‘You said he was your cousin, oh but I found out that he was wasin’... Two cousins don’t kiss, especially not like this…’

Surprisingly the first time on 12” for this brassy, string-laden, modern/Northern crossover classic, more Philly than NYC. Beautifully written by Thom Bell, expertly remixed by Tom Moulton.

Tracks from a career of more than forty years, several rare or unissued. The pianist/composer/arranger/producer in collaborations with Captain Beefheart, The Monkees, Frankie Laine and The Tubes, amongst others.

Plenty of killers, old friends like The Soul Children and William Bell alongside nuff new discoveries. Check the samples (if you think you’re hard enough).

Gorgeous, unheralded, sweet soul from Chicago.
School-friends Clifford Curry and LaSalle Matthews started the group in 1965, with Walter Jones and Robert Thomas, all in for the long haul. They waited till 1970 for a hit — I’m Still Here, produced by Syl Johnson for Twinight — and had to ride out the label’s demise before signing to Curtom’s new Gemigo imprint in late 1973. (Super People was 1975.)
Unmistakably Chicagoan and stamped by Curtis, classically schooled but on the cusp… with its roots in the chivalric harmonies of doowop, its bad self in dapperly distraught r&b balladry, and its eye on the new social consciousness of soul and funk.
Typical Numero loveliness.

A Stones Throw project.

Chilled, underground, DIY fusion from eighties America, rolling up together jazz, new age, and pop. Music for a burgeoning managerial middle class, says Numero; pitched rather hopefully at ‘the new commercial audiences held captive in dentist offices and waiting rooms across America’.

A compilation of the best of their Westbounds.