SEALED

Another must have part of Marc Mac's "Beats n knowledge" series of mixtape style albums.A Documentary on Wax. Looking back (and forward), reflecting on the movement / organisation known as "The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Often the term "Self-Defense" is left out of discussion and far too often knowledge of the social programs developed by the Panthers gets push aside to continue a narrative of a violent group of anti-society revolutionaries. Revolutionary yes, anti-society no. All Power To The People.Produced by Marc Mac and pretty much all straight out of his MPC2500 (sampling sequencer), the 'college mixtape' style with sound bites from the era mixed with 90s style hip hop beats is now a trademark of this series. Limited to 300 copies worldwide. don't sleep.

First Word Records is very proud to present a brand new full-length album from Kaidi Tatham. 'It's A World Before You'.Following on from two EPs released on First Word last year ('Changing Times' and 'Hard Times'), Kaidi has delivered us thirteen tracks that deftly illustrate his various talents as a multi-instrumentalist.Kaidi is probably best known for his work with Bugz In The Attic, though his musical contributions over the years have also included Amy Winehouse, Slum Village, Mulatu Astatke, Soul II Soul, Moonchild, Leroy Burgess, Amp Fiddler, Chris Dave, Macy Gray, King Britt, DJ Spinna, Mr Scruff and IG Culture to name but a few! In recent times, he's worked with DJ Jazzy Jeff on a variety of projects, including his most recent album 'M3', touring Europe for Jeff and Will Smith's reunion shows, and on the PLAYlist album 'Chasing Goosebumps', with Glenn Lewis, Stro Elliot (The Roots), Masego, Maimouna Youssef, Rich Medina, Daniel Crawford and more.All this in addition to heating up dances around Europe with his inimitable DJ sets, and working heavily with First Word label-mate, Eric Lau (who also mixed this album) on a variety of projects, and adding releases to his already impressive catalogue on 2000 Black, Eglo and Theo Parrish's Sound Signature, with regular compadre, Dego (who features on the album's title track).This album personifies Kaidi's diverse palette of sounds – bar Eric & Dego's features, every piece of music is played by himself. Largely flowing on a broken beat rhythm section, Kaidi effortlessly incorporates washes of afro, latin and funk throughout. From the harmonics of 'Your Dream Don't Mean A Thing', to the breakneck funk of 'Outta Audah', each and every riddim exudes energy. But this isn't simply a bruk record. The album is laced together with downtempo beats and future jazz interludes throughout, and some sweet synth boogie is never very far away, especially on the weighty vibes of 'It's About Who You Know'. To top it all off, there's two delightful nuggets of hip hop soul - Mancunian label-mates, Children of Zeus, feature on the neo-soul vibes of 'Out Here On My Own', and there's a feature from Amir Townes, better known as Uhmeer - an upcoming MC from Philadelphia, and son of one Jazzy Jeff Townes - who rides a sub-heavy, piano-led slice of boom bap, voicing an assortment of characters to tell the tale of 'Cupid'.'It's A World Before You' is set to cause serious damage to sound-systems over the Summer, and show and prove once again the skills of one of the UK's best unsung musical talents, Kaidi Tatham.

The 45 of Everyday People - World full of people is well known on the modern soul and funk scene and it relatively easy to find a copy for maybe 500 pounds. What was always less well known was that there was also an LP by the same band but labels as People Pleasure. I first came across this LP in Turku, Finland in the early 2000s when at the house of DJ and Collector Felix Manell who pulled a pile of rare and interesting bits that day. I did not really appreciate the true rarity until trying to source my own copy. The next copy I saw was in Japan in 2004 but was not going anywhere. Roll on 15 years, Russell Paine, collector, DJ and super record researcher called me saying he had finally unravelled the mystery and was talking to Bill brown & Al Hall Jr. Russel sets himself the hard task of only putting out unreleased material on his own label so we also work together on LPs and Singles on Athens of the North. After we managed to clear the rights the final hurdle was finding a clean copy, not an easy task. After asking loads of deep collectors, Zaf put me onto DJ Nick the Record who very kindly lent me his minty personal copy, a huge favour considering how rare this record is, almost impossible to replace. So we mastered from the vinyl (no tapes exist) and while it still sound pretty raw it is twice as good as the O.G. Been a long time coming.

BACK iN STOCK !!!! Gatefold 2X10" Vinyl

Timing is a collection of sixteen records intended for audiovisual and media professionals which came out between 1975 and 1977, and initiated by Jacky Giordano who took care of the first six albums.The ten others were developed by Pierre Arvay and nearly all published in partnership with Music De Wolfe.14-tracks LP with plenty of funky breaks and hard grooves, including afro-cuban rhythms, wild jazzy sounds, fuzz guitar, strings, sax, clavinet, flute... Limited to 500 copies