ERRANT NIGHTS | 03

"All We Love” - Troublemakers

"We Got One (Extended Mix)” - Matt Covington

"Hey Lover (Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad)” - Roy Ayers

"Trust Me” - Aged In Harmony

"Stacy” - Chico Hamilton

"Breakin' In The Streets” - Curtis Mayfield

"Love Vibes” - Bootsy Collins

"This Feeling's Killing Me” - Jones Girls

"Lovin' You” - Vanilla

"In Your Eyes” - BadBadNotGood

"Her Light” - Cleo Sol"

"I Would Like To Call It Beauty (Freddie Joachim Reprise)” - Corinne Bailey Rae

"Stay with Me (One More Chance Instr Edit)” - Debarge

"Lucky (K&D Session Kruder & Dorfmeister Suicide Mix)” - Lewis Taylor

“All We Love” — Troublemakers

Marseille's Troublemakers had already earned their reputation with Doubts & Convictions on Chicago's Guidance Recordings in 2000, but Express Way opened a different chapter. Released by Blue Note in 2004 and helmed by Lionel Corsini and Arnaud Taillefer with strings arranged by E. Cremer, the album is a continental summit of session stars: Jules Bikôkô Bi Njami on bass and vocals, Sebastien Martel on guitar, Mr. Jam on percussion, Jean-Philippe Dary at Rhodes and JP4. Issued alongside a companion film, Express Way pushed the group's cinematic instincts deeper into arranged soul-jazz without losing its downtempo foundation.

“We Got One (Extended Mix)” — Matt Covington

A classic case of how the UK modern soul underground rescued a record from oblivion. Matt Covington had been the lead voice of Philadelphia's Philly Devotions before going solo, and "We Got One" first surfaced as an early-1980s 12" on the obscure Hot Tracks label, written by Buddy Turner and Johnny Bellmon with arrangements by Jack Faith. The cut might have stayed buried had London's Just Good Friends sound system not unearthed it during the rare-groove gold rush, eventually prompting Expansion to issue the proper 12" reissue in 1992. A Philadelphia falsetto found its second life through DJs and pirates rather than the mainstream industry machinery.

“Hey Lover” — Roy Ayers

Not a cover. "Hey Lover" first appeared in 2020 on Jazz Is Dead 001, the inaugural release in Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad's ongoing project devoted to the proposition that late-60s and early-70s analog soul-jazz standards remain achievable for anyone who makes the effort. The track grew out of Ayers' four sold-out Black History Month residencies in Los Angeles in 2018, captured in studio at Younge's Linear Labs with Greg Paul on drums, Younge and Muhammad supplying most of the instrumental architecture, and a vocal cast of Anitra Castleberry, Elgin Clark, Joi Gilliam, Loren Oden, and Saudia Yasmein.

“Trust Me” — Aged In Harmony

A modern soul artifact, "Trust Me" was the A-side of a 1977 7" on Detroit's Mor-Tones, one of three privately pressed Aged In Harmony singles cut between 1973 and 1978, all of them written, arranged, and produced by Arnold Moore. The records circulated so quietly that originals fetched three-figure sums on the secondary market until Sam Shepherd of Floating Points began reissuing them on his Melodies International imprint, gathering all six sides in 2016 with Moore's blessing. The track travelled further than rare-soul circles: MURS and 9th Wonder's "The Lick" and Buckwild's "Ease Up" both pull from it, giving the Detroit harmony cut a second life in hip-hop.

“Stacy” — Chico Hamilton

“Stacy” appears on The Master, the 1973 Stax Enterprise album that brought Chico Hamilton together with members of Little Feat at a moment when his music was opening further into funk and R&B-inflected territory. Chico Hamilton was the composer and drummer alongside Bill Payne on piano, Simon Nava on congas, and Kenny Gradney on bass. A hidden gem built from Hamilton’s melodic drumming and a more groove-centered ensemble language. “Stacy” captures a more suspended, late-night mood, and its return in Craft Recordings' 50th anniversary reissue returned it to circulation in 2023.

“Breakin' In The Streets” — Curtis Mayfield

The standout on Curtis's transitional We Come in Peace with a Message of Love, released on CRC in 1985 and recorded the previous summer at Curtom's Atlanta facility. Mayfield produced most of the album, but "Breakin' In The Streets" was written by Norman Harris and Ron Tyson and produced for Harris's Harris Machine production company, a small break from Curtis's usual workflow. The personnel includes Mayfield on vocals, guitar, and Linn drum sequencing, with Joseph "Lucky" Scott, Edward Gregory, and Master Henry Gibson rounding out the core. Its reggae-leaning groove and frenetic pacing earned it B-side billing on the "Baby It's You" 12" the following year.

