Finally, this rare 1978 French disco masterpiece sees the light of day in its original dark and sleazy form. A few years ago, the Rephlex label released a series of 12"s of tracks from this album claiming it was a rare discovery found in a French gas station from an obscure French library release under the name Junior Claristidge, a pseudonym for Bernard Fevre. Everyone originally thought this was a hoax, and was a modern group trying to create a fake retro disco record, but then Bernard Fevre, a French library composer from the late seventies came out of the woodwork and confirmed its origins. Shortly after, Fevre created a new project called Black Devil