Strut Records has been behind many fine Afro, disco, post punk and industrial compilations and artist albums since it started out in the late ’90s – the ‘Nigeria 70’ and ‘Next Stop Soweto’ series, Trevor Jackson’s ‘Metal Dance’ albums and new works from Mulatu Astatke, Pat Thomas and many more. Label founder Quinton Scott picks a random 5 currently on his radar…

 
 
 

Love Deluxe
Space Love

 
«I met composer/arranger/organist Alan Hawkshaw through working on Strut’s ‘Music For Dancefloors’ KPM Music Library collection – a wonderful man who’s responsible for some of the UK’s best loved TV themes of the last 40 years (‘Countdown’, ‘Grange Hill’ and more). He’s also behind The Mohawks’ classic break ‘The Champ’ and he dabbled with different styles through the ‘70s – he even scored a club hit in New York with Love Deluxe’s ‘Here Comes That Sound Again’ in ’79. There was a follow-up Love Deluxe album planned which ended up being shelved and never released. This track is from it, a great slice of Moroder-esque cosmic disco.»
 

Mr Andrew
Magic Planet

 
«One of the most enjoyable recent projects for me on Strut was working with Alessio Natalizia (WALLS/Not Waving) on a compilation called ‘Mutazione’ which documented some of the incredibly dark DIY new wave and post-punk emerging from Italy during the early ‘80s (if you like this sound, there’s a great Italian label reissuing many original albums from this scene called Spittle Records). Alessio unearthed this one from 1982, ‘Magic Planet’ by Mr. Andrew, but despite a lot of research, we couldn’t find Mr. A or the original label people so couldn’t include it on the compilation. Great track!»
 

Darlington Brown & The Astronauts
Coming Home Baby

 
«The late Trinidadian organist Darlington Brown takes Ben Tucker’s ‘I’m Comin’ Home’ (made famous, of course, by Mel Torme) back to its original form as an instrumental on this brilliant, raw version. Brown’s story is ultimately a sad one – he came up as a guitarist in Clarence Curvan’s band before building a solid reputation domestically as a gifted Hammond player. An ill-fated trip to New York to try and build his music career led to a time working with an advertising company on Madison Avenue but he was fired from his job and ended up returning to Trinidad frustrated and dejected. A real unsung talent and I love this record.»
 

Jeannie Reynolds
The Fruit Song

 
«The soul heads will know this one really well. It’s not particularly rare but just brings back amazing memories for me from when I first started out in music working at Jive Records in North West London during the mid-‘80s. I think I first heard this on pirate station LWR and the DJ, Ron Tom, would purposely not say what certain tracks were to keep them exclusive for the rare groove DJs. This one drove me mad for months! Jeannie was the sister of L.J. Reynolds from the Dramatics and the song was co-written by The Four Tops’ Lawrence Payton.»
 

Second Hand
Somethin’ You Got

 
«I was first put onto this by Cherrystones here in London a while ago and have loved it ever since. It’s a heavyweight psych/prog groover from Second Hand’s ‘Death May Be Your Santa Claus’ album recorded in London’s Chalk Farm in 1970, led by Rob Elliott on vocals. The band went through a number of name and line-up changes (The Next Collection, Moving Finger) and enjoyed an early spell on Polydor but sadly disbanded a year after this release. They’re now recognized as hugely under-estimated and one of the very first UK prog bands.»