(Resist Music/Inertia)

When an album like this hits the streets at this time of year it seems almost impossible to believe that we have recently suffered through months of winter. Driving around town for the past few weeks with this album on high rotation, my head’s been full of funk’n sunshine, baby!

This is the jubilee edition of the highly successful Good Times series from Joey and Norman Jay, who are generally considered to be among the most respected DJs of all time. For twenty-five years, the boys have been at the hub of London’s Notting Hill Carnival, an institutional event on the worldwide funk calendar. Spinning tunes through the giddy highs and dramatic lows of the festival, the brothers have collected a dazzling array of tunes. Here, they shake off the dust, slap on the tunes and pay homage to the big bad block parties of the past. From hip hip to funk, disco to dancehall and soul to jazz, there’s tasty bites on offer all round.

It’s actually quite hard to pick the standout tracks on disk 1, but the dirty little Smokey Joe’s La La is definitely at the top of the heap, and the Jackson Sisters’ I Believe in Miracles is a fabulous disco track to get the hips swinging. And there’s James Brown! There’s LL Cool J! There’s Masters at Work, Goldie, Mantronix and the delectable Roisin Murphy! It really is the most artful compilation of great tunes – spanning decades – I have heard in a while. Finishing off sweetly with Sleeve and Lowman’s So Fine, this disk brings a smile to the dourest of dials.

But wait – there’s more.

Disk two swings neatly into the soulful sounds of Betty Wright’s Clean Up Woman, setting the scene for some classics. The dulcet tones of Labelle’s Moonshadow and The Checkmates Ltd’s Black Pearl bring to mind poor seventies video clips – earnest and paisley, but decidedly sexy for the times. Classic jazz gets an airing, along with lost beauties such as Mr Bojangles and the sexiest man in soul (well that’s what your mum reckons, anyway), Marvin Gaye warbles songs of love against the wikka wikka wikka of 70s disco, care of the Fatback Band. Yet more delicious later on, the CD shifts into modern house and soul, treated with the likes of DJ Spinna, and finally ends with a cheese-tastic disco number from the mistress herself, Gloria Gaynor.

What a ride! Don’t miss this one – it deserves to be played to death at the beach, on the porch, even around the garden so you can wiggle while you weed. An aural treat indeed.