Various Artists - Spring Revisited (Acid Jazz/Ace/Cosmos) [Soul/Funk/Disco]

The Slow Music Movement
6 days ago
2 min read

The Cover for the Spring Revisited remix album on Acid Jazz, showing a green textured background with large white text: "SPRING REVISITED." Smaller text at bottom: "springs." Vintage, nostalgic feel.

Given a leg up by a Polydor distribution deal, Spring Records sprung to life in the late 60s, and soon gained a serious reputation for releasing killer soul, funk and disco tunes, from the likes of Millie Jackson, Joe Simon, The Fatback Band, and later down the road Jocelyn Brown and Garland Green. They also had a couple of sub-labels and are even contesting who invented hip hop with Joe Bataan. They weren't messing around.

An old 7" vinyl record in a green and white sleeve from Spring Records. Visible text: Fatback's “King Tim III," and distribution info by Polydor.

Fast forward to 2025 and Cosmos Music got control of the Spring catalogue in 2022 and wisely teamed up with Acid Jazz to give those classic recordings a polish and consequently a second wind by enlisting some serious remixers, giving them the stems and seeing what happened. Wisely they enlisted an A-list group of elder production statesmen with deep roots in the soul, funk, jazz and disco scenes from last century to keep the soul essence whilst making the tracks fit for twenty first century sound systems and the rigid BPM demands of modern DJs.

So clear out the coffee table, dig out your widest bottomed trousers and get down to Dimitri From Paris' rework of Millie Jackson's "We Got To Hit It Off" which will appeal to disco queens and true house heads, not to mention the camper disco delights of Colleen Murphy's take on Street People's, "I Wanna Get Over" and The Reflex's twist of Garland Green's "Sending My Best Wishes". Kenny Dope from Masters at Work crops up three times going soul with Millie Jackson's epic vocals, disco with The Fatback Band and then his favoured funk route on Macho's collaboration with TFB, which, although it's a tough choice and might change depending on my mood, is perhaps my pick of the bunch.

But don't stop there. Make sure you check out the loose, Sacred Rhythm jazz house rework from of the somewhat overlooked "Snake" jam from The Fatback Band by Joe’ Claussell. Dave Lee does what he does best - peak time disco with The Jones, Opolopo tightens and turns up the volume on TFB's, "Groovy Kind of Day" and the Smoove remix rounds things off nicely with a delightfully quantised disco house version of Joe Simon's, "I Wanna Taste Your Love".

The under 25's won't really know what's going on, but those with a toe in the twentieth century, or foot like myself, will be hitting the floor and wondering why today's bedroom producers can't squeeze a horn and string section in next to the wardrobe.