When rappers The Roots brought the live band into the fore, giving it equal billing to the emcees, the world opened its eyes to hip-hop’s soulful, musical side. With a background in instrumental music, The Press come at the same equation from yet another angle, augmenting their laid back, grooving jams with an equally smooth dose of hip-hop flavor. The newly formed band pairs members of Analog Method and Mac Tough with a troika of vocalists. On their self-titled, four-song EP, the result is satisfyingly, surprisingly organic—clever rhymes (“If cool jazz is so cold, who shot the rock ’n’ roll? / Then who bought hip-hop and soul? Motown was rold gold"), and great vocal interplay with an instrumental section that swaggers in lock step. 

Recorded in the round using a closed-for-the-night the Stone Church as studio, Funkfoot’s debut EP “Badunkafunk” provides listeners a healthy sample of the funk fusion outfit’s live show. All the jam band requisites are present: jangling, swanky guitar, plenty of tock-a-tock-tock snare, slap-popping bass riffs and organ-heavy keyboard sounds and Funkfoot keeps stride, performing across the album with skill and gusto. And, of course, being songs to shake a leg to, bassist Berns Cote and guitarist Jeremy “Fuzz” Grob, trading vocal duties, do their best to get bodies onto the floor, as in “France Road”: “Let’s all do something fun / Let’s get on the lawn by the break of dawn, and all go put our shoes on.” Yes, let’s.

The New Shoes is a recent project of Newmarket’s young and multitalented Andrew Maher, drummer for the Boston/Seacoast-based band, The Sanguine. On his seven-song EP, “What We’re Made Of,” Maher proves to be a one-man band, singing and playing guitar, bass, Rhodes and drums. On the recording, Sanguine bandmates Shane O’Connor and Tony Rogers provide accompaniment on vocal and cello, respectively. Though the band’s bio compares its music to Superwolf, Will Oldham’s most recent collaboration, a closer point of reference might be Pinback, who’ve carved a niche with artful, understated songwriting that is based on texture and repetition. Nowhere is this nod more demonstrative than on “Maybe,” with its brushed drums, looping guitar line, soft Rhodes flourishes and droning vocal melody. An auspicious debut.

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