub-label, dedicated to re-releasing music from the Arab world.Dalton was a band from Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. They came together as a band around 1968 when most of the members studied together at the University of Tunis. The band had five members. Faouzi Chekili on guitar, piano and vocals, Ridha Kouhen on bass guitar, Mustapha Rehouma and sax and percussion, Sadok Gharbi on trumpet and vocals and Skaner Alim on drums and vocals. They were active in the local scene, playing music that was heavily influenced by American soul and funk and at the same time regional musical traditions. In the early 70s the band got a regular gig at a beach hotel called Sahara Beach Resort on the coastline of Tunisia. They had six month contracts for a couple of years in the early 70s and during that time they would play every single night of the tourist season. While the hotel gig required the band to play sets leaning towards tourist entertainment, the regular work helped put some money into the band's accounts. Using those funds the band was able to travel to Rome to record their one and only 7" single release "Alech" around 1971/1972. The band eventually dismantled in the mid 70s and returned briefly as a new group with new members in the late 1970s under the name Carthago but that is a different story.The single itself impressed us heavily when we first stumbled upon it through French collector Victor Kiswell. While the b-side "Soul Brother" sounds like a Tunisian version of modern soul / AOR with it's English lyrics and lush arrangements, the title track "Alech" is the one that will get every party started. An infectious 3/4 rhythm, a great horn arrangement and brillantly layered vocals that made us think of Brazillian music or the Georgian groove band Gaya. Luckily Faouzi Chekili, the former band leader and composer uses social media communication so he was easy to track down. He is still active as a renowned musician in the Tunisian jazz scene and remains active recording and playing concerts both in Tunisia and internationally."Soul Brother" has already gotten plays on BBC6, our Habibi Funk mixes habe been featured by The Guardian, Radio Nova, Waxpoetics, okayplayer.com, konbini.fr and many more.

Fresh off the heels of his acclaimed “Reflection” EP, Brian offers two killer modern funk gems available exclusively on this 7” record! “Peg” is an all-synthesizer cover of the classic Steely Dan original complete with slick vocoder. “Dream Wave” is an uptempo banger with spacey synths and a 16-bit vibe

If you are not a top end disco collector with deep pockets you won't know this record, it's as rare as its gets. The last clean copy went for $6373. My 'Gangster boy' odyssey started for me around 12 years ago, soul collector and D.J David Ripolles played an acetate at Prestayn soul weekender and it blew me away, I asked dave what it was, he said the acetate was credited to Wanda McDaniels.Myself and Malcom Catto (Drummer in excellent band the Heliocentrics ) started tracking the record and eventually got it touch with Co-Producer Ronald Crawley. We had the opportunity to do the record but the sticking point was nobody had a clean copy of the record to make a recording from and there were no tapes. Roll on 10 years and I secured a mint copy and got perfectly clean recording so here we are.The record was not performed by Wanda McDaniel's & Ultimate choice as it has been credited up till now. The sand was 'The Reality Band And Show' from Newcastle Pennsylvania. The backing band was Ultimate Choice and the backing singer was Wanda McDaniel's (Producer Ronald Crawley sister). The lead singer was called Gladys, what happened to her we don't know but what a voice. It was recorded in 1977 at Asterix Studios in Wilkinsburg Pennsylvania, 300 copies were pressed up to test the market response which surprisingly was lacklustre. So as these things go it was forgotten about and everyone moved on to the next thing.The Label owner of 'Appleray' and its parent 'Pittsburgh Music Industry's' Ray Mitchell is no longer with us and we did not manage to find any more members of the band or uncredited chief engineer Ralph Camino. Ray recorded a couple of other decent 45s on Appleray but nothing quite touches this Disco Soul Perfection.

DJ Fryer's Athens of the North label continues its relentless charge the annals of funk and disco, focussing attentions here on the mid '70s debut of Jeanie Tracy. Glance at the discography of the Houston-born singer and you are presented with a storied recording career that includes credits alongside Bobby Womack, Aretha Franklin and Sylvester so it's little surprise to see that original copies of Making New Friends / Trippin On The Sounds rarely change hands below the $1000 mark. Originally released on Marvin Holmes' Oakland-based Brown Door Records around 1975, this Athens of the North edition is a must for any self-respecting 45 wielding selectors out there! The A-side is a recognised classic of the rare groove canon but it's "Trippin On The Sounds" that you need to hear; a glorious horn-laden deep funk nugget.

Jeanie Tracey's "Can I Come & Play With You Tonight?" should probably be considered something of an in-demand gem, seeing as copies of the original 1983 12" version go for significant sums online. Happily, the crate diggers behind the admirable Athens of the North imprint have decided to give it the reissue treatment, giving all of the chance to own a copy. The original is a sweet boogie killer, with Tracey's smooth vocal riding a backing track heavy with vintage synthesizers, snappy drum machine hits and elastic live bass. Flip for "Hot (For Your Love)", an end-of-night slow dance number smothered in evocative strings and Tracey's tear-jerking vocal.