— Issue 112 —

As a changeable summer chugs on, we’ve been out and about doing all sorts of music related stuff, including a visit to London vinyl bar Spiritland (go check it out if you're near St Pancras station), and a couple of DJ slots at Also Festival in Warwickshire. Both excellent venues to listen to some quality tunes. We’re hoping to do more stuff like this, and perhaps bring you more news of great events going forward.

We are also having a great run talking to labels and suppliers to find you full albums, and like last month we have two for you instead of an album and a single! Here they are:

Album one is an excellent slice of rub-a-dub reggae from 1982. Triston Palma is a Jamaican artist who made a major breakthrough with a performance in 1979 at the General Penitentiary Memorial Concert for Claudie Massop, which also featured Bob Marley. He was a breakout star of the time, and at one point in the early 1980s, Palma had nine songs in Jamaica's Top 40. “Showcase In A Roots Radics Drum & Bass” is his fourth album, and is a lovely slice of the roots radics reggae style of the time.

LP number two brings us into the 2000s with the self titled debut LP from Just Loud. This is a masterclass in pop-soul and funk that was released in 2018 with some fanfare and some hard promotion, with the track “Soul Train” featuring a cameo from Debbie Harry. However after a good first push, and over a million streams on Spotify for the first single, very little was heard about the artist or album. Perhaps another victim of covid? Nevertheless, this is a great listen, with echoes of Childish Gambino’s vocals, “The Love Below”-era OutKast, & even some big rocky flavours. Hopefully we’ll hear from Just Loud again, but in the meantime we’ll have to make do with this album.