Expansion Records go into 2104 with a 35 track, triple CD pack to celebrate the success of their annual LUXURY SOUL WEEKENDER. The album – ‘LUXURY SOUL 2014’ – is not only crammed with the cream of the current modern soul crop but also features a smattering of classic oldies like ‘It’s You’ from the bill-topping Keni Burke.
Like a lot of material that 1998 cut is taken from an old Expansion album… in this case Keni’s wonderful ‘Nothing But Love’. Amongst other Expansion archive material are Muzart’s ‘Jukebox’, Real’s ‘Tomorrow’s Here’, Personal Life’s ‘Distance Can Be Sweet’, Sheree Brown’s ‘Inside My Love’ and Tyrone Lee’s ‘Get 2 Know U’ – still rightly getting lots of plays.
Amongst the non-Expansion material is Lady L’s ultra-catchy ‘Loves Master Plan’, Tony Momrelle’s wonderful ‘Spotlight’ and Bluey’s great solo effort ‘Take A Chance On Me’.
Two tunes that demand especial note are Gregory Porter’s ‘On My Way To Harlem’ and Re-Grooved’s ‘It Had To Be You’. The Porter song is now a 24 carat classic and is presented here in its Jazz and Cole edit; the Re-Grooved cut is a fab little mid-tempo chugger with a great soulful vocal from Sulene Fleming and we here @SJF are proud to say that we were the first media to recommend the tune… as someone once said, “stay tuned!”