Review: San Diego duo Castle Queenside keep their funk alive and strong in It Ain't Easy. Harking back to the days of early Daft Punk and looped up American club house, Queenside bring the cuts to Mango Sounds. With guitars at maximum frett in "Groove Me Right" it's as Linda Clifford is there too in the room for the vocal boot. Filters and classic piano chords go the distance in the title-track with thumping drums of Masters At Work quality tying in with a massively soulful serving of vocals. That French touch the American way.
Review: Since launching last autumn, Russian imprint Mango Sounds has offered up a string of must-check EPs from some of the nu-disco scene's most stellar talents, including C Da Afro, HP Vince and Ziggy Phunk. Here they add another rising star to their roster via a single-track salvo from sometime Spa In Disco, Thunder Jam and Springbok regular JB Boogie. "Magic Touch" is, we think, a re-edit, with JB Boogie making merry with what sounds like a slick, mid-80s electrofunk number packed to the rafters with busy slap-bass, each-laden drum machine beats, ear-pleasing synth stabs and some seriously fluid keyboard solos. The whole thing is deliciously summery and sounds ace when the sun's shining.
Review: Russian disco label Mango Sounds (not to be confused with Island's reggae imprint Mango Records) bring us two more re-edits of classic dancefloor cuts from mysterious UK 'tropical disco' producer Phazed Groove. Fonzi Thornton's 'I Work For A Living' - an unreleased Chic production that emerged as the B-side to a 2018 remix of Norma Jean Bell's 'Saturday' - provides the basis for 'Keep On Workin' itself, which comes liberally flecked with Nile Rodgers' trademark guitar chops. Stephanie Mills' 1979 disco/proto-boogie classic 'What Cha Gonna Do With My Lovin' then gets reworked in slightly sped-up form as 'Smilin' Eyes'.
