With December here, Ban Ban Ton Ton is looking back on the musical year. Since Japanese superstition holds 7 as her luckiest number, we’re gonna try to keep each selection tight to this total, in the hope that our conjuring of 7 X 7 X 7 X … will collectively manifest some magic for 2025. You may witness some attempts to creatively bend the rules and blur / invent genres, in order to squeeze in as many great releases as possible… 

Hip hop heroes, classic breaks. Sublime soothing late `60s outtakes. Gospel, funk, disco and boogie. New Indies, big majors. Passion projects, modern genre melting and tomorrow never knows… here’s my pick of 2024’s soul and funk…

DJ Yoda / Roxbury (Double Dee & Steinski Remix) / Lewis 

NYC / hip hop legends Double Dee & Steinski remixed DJ Yoda. Cutting up Lou Reed and self-help tapes, the track made me dig out and spend time with the duo’s pioneering Lessons releases. “Nothing succeeds like success.” Kinda connected, Cut Chemist did a nice edit of OV Wright’s sought after Let’s Straighten It Out Wu Tang Clan / Shaolin Soul break. 

Roberta Flack / Lost Takes / Arc Records

Gilles Peterson’s Arc Records did a bespoke boutique pressing of these outtakes from Roberta Flack’s first Atlantic Records sessions. Gilles was no doubt sold on Roberta’s covers of jazz standards, such as Afro Blue, but it was the mellower, soothing, sunset -worthy moments that did it for me. Plus the truly joyful take on Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. 

Lady Blackbird / Slang Spirituals Sampler / Foundation Music

Lady Blackbird made her well-deserved move to the big time and signed to the major BMG, where she released an album of original songs titled Slang Spirituals. However, prior to that Lady B promo’d the set with a E.P. on indie imprint, Foundation Music. There she covered Labi Siffre’s It Must Be Love, and made it her own, turned Bettye Swann’s When The Game Is Played On You into strung out, blues-y psychedelic voodoo, and soared with Let Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, her self-penned soon-to-be gospel anthem. 

Another great gospel side was The Perpetual Singers’ Father Father. A bumping bit of mid-tempo boogie, packed with positivity, it proved to be a blinding bridge between downtempo / Balearic and more uptempo sets.

Carl Moore / Must Be The Beat / Sweet Free Association

I first met soulful selector Sam Don something like 15 years ago, on a drunken Tokyo night, that turned out to be sorta life-changing. Back then Sam was a photographer for Resident Advisor, not the highly respected DJ he is today. In 2024, having collaborated on a couple of best-selling comps with Athens Of The North, Sam launched his own label, Sweet Free Association. The imprint’s debut release lifted two tracks from Carl Moore’s 1984 Japan-only release. Must Be The Beat especially showcasing some fine Rick James / young Prince-esque funk. 

Tom Noble presents House Of Spirits / Razor N Tape Reserve

Tom Noble finally completed his House Of Spirits album, some 17 years after he started the project. Delivering 8 proper songs – with verses, choruses, bridges and everything – all of which could be singles, and that strut their synth-led significant stuff in between boogie and disco. The production had the predictably authentic vibe of a privately pressed ’70s indie soul treasure, reflecting Tom’s way more than 2 decades dealing vinyl. The real live playing, provided by West Coast band Orgone, adding a grit, as opposed to Studio 54 glitter and glamour. The tracks taking in gospel, jazz-funk and honey-vocal-ed Leon Ware-esque heartbreak. Holding On has been a firm Ban Ban Ton Ton favourite since its initial release on Beats In Space back in 2013. Other standouts for me were Times Are Changing, which seemed to echo conscious calls for dancefloor positivity, such as Hudson People’s Trip To Your Mind, and its partner / companion piece, the chanted Time is Running Out. The latter featuring showers of syn-drum pops, a fantastic final Fender Rhodes run and lyrics lifted from classic reggae that betray Tom’s beginnings in Milwaukee ska outfit The Thousandaires. 

Junior Parker / Tomorrow Never Knows / Mr Bongo

Mr. Bongo reissued Junior Parker’s 1971 LP Love Ain’t Nothin’ But A Business Goin’ On. The set is packed with samples – used by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, De La Soul, and DJ Shadow, but it’s his cover of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows that leaps out. A while back I paid a small fortune for a crackly 45 copy, but even so I shelled out again. This mediation really needs to be pristine. 

Leisure Dub / Open Space / T3AL / Y’Know

So here’s my first big bending of the rules – be warned there will be more to come. Lumping four acts together might seem like a cheat, but Leisure Dub, Open Space, T3AL and Y’Know all blurred the boundary between dub and soul. Apiento’s collaborations as Leisure Dub – with Lexx and Armanious – and Open Space – with Andrew Hale and Lara Groves – were exercises / experiments in bass-heavy radical R&B reduction – asking the question, “How much can you strip away, and without sacrificing the song and the soul?” 

Toronto’s Spiritual World, home to a collective of likeminded cross-collaborating artists, employed a very similar sonic aesthetic (if less techno-toned), releasing E.P.s and mini-LPs of ethereal pop rocked by ridiculous reverb and ricochetted reggae soundclash rimshots. Y’Know boasted that they used “every delay box in the house.” 

If you were after a nice example of where this sound, in part, originated, you had Heels & Souls’ timely reissue of Elaine Vassell’s terrific Never Give Up.

Disclaimer: During the late 2010s I purchased and played a lot of soul. I’d do warm-ups and wind-downs with soaring songs all about love. However, a change in my circumstances, meant that that for me, personally, the emotion came with an ironic edge. To point where one night, I burst into tears and had to be removed from the decks. To be honest, I haven’t really bought that much since. Something got broken. I’ve been around enough to learn to never say never, but it still ain’t been fixed. Living in isolation I’ve had a lot of time for contemplation. I believe in infatuation, physical attraction, and lust. I believe in responsibility and loyalty. I’m just not sure I believe in love.