As with previous records, Ten Years On presents an impressive range of grooves and styles, all sheltering from the grey English drizzle under a big jazz-funk umbrella. There?s the familiar vintage-sounding production, courtesy of guitarist and bandleader Eddie Roberts. The core of the band is the same as on 2008?s Plug & Play, with Simon Allen on drums, Pete Shand on Fender P-bass, and Joe Tatton on organ, piano and various other vintage keyboards.

The album has guests aplenty, some of them sending in their performances by email from distant shores. JD73 plays Rhodes on Dusty Groove, lending it a distinctly Headhuntersish sound. Seattle-based sax experimentalist Skerik adds dark, lush textures to the eight-minute soundtrack opus OOOM. Fellow Leeds luminary Sam Bell brings the percussion to Eddie?s Benson-eque disco-jazz on Cielo while Madrid-based Chip Wickham toots a mean flute on Chocolate Chip.

The CD version features a very special bonus track with a vocal contribution from Grace Potter, the 24-year-old ascendant rock-star and friend of the Mastersounds from the US festival scene. Nothing But the Water (II) is an NMS cover version of one of Grace?s own original tunes. Eddie came up with a new arrangement and the band recorded it in Leeds without Grace, who was busy writing her new album in L.A. We contacted Breakestra?s Miles Tackett who kindly agreed to record Grace?s vocal in his studio. Grace sang along to the backing-track, Miles sent back the vocal part over the ether, and Eddie mixed the finished tune ? hey presto, and it?s funky as hell!

Three years since the release of our first live album Live At La Cova we decided it was time for a follow-up. Our sound and musical approach has evolved considerably, not least thanks to Joe Tatton who joined us on organ and piano in 2007, but also because of our American audiences and their appetite for improvisation. We?ve done a lot of touring all over the USA but it wasn?t hard to settle on San Francisco as the location for the new album ? the fans there have always inspired us with their energy, affection and enthusiasm, so we knew we had a chance to capture something very special. We hope you agree that we did just that: both nights sold out before the doors even opened; the atmosphere in the room was electric. The album that Eddie has compiled for you features our favourite jams from those two performances. The selection includes tunes from the first five studio albums: ?Keb Darge Presents?? (2001), ?Be Yourself? (2003), This Is What We Do (2005), ?102%? (2007) and ?Plug & Play? (2008).
Simon Allen, September 2008

The New Mastersounds return from a year of intensive touring in the USA to deliver their fifth studio album, Plug & Play, featuring vocalist Dionne Charles. What you get: trademark infectious grooves, warm vintage production by guitarist Eddie Roberts, and successful forays into sub-genres like psychedelic afro-funk, CTI-era jazz-funk, soul-jazz and classic soul. Though the NMS wear their musical roots on their sleeve, each track sounds unmistakably like The New Mastersounds and in Dionne Charles they have found a vocalist who can do justice to the phenomenal soulfulness of the music.

---

The crazy idea super-cool Milan indie label Record Kicks had was to ask to a bunch of talented contemporary funk, nu jazz and broken soul remixers to work on the "raw" deep funk NMS sound. The result is an absolutely essential compilation full of irresistible nu funk, soul, broken, headz future classics.

---

"Super tight and forever on the groove (...) Pure funk and soul ? this is what they do!?
(Lubi Jovanovic, Straight No Chaser Magazine)

These tracks will definitely get you moving and, let?s face it, that is (and always has been) what funk?s all about ? a groove to make you move.?
(DJ Andy Smith)

Funky, jazzy, soulful flavoured ?The New Mastersounds have been on the groove up and down the international independent funk & soul scene for eight years now. With five albums, 21 seven inch single releases and numberless live gigs from London to Tokyo, Madrid to Los Angeles under their belt, the four musicians from Leeds/UK are much loved by musical heavvweights such as Keb Darge, Gilles Peterson or Andy Smith!

With An Introduction To THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS they now present their first release in GSA: 15 tracks from four albums plus Fred Everything?s remix of ?Your Love Is Mine? as a bonus track - An Introduction To ? also is a manifold retrospective of these Britsh funkmonsters! For this they are accompanied by renowned and excellent vocalists as well as instrumentalists with Corinne Bailey Rae, LSK, Sam Bell and Cleve Freckleton among them.

And that?s for sure, be it the funky style of ?Turn This Thing Around?, ?Can?t Hold Me Down? or ?The Rooster?, the Ramsey Lewis flair of ?Do What You Gotta Do?, the Northern Soul in ?Be Yourself?, the Deep Soul in ?Your Love Is Mine? or the Flamenco pattern in ?Barca?, every single song by The New Mastersounds finds its direct way from your head into your feet!

An Introduction To THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS is more than just Funk and Soul, this is just damn good music - an album for the club as well as your home!

The fourth album. Recorded live at La Cova Den Xoroi, a spectacular cliffside club on the island of Menorca, Spain. Featuring Sam Bell on percussion. A mix of NMS originals and covers of funk and boogaloo classics (including Grant Green's Jan Jan, the Meter's Funky Miracle, and Rusty Bryant's Fire Eater).

---

After many years of spearheading the UK's live funk scene and packing out the best clubs everywhere from London to Mexico City, The New Mastersounds captured the pure energy and excitement of their live show onto this, their debut album release. Dropped by the likes of DJ Shadow, Pete Rock, Cut Chemist, Kenny Dope, Spinna, Keb Darge, Gilles Peterson, Snowboy, Adrian Gibson, and crossing over into the dance scene with their Masters At Work-inspired track 'Nervous' and an inspired arrangement of the theme from James Bond, the interest generated on release of this album was huge. Originally released on Keb Darge's classic Deep Funk label in 2001, it quickly sold out to funk aficionados everywhere.

---