Pizzicato Five - Instant Replay

Originally released 1993, 12 tracks. "Merry Pizzicato T.N.T. at Nakano Sunplaza on December 23th, 1992".
P5 Live, a great album, I love this version of 'Twiggy Twiggy' and 'Watashi No Subete'.
It's one of a few P5 CDs I recently received. I don't plan to upload them, this one's the last for now, but I want to point you to a website.
The P5 CDs I just got all look similar: Japanese characters and very little English, a picture on the back and 1 in the booklet. I think they're re-releases from earlier this year.
The website's http://www.columbia-readymade.com/ but the page I'm most interested in is http://www.columbia-readymade.com/pizzicato/index.html. When I open it I get to see mainly questionmarks (something to do with the character encoding I presume) which tells me, just as the CDs, that it's not targeted at an audience outside Japan.
Scroll down half a page and you'll find audio links from a "cut-up" album 'Pizzicato 5 we dig you'. Another page down you'll find clickable pictures. These correspond with the backs of the re-issues.
They're all available through import (unless you're already in Japan :-P ) and you should've no problem, apart from a financial and a patience one, to complete your collection.

Pizzicato Five - Instant Replay
(pass: CaesarTjalbo)

Reggae: Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Friends - Anthology 1968 to 1979

Although I called the Arkology compilation "obligatory purchase" and "essential CD set" I had the audacity to sound a bit critical on that compilation. My fault, as some commenters pointed out, and it is. I did promise to upload the Anthology set ("in a couple of days" hehe) and here it is. 'A live injection, Anthology 1968 to 1979' holds imho Scratch's best work if you're looking for a compilation that you can play and enjoy back to front.
Where Arkology gives you a great insight into the way Lee Perry worked, Anthology is a greatest hits selection of reggae songs made by Perry as a producer. Every single song on this 2 CD set is a winner; you may have a favorite which is not featured but I dare to say you won't find any song sub-standard.
If you're on a limited budget then this would be the album I'd recommend, without any doubt. For everybody else it's simple: Anthology and Arkology complement each other magically and I wouldn't want to have one without the other.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Friends - Anthology 1968 to 1979
Part 1
Part 2
(pass: CaesarTjalbo)

R&B: Mellow Cats 'N' Kittens

"Hot R&B and Cool Blues 1946 - 52", part 1 to More Mellow Cats 'N' Kittens.
Ace raided the vaults of Modern Records, only 5 takes out of 24 have been issued before, and came out with a large set of acetates. Careful remastering not only lets you enjoy sounds of more than 50 year old music but you're nearly guaranteed to be jumping through the room on this stuff.
This was, apparantly, the music of young blacks in the LA area just after WW2. It's not full on rock 'n' roll but I can't see why anyone would want to make a fuss about that, there's not that much difference with what Bill Haley a couple of years later did.
Like this? Read more about it from the compiler on the Ace site, where you'll also find a tracklist and at the bottom of the page more suggestions for R'n'B albums. Have a look specifically into the ones with "central avenue" in the title.
Ace, 2004, booklet full of informative text and some pictures of the artists.

Mellow Cats 'N' Kittens
(pass: CaesarTjalbo)

UPDATE: Minor screw up (again and not for the last time): I forgot to change some setting whilst ripping, filenames are Artist - Tracknumber Songtitle which is a bit useless with a compilation of different artists. The ID3 tags are correctly filled though, so with a tag editing tool you should have no problem getting them in the right order. See the menu on the right for some suggestions if you haven't got such a tool yet.

Funk: Willie Henderson and The Soul Explosions - Funky Chicken

Some time ago, I was teasing Peter from the SoulTwist blog. Can't have enough funky chicken!
In comes Willie Henderson. Dusty Groove writes very enthousiastically about this issue: "A massively-expanded version of Willie Henderson's Funky Chicken album -- with some great bonus tracks! The original record is killer work from one of the funkiest leaders on the Chicago scene -- the force behind some of the city's greatest soul tracks and funky 45s to come out of the Windy City!", I agree and only add that it's a Vampisoul release.
8 original album tracks + 4 bonus tracks, original release 1970, this set 2003. The linernotes seem to be targeted at 4 year olds, unfortunately, I suppose it's what you get when you ask a copywriter to write about a "funky chicken".

