CDSML 8435

Indian-born composer-producer Biddu was one of the key figures on Britain ’s disco and soul scenes during the mid-late 1970s. Arriving in the UK in 1968 having already established himself as a singer in his homeland, his first job was as a songwriter with producer Denny Cordell’s company. Shortly afterwards Biddu graduated to producing a variety of UK soul artistes and bands including The Outriders and Jimmy James. His breakthrough came in 1974 when he produced the smash-hit single Kung Fu Fighting for singer Carl Douglas. From there the successes just kept coming, with Biddu producing No.1 singles for artistes such as Tina Charles (I Love to Love) as well as notching up Top Twenty chart entries under his own name, which included his disco cover of Michel Legrand’s Summer of ’42.

Between 1975 and 1978 Biddu recorded four albums for CBS with his own orchestra, and two of them are compiled on this Vocalion release. Biddu’s so-called ‘Orchestra’ was, in reality, made up of some of the UK ’s leading session musicians, all of whom he used almost exclusively on his own projects and when he was producing other artistes. They included keyboardist-arrangers Gerry Shury and Mike Moran, guitarists Chris Rae and Pip Williams, drummers Chris Karan and Barry De Souza, percussionist Frank Ricotti and bass guitarists Frank McDonald and Alan Jones. 1978’s Futuristic Journey finds Biddu and his musicians laying down some irresistibly funky disco grooves on tracks such as Futuristic Journey, Blacker the Berry (Sweeter the Juice) and the excellent disco cover of Francis Lai’s theme from the film A Man and a Woman. Biddu also incorporates the sound of the sitar, which works especially well in the spacey, hypnotic grooves of Unfinished Journey and Eastern Journey.

In 1977’s Eastern Man the emphasis is shifted towards soul music, allowing Biddu to display his vocal skills on several tracks. The album opens with a funky, soulful cover of Neil Diamond’s Girl You’ll be a Woman Soon, with an impassioned lead vocal from Biddu. Spring features a Barry White-esque Biddu vocal, as does Changing World, while disco rhythms are represented by the bump and grind of Funky Tropical, King Kong and Boogiethon. Both albums serve as a compelling reminder of the disco age, not to mention Biddu’s talents as singer, songwriter, composer and producer.

Remastered from the original analogue stereo tapes.

CDSML 8460

CDSML 8461

1980s UK jazz-funk outfit Shakatak make their third appearance on the Vocalion label with ‘Out of this World’ (1983), their fourth album. After the success of ‘Night Birds’ (reissued on Vocalion CDSML 8446), which peaked at No.4 in the UK album chart and subsequently went Gold, and the follow-up album ‘Invitations’ (reissued on Vocalion CDSML 8461), which also achieved Gold status and yielded a Top Forty single, Shakatak’s by now huge fan base eagerly awaited the group’s next offering. Shakatak responded with ‘Out of this World’, recorded during summer 1983. The most immediately apparent aspect of ‘Out of this World’ is Shakatak’s move into a heavily produced style of pop; whilst the band’s essential jazz and funk elements were still in place, clearly a decision had been made to align their material with what was happening in the charts. This approach pervades the entire album, but it’s particularly to the fore in numbers such as Dark is the Night, On Nights Like Tonight, Let’s Get Together and If You Could See Me Now – each an exciting jazz-funk-pop hybrid. Ultimately this thinking paid off because ‘Out of this World’ was Shakatak’s fourth consecutive album to enter the British album charts (peaking at No.30 in October 1983), yielding a Top Twenty hit in the Dark is the Night, which climbed to the No.15 spot in June 1983. This reissue also contains five bonus tracks, in the form of various 12-inch and 7-inch single edits of the album tracks.
Remastered from the original stereo analogue tapes.

"When I was a schoolboy – I can just about remember those days! - my “posh” Auntie Joan used to bang on all the time about her son, my cousin, and how well he was doing working in the music business. Turns out he was a roadie and driver, but the singer in the band he worked with – Fusion Orchestra - was Jill Saward, who went on to front one of the most successful jazz-funk bands of the 1980's. Shakatak. Vocalion have re-issued three of Shakatak’s hit albums now, the latest being 'Out Of This World.' It was the release of 'Easier said Than Done' that was to give the band radio exposure to get them their first top twenty hit. Introducing their instrumental-unison vocal sound to a wide audience. The track stayed in the UK chart for 17 weeks. The follow-up, 'Night Birds,' was their first single to reach the top ten. The album of the same name gave Shakatak their first gold album, entering at number four and remaining in the charts for twenty-eight weeks. Night Birds was used in the feature film 'Away We Go' directed by Sam Mendes, and a nice piece of trivia for you….was the demonstration song on many Casio Piano Keyboards. 'Invitations' and 'Out Of This World' were recorded in 1982 and 1983, resulting in several more chart hits. They had two top 10 hits, a further 12 entries in the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles. The band are big in Japan and the far East even today. This new re-issue is perhaps the most commercial of the albums the band put out in the 80s, moving more towards pop, but not losing their classy jazz-funk roots. This re-issue contains five bonus tracks – various 12-inch and 7-inch single edits of the album tracks. Re-mastered from the original stereo analogue tracks. Perfect summer sounds and slotting right in with the resurgence of interest in this style of '70s/'80s jazz funk fusion."
Simon Redley, www.bluesandsoul.com

CDSML 8483

In the late 1970s both disco and sci-fi were hugely popular, and when the two collided it resulted in a slew of concept albums, amongst the most popular being American arranger-composer Meco Monardo’s two long-players that reconstructed, disco-style, various parts of John Williams’ scores for ‘Superman’ and ‘Star Wars’. It was against this backdrop that in late 1977 EMI commissioned arranger-conductor Geoff Love to record two LPs centred on the disco-applied-to-sci-fi approach. The resulting sessions were issued on EMI’s budget-priced offshoot, Music for Pleasure, as ‘Star Wars and other space themes’ and ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind and other disco galactic themes’. The exciting, funky arrangements came courtesy of Nick Ingman – best-known for his library music written for De Wolfe and KPM – whilst in the rhythm section were five of Britain’s leading session musicians: Barry Morgan (drums), Herbie Flowers (bass guitar), Alan Parker (guitar), Steve Gray (keyboards) and Mike Vickers (synthesizer). Vocalion proudly presents these two superb albums, complete across a 2-CD set, remastered directly from the original stereo tapes.

CDSML 8497