We’re well into the holiday party season, and of course no party’s complete without music. Some of you will go with Christmas songs, but the funkier folks out there will want to get down while imbibing their eggnog. Here are seven new mix albums you can get down all night to.

Various Artists: Daptone Gold (Daptone)
This has popular album tracks, offering a good introduction to Brooklyn’s finest soul label, but it’s the outtakes and 45-only releases that are the real treat: Sharon Jones’s 45 “I’m Not Gonna Cry” and her cover of Gladys Knight’s “Giving Up,” soul legend Lee Fields’s awesome 45 “Could Have Been,” Antibalas doing an Afrobeat version of the Willie Colon-penned Hector Lavoe hit “Che Che Cole,” and six other tracks on CD for the first time. It’s like we’re getting 10 “new” tracks and the other 13 are a bonus. If you wanna go retro, this is the way to do it in style.

Peanut Butter Wolf: 45 Live (Stones Throw)
This mix CD has an amazing story behind it. It’s fashionable for DJs to mix with 7” 45s (better sound than on LPs), but the old-school hip-hop PBW’s working with here was more often released on 12” records. So to put together this 50-minute mix, he actually had 7” pressings made to order of edits he made of classic tracks (available in a limited-edition box of ten 45s). Also, hip-hop techniques are more easily applied to the bigger platters, so his mix (on CD and digital) is something of a technical tour de force. Much of it is extremely famous material, which makes it easier to realize just how much PBW is doing with it, but there are also obscure gems (Cash Money & Marvelous, Stezo, Tricky Tee Rap, Dimples D, and Universal Two). The sheer exuberance here, from both PBW and the hip-hop artists of a quarter-century ago, is both thrilling and infectious.

Various Artists: Strange Breaks & Mr. Thing II: More Rock, Funk, Soul, Jazz & Soundtrack Breaks for Modern Living (BBE)
This set’s idea of “old school” takes the “old” part seriously. The “strange” part is really more “obscure”; the average person may recognize a few song titles, but rarely the artists who are covering them (well, maybe Roy Head, who rips up “She’s a Mover”), while other tracks are complete mysteries. Semi-familiar names are Jake Wade & the Soul Searchers, Bollywood production duo Kalyanji Anandji, soul singer Ruby Andrews, and Funk Brothers keyboardist Johnny Griffith. As usual this is a two-disc set, one disc mixed by British hip-hop producer Mr. Thing (ex-Scratch Perverts), one unmixed (with a few more tracks); that such a wide variety of genres is made to cohere wonderfully is a thing of beauty in itself.

Chromeo: DJ-Kicks (!K7)
Chromeo’s volume in this series is so unhip in its selections that it’s perversely hip – in other word, it’s everything you’d expect from the synth duo: brightly colorful, energetically disco-y (lots of late '70s/early '80s nostalgia here), and lots of fun (nice to hear Cheri’s “Murphy’s Law” again!). It includes a few nods to fellow Canadians past (Soupir) and present (Chateau Marmont) and Chromeo's own cover of the Eagles' "I Can't Tell You Why," lovingly cheesed up with Vocoder.

Various Artists: ZE 30: ZE Records 1979-2009 (Strut)
There used to be a better ZE compilation, Mutant Disco, but that’s out of print and selling for upwards of $60 if you can find it. Anyone unfamiliar with the awesome weirdness of ZE can safely start here. Timeless tracks – “Contort Yourself” in James White & the Blacks’ disco version, Was (Not Was)’s “Tell Me That I’m Dreaming” (Traditional 12" Remix), Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” (Long version), “Bustin’ Out” (Seize the Beat Version) by Nona Hendryx with Material, and “Something Wrong in Paradise” by Kid Creole & the Coconuts (Larry Levan Mix) – mix with slightly less familiar material: Garcons’ “French Boys,” Christina’s “Things Fall Apart,” Aural Exciters’ “Maladie d’Amour,” Don Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band’s “Deputy of Love,” and the track that puts “2009” in the subtitle, Michael Dracula’s “What Can I Do for You.” Even fans who already have another compilation of the much-anthologized ZE label may want this, since familiar titles often come in different mixes, as one would expect from the self-proclaimed “mutant disco” label. While there are a few exceptions, this is mostly party music – if you’re partying with non-conformists.

Various Artists: Black Rio 2: Original Samba Soul 1971-1980 (Strut)
Seven years after Strut’s first Black Rio compilation, we finally get a sequel, compiled by DJ Cliffy of famous Brazil-in-London club Batmacumba. This is not a scene that’s been the object of a lot of compilation (unlike the Tropicalia scene), so the material is refreshingly unfamiliar, with Emilio Santiago’s "Bananeira" the catchiest track and Os Diagonais’s “Nao Vou Chorar” the deepest groove. Funk and samba aspects are sometimes combined, but more often alternated, which makes for great tension-and-release structures. Of course, it’s mostly in Portuguese (so the singer of Zeca Do Trombone & Roberta Sax’s “Coluna Do Meio” probably isn’t singing “motherfucker”), but if you speak groove, you’ll understand.

Breakestra: Dusk Till Dawn (Strut)
This Los Angeles group started out as a “hip-hop orchestra,” a funk band dedicated to the kinds of grooves that get sampled by hip-hoppers. Here the band’s hip-hop origins resurface on “'Posed to Be,” featuring rappers Chali 2NA and the late DJ Dusk. The best singing is by Afrodyete; she really brings the soul power on “Come on Over.” Mixmaster Wolf (AKA Peanut Butter Wolf) provides a James Brown-style travelogue rundown of the retro-soul scene on "No Matter Where You Go." But it’s still the beats and grooves that are Breakestra’s bread and butter, and whether someone’s singing or not (about half the album, all written or co-composed by leader Miles Tackett, is instrumentals), the drummer’s sizzling syncopations, Tackett’s phat bass (and lead cello on “Me & Michelle”), chika-chika guitar, and authentic horn charts and keyboard cameos guarantee get-down satisfaction. - Steve Holtje

Mr. Holtje is a Brooklyn-based poet and composer who splits his time between editing Culturecatch.com, working at the Williamsburg record store Sound Fix, and editing cognitive neuroscience books for Oxford University Press. No prizes for guessing which pays best.