UK

Odion Livingstone present another essential reissue of a rare gem from the Nigerian archives, Grotto’s lost Afrorock classic from 1977, ‘At Last’.Formed at “Greg’s” (St Gregory’s college in Ikoyi, Lagos), Grotto came up at the same time as several other in?uential student bands based there, including Ofege. “As Grotto, we played a rock/funk fusion. We were probably aged 15, 16 or thereabouts and we were heavily into music, we listened to Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and lots of rock bands,” explains lead guitarist Soga Benson.Their debut album is a heavyweight trip, drifting from psychedelic workouts to crunching breaks and funkier directions. “Odion Iruoje was the A&R manager at EMI at the time and he auditioned us, liked the material and signed us. He also produced our recordings,” continues Benson. “Most of us were boarders and the school encouraged music and had instruments so we had time to jam and really gel together. The group still continued after we left Gregs. We had to juggle A-Levels with gigs and we used to skip school whenever we had a show, rehearsal or a recording date.”While many Nigerian student bands were studio-based projects, Grotto was an active live unit during the ‘70s. “We played at The Shrine with Fela, with Tee Mac at Batakoto, with Sonny Okosun at Kakadu, Segun Bucknor at Granada Hotel.”This frst international reissue of Grotto’s debut album comes with a full interview with Soga Benson and producer Odion Iruoje + a selection of rare and previously unseen photos of the band. The album is fully remastered by The Carvery.

Henry Thomas low key 45 on Raptown records has until now been a featured in the record boxes of Deep Boogie and Two Step Dj's who know the deal, it's now time for it to spread its FM synth wings to bigger dancefloors. What more do you want, a SOLID two sider that only slipped through eBay a few times on the cheap as people did not know it, managed to bag one of those myself and with some help from a good friend track Henry down, alive, well and looking forward to his music getting a revival.

I released Zebra over 10 years ago on 12" year ago when at Jazzman Records but deicded to do it on the original format with a brand new master as its always been a favorite 70s dancefloor killer (Huge on the deepfunk scene in the early 2000s) and i needs to fit in peoples 45 box. 500 Only.

Bobby Hammiltons band Anibus only managed to released this single extremely collectable deep Spiritual funk 45, the single didn't gain the movement they hopes and the bands went their separate ways leaving this one amazing 7 inch reproduced here. Bobby is still alive and well so lets put things right and get things right and get this record on the turntable, a truly classy, deep and mindful 45.

One of the rarest funk 45s in existence and the rarest 45 on Ellis Taylor's Forte label flipped with a previously unreleased acetate (has a little bit of background noise but what you gonna do when there is only one copy in the world, we did out best to make it sound good and it does). Both tracks are stone cold Deepfunk killers. Super Black is from the tapes and sounds amazing (better than the original) so go destroy a club with this.

Huge, The full unreleased version of the o.g bboy classic 'Brazilian Rhyme' straight out the Sony tape vaults ( I made that sound easier than it was). Not just one for hip-hop heads, the appreciation of this groove is pretty much universal. The track is an uncredited cover of Toninho Horta's "Beijo Partido" most likely directly influenced by Milton Nascimentos version from the LP Minas which is a great cheap LP while we are on that. On the flip for the first time on 45 (until someone tells me there is some random German or Thai pressing) is one of my old modern spins, best 45 of the year and its only March.