Northern soul in the context of "Soul music"

A microgenre is a specialized or niche genre, often used to describe narrowly defined subcategories within music, literature, film, or art. The term has been in use since at least the 1970s, particularly in the context of music, where it refers to specific stylistic offshoots of prominent genres, such as the many sub-subgenres of heavy metal and electronic music.

Originally, microgenres were labels retroactively applied by record collectors and dealers, often to increase the perceived value of rare or obscure recordings. Early examples include Northern soul, freakbeat, garage punk, and sunshine pop.

Rare groove is music that is very hard to source or relatively obscure. Rare groove is primarily associated with funk, R&B and jazz funk, but is also connected to subgenres including jazz rock, reggae, Latin jazz, soul, rock music, northern soul, and disco. Vinyl records that fall into this category generally have high re-sale prices. Rare groove records have been sought by not only collectors and lovers of this type of music, but also by hip hop artists and producers.

Online music retailers sell a wide selection of rare groove at more affordable prices, offering fast downloads in digital format. This availability and ease of access has brought about a resurgence of the genre in recent years.

Mirwood Records was an American record label founded by former Vee-Jay executive Randy Wood in Los Angeles in 1965.

The Mirwood label was a sister label to Mira Records. It primarily released rhythm and blues and jazz recordings, and has been described as "among the definitive Northern soul labels". Many of its records were written and produced by Fred Smith and arranged by James Carmichael, who (according to Jason Ankeny at AllMusic) "hone[d] a distinctive style all their own, creating soul music that was both relentlessly energetic and sweetly sophisticated, topped off by trademark vibes that evoked the otherworldly beauty of a Pacific Ocean sunset".