US3 Hand On The Torch (reissue) ( 180g vinyl LP )

Release date: 20-10-2014 (Origially relased in 1976)

2014 EU reissue 180g vinyl LP -  

with the  hit in 1994 with "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)", a track that displayed the group's fondness for sampling classic recordings from the Blue Note label (in this case, Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island'). The track was included on their debut album Hand On The Torch.

The British jazz/hip hop fusion collective Us3 founded in 1992 in London and it's notable members included producers Mel Simpson and Geoff Wilkinson.

Tracks:
A1. Doin’ It
A2. People Music
A3. Cantelope Island    

B1. Spider
B2. Gentle Thoughts
B3. Swamp Rat
B4. Sansho Shima

Secrets (1976) is a Jazz-Funk fusion album by acclaimed keyboard player Herbie Hancock. Following up on his previous album Man-Child, the album again features Paul Jackson on bass, and reedist Bennie Maupin continued to provide most of the solos alongside Hancock. Man-Child had seen the addition of electric guitar to Hancock's sound, and Secrets saw the guitar's place in the arrangements rise to crucial importance throughout. The flamboyant rhythm guitar contributions of top Motown session musician Wah Wah Watson are a particularly notable feature of the album.

Where Man-Child was evenly divided between up-tempo and laid-back tracks, Secrets emphasised the more mellow, softly rounded mood. Even the more up-tempo tracks, "Doin' It" and "Cantaloupe Island", are suffused with a relaxed Caribbean influence, and overall the album tends towards restrained, rolling grooves rather than overtly high-energy Funk. Appropriately, Hancock spent much of his time using the mellow tones of the Rhodes piano, and took advantage of the new polyphonic synthesizers to contribute thick pads, foreshadowing ambient music.