“Love Vibes” — Bootsy's Rubber Band

“Love Vibes” appears on Stretchin' Out in Bootsy's Rubber Band, the 1976 Warner Bros. debut by Bootsy’s Rubber Band made after his rise with James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic. Cut at Detroit's storied United Sound Systems, the album balanced its harder P-Funk charge with quieter writing, and "Love Vibes" lives in the latter zone, credited to Collins and Leslyn Bailey, with Bailey on lead vocal. Songwriting credit went to William Collins and Leslyn Bailey. The track sits in a distinct corner of the album, away from the more explosive P-Funk charge that made Bootsy’s name and deeper into the ballad side Rhino later highlighted as part of the record’s range.

“This Feeling’s Killing Me” — The Jones Girls

“This Feeling’s Killing Me” opens The Jones Girls’ self-titled debut, released in 1979 on Philadelphia International Records. The song is credited to Joseph Jefferson, Richard Roebuck, and Charles Simmons. The Jones Girls were anything but newcomers by the time they reached PIR: Gamble-Huff’s own biography traces Brenda, Shirley, and Valerie Jones through more than a decade of session work and touring, including background vocals for Diana Ross and Betty Everett, before they finally arrived at a label strong enough to frame them as stars in their own right. The track had an afterlife with covers by Norma Lewis and Celetia and later sample fodder for Die Fantastischen Vier and Flamingosis, showing how a deep album cut from the group’s first Philadelphia International LP kept traveling long after its original quiet-storm origins. 

“Lovin' You” — Vanilla

"Lovin' You" appears on Vanilla’s 2020 album Into the Dream, released in Germany as a 2xLP crediting Vanilla as producer and main artist, and Hugo Harrison as composer. The album was the third installment in a trilogy of instrumental releases built from soul, jazz, funk, and ambient samples after Origin and Moonlight, placing “Lovin’ You” inside a longer, deliberately sequenced body of work rather than an isolated beat. In a 2017 interview, Vanilla described himself as a private person who had largely stayed off social media and kept the focus on the music first. Combining contemporary instrumental hip-hop construction assembled from deep jazz and soul sourcing, the track’s samples include Freddie Hubbard's "Little Sunflower" and Frannie Golde’s “Wish Upon a Star”.

“In Your Eyes” — BADBADNOTGOOD

IV (Innovative Leisure, July 2016) was the first album under the band's own name to include vocalists, and the album that confirmed Leland Whitty as a full member alongside Matthew Tavares, Chester Hansen, and Alex Sowinski. Charlotte Day Wilson was, at that point, still surfacing in Toronto's adjacent jazz-soul orbit and not yet the solo presence she would shortly become; "In Your Eyes" catches that emergence, her voice gliding over the syncopated, almost cinematic arrangement that the band had begun to perfect. The pairing held. BBNG and Wilson reconvened in 2023 for "Sleeper".

“Her Light” — Cleo Sol

Rose in the Dark (Forever Living Originals, March 2020) was Cleo Sol's solo debut after years of quiet anonymity inside the Sault collective, and it closed with "Her Light", credited to Cleopatra Nikolic and her partner Dean Josiah Cover, better known as Inflo. “Her Light” is both a standalone single and a closing statement of creative songwriting from her first full-length album release.  As Andy Kellman wrote at AllMusic, the album's full weight crystallizes only when "Her Light" makes its first pass at that unexpected closing chorus.

“I Would Like To Call It Beauty (Freddie Joachim Reprise)” — Corinne Bailey Rae

The original lives on Corinne Bailey Rae's 2010 album The Sea (Virgin), credited to Bailey Rae and her late husband Philip "Jason" Rae. The Sea is the grief record, written and cut in the wake of Jason's death in 2008, with "Beauty" focused on locating beauty in extremity. Freddie Joachim's reprise arrived in 2012, respectfully recasting the song for after-hours through the producer's longstanding hip-hop and jazz frameset, delivering more of a translation rather than a remix.

"Stay with Me (One More Chance Instr Edit)” — Debarge

The original "Stay With Me" appeared on DeBarge's In a Special Way (Gordy / Motown, 1983), their most polished record and their last great commercial moment. The song's afterlife ignited after The Notorious B.I.G. famously lifted it for "One More Chance", and from there Eldra DeBarge's falsetto and that unmistakable chord progression entered the bloodstream of late-90s and 2000s R&B, surfacing again in Ashanti's "Foolish" among others. The edit here layers Biggie's instrumental beneath the original vocal for the extended break.

“Lucky (K&D Session Kruder & Dorfmeister Suicide Mix)” — Lewis Taylor

“Lucky (K&D Session Kruder & Dorfmeister Suicide Mix)” begins with Lewis Taylor’s original “Lucky,” first released on his self-titled 1996 Island debut, considered a touchstone of 1990s British soul, and admired by artists including D’Angelo and Aaliyah even as it slipped industry and chart attention. A 1997 UK remix campaign brought in Kruder & Dorfmeister's "Suicide Mix" which proved particularly aligned to Taylor’s writing, slowing the song into a more suspended, late-night form without draining its emotion. The remix was included in 2024 K&D Sessions 25th anniversary box, where the “Suicide Mix” was restored alongside a previously unreleased “Reprise Mix,” capturing one of the more durable collaborations of British psychedelic soul and downtempo. 

Listen to: Errant Nights | 01