Willie Henderson and The Soul Explosions - Funky Chicken
(pass: CaesarTjalbo)

Tropicália, A Brazilian Revolution In Sound

1968, Brazil. Artists of various arts breaking down the boundaries between their arts and using European and American influences to experiment with new ways of expressing themselves, mocking society and the authorities as they go. Nothing new, happened everywhere. Except Brazil was then run by the military (since '64) and they were not amused: imprisonment, torture and even deportation of some of those artists followed.
Back to the football, the bikini's and the bossa nova, with some carnival thrown in for fun.
Not yet. The creators of this album make a case for the importance of the Tropicália movement for Brazil and music history. And they try hard to convince: this album comes in a jewel case with a booklet containing an interview with Tom Zé + a 50 page book (booklet would be derogatory) about the history of Brazil and the Tropicália movement with loads of text and pictures, all fitted in a cardboard sleeve.
Soul Jazz records created something downright impressive (2005), I can only add my humble opinion that the music on the CD is worth the effort. A history lesson with a bad soundtrack would miss it's target but these Tropicálistas did mix a lot of influences into something intriguingly fun to listen to without ever failing to be 'typical' Brazilian.
There's more interesting Brazilian music to spend your ears and money on but I think you should take 'Tropicália, A Brazilian Revolution In Sound' into consideration too.

Tropicália, A Brazilian Revolution In Sound
(pass: CaesarTjalbo)

UPDATE: Minor screw up: I forgot to change some setting whilst ripping, filenames are Artist - Tracknumber Songtitle which is a bit useless with a compilation of different artists. The ID3 tags are correctly filled though, so with a tag editing tool you should have no problem getting them in the right order. See the menu on the right for some suggestions if you haven't got such a tool yet.

Soul: Charlie Whitehead - Songs To Sing

"The Charlie Whitehead Anthology 1970 - 76 produced by Swamp Dogg". Stuff you're gonna love, this 2006 Ace/Kent issue. I've this album only a few months but played it so often it seems like years.
CW wasn't very lucky with his career and disappeared in obscurity but not for lack of talent. You'll find 2 albums and a couple of other songs on this compilation and each song is good soul at least with a few songs really sticking out. It's southern soul going into funk with a few leftish/progressive/protest songs and even instrumentals, making the album a mixed bag full of delightful goodies. Read more here and here.
This release is impeccable, music + booklet + pictures up to the high standards you'd come to expect of Ace records.

Charlie Whitehead - Songs To Sing The Charlie Whitehead Anthology 1970 - 76 (100 + 10 MB)
Part 1
Part 2
(pass: CaesarTjalbo)

Aside: CW's only hit is called 'Love Being Your Fool' which wasn't that much of a hit since it was also released at the same time by one Travis Wammack. The song's not included on this compilation due to licensing problems but it would be great to hear it. If anyone can upload 'Love Being Your Fool' by either Charlie Whitehead or Travis Wammack (I'd love to compare of course) I'd be really grateful!

UPDATE: MichelCharles saves the day! (Again!)
He managed to unearth 2 versions of the song already:
Travis Wammack - (Shu Doo Pa Poo Poop) Love Being Your Fool
Jerry Reed - (Shu Doo Pa Poo Poop) Love Being Your Fool
Download the songs here.
And he's looking for more, so if the internet appears a bit slow to you, you now know the reason... :-)
Thanks again MichelCharles!

UPDATE 2: You can find Jean Wells - Soul On Soul (Kent 1995) in the comments... thx 2 MichelCharles.

Back to life

Sorting out some trouble, taking some vacation and watching my team get kicked out of the world cup was all fun but it's time to switch the pc back on and get some CDs out of the cupboard.
I'll make some time to upload music in the next couple of days, thank you for your patience!

UPDATE: Thank you for your comments, they're heartwarming!