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Musical interlude vol. 85: The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble is a heavy, original, instrumental soul band based in San Diego.

Heavyweight Gambit, Nol Holds Barred' is the 11th compilation coming out on the Paris DJs label, and the second one digging into Funk & Soul music for the Paris DJs Soundsystem crew. A lot of tracks landed in the label's mailbox (thanks to everyone who participated!), choices had to be made, and until the last minute it was tough decisions. After many delays in adjusments and fine-tuning of this selection, this new compilations finally out, right on for Halloween 2015! The artwork depicts a stoned and scary wrestler, doesn't it? As suggested by this new, fantastic piece of visual art from French illustrator Ben Hito, the selection gathers psychedelic funk, soul for freaks, foot stomping beats, heavyweight breaks, thrilling grooves, hip hop coolness, fuzzy sounds and more...

Some of the bands/artists were already featured on Paris DJs finest selections, from compilations to mixes, reviews or remixes. Our readers and listeners should indeed start to get excited just hearing the names Connie Price and the Keystones, Breakdown Brass, Q.A.S.B., The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, STEPAK-TAKRAW, Grant Phabao, RacecaR, The Echocentrics or J. Whitefield. All people with a heavy sense of classicism in their funky productions, with sound aesthetics close to ours, whom we're so proud to feature here. The ever-exanding family from the Paris DJs universe has answered our call once again, sending a whole bunch of new, often unreleased, killer tunes, and it feels GOOD.

The "discoveries" — at least for us — are also a delight, don' let us fool you. It was hard to pick a tune between the 3 San Fernando, CA funk unit Soul Scratch sent. Great things to come from them soon for sure! East Oakland-based Soul-Hop singer Baby Jaymes does sound quite close to Michael Jackson. His cover of 50 Cent released last year on a limited 45 is a scorcher and we hope to start collaborating with him as soon as possible. It would be very interesting to hear him sing on some reggae production from Grant Phabao…. Alex Puddu is a Copenhagen-based Italian producer we had on our radar for some time now. His Soultiger project is a treat, and from the album released earlier this year was extracted for a 45 release an original composition featuring the legendary Joe Bataan on vocals. It took us some convincing, but we couldn't pass on getting this track in here. The tune is very addictive, and Mr. Bataan's voice so unique, so purely soulful! There's also Italian soundtrackish funk from La Batteria, French P-Funk band Horndogz featuring Parliament/Funkadelic/Drugs singer Clip Payne, and we close this new chapter feets in the sand, with a relaxing piece of Samba Funk from Dambô & Pauliño Nunes in Recife, Pernambuco, northeastern Brazil. This music is good for you.

Audiovisual concept by Djouls & Ben Hito A&R : Djouls with the help of Loik Dury and Grant Phabao Audio mastering by Grant Phabao Artwork by Ben Hito