JIM SHARP Vinyl & CDs

Review: Jim Sharp & Nick Bike are two of Canada's finest beat makers and here they turn their attention to the legendary Marvin Gaye. His 'Inner City' from the timeless What's Going On album gets a modern update from Jim Sharp that retains the soulful vocal of the original but with new drums. They're crisp and tight but funky, and the bendy chords and melodic motifs flesh it out. On the reverse is a Power Mix by Nick Bike that ups the weight and stomp of the drums and layers in the wordless ad libs from the original to bring the soul.

Review: Ff45 (Friday's Funky 45) welcome Canada's finest Jim Sharp back to the fore with two 7"-ready sure-shots, of the remix/reinterpretation/covers variety. On the A, we hear a flip of J-Lo's pop classic 'Get Right' but reconstructed to dazzling effect, with every part rerecorded impeccably and placed into a fresh breaks-funk context. The B, meanwhile, reinterprets the Armand Van Helden/Common hip-disco-house classic, 'Full Moon'.

Review: London-based beat digger Jim Sharp has been stupid busy recently serving up edits from across his omnivorous taste for a good groove. Now he's up on Soul By The Pound with a couple of snappy Brazilian edits, going in on the eternal Sergio Mendes classic 'Man Que Nada' on the A side and giving it a subtle nip and tuck. On the B-side, he turns his attention to Marvin Santiago's 'Fuego A La Jicotea', a suitably fiery slice of salsa from 1979 which sounds even feistier with a little bump underneath its rhythm section.

Review: For the 20th release on the Berlin-based Dusty Donuts label, they have tapped Londoner Jim Sharp again, who was responsible for their very first release back in 2014. On 'Feelin' Good', Sharp and DJ Goce sample J Dilla track on a lush track, with a late night smoky jazz bar kind of vibe throughout. The sound on B side track 'Old Digger" was made famous by Kanye West however Sharp's edit here injects thumping drums, vocal stabs and a different era of Jazz swing.

Review: Canadian-born, London-based DJ Jim Sharp strikes gold again, a mid-tempo jazz hip-hop 7" featuring the flow of Marlon Craft, crisp bars and a silky smooth tone that doesn't skip a beat. Big horns, scratching and boom-bap drums punctuate Craft's message in such an effortless way it leaves you wanting more (Don't pretend you wouldn't want an album with these two laying down the law). The flipped remix is really the star of the show, it would be more shocking if it weren't there frankly. Sharp does what he does best, chopping up and scratching like the best of them whilst a xylophone beat overlays the blown-up strings. It's that perfect blend of jazz, late 90s bling-era hip-hop and "conscious rap" (whatever you want to call it - it'll always be "abstract" to a Tribe fan). The perfect skating anthem.

Review: After a bit of time away due in part to the pandemic and other geo-political factors, Dusty Donuts is now back and serving up sugar hip hop treats. This new 7" packs in five fine beats from a mix of artists, namely DJ Robert Smith, Marc Hype, Naughty NMX and Jim Sharp. This is the second in the Weapons of Choice series and it is a mix of classic 90s beats and intoxicating samples. The joints go from deep and laid back to more jazzy and sax laced. 'Scratchdeeznuts 1 & 2' is a cut-up and chopped loop for advanced DJ deployment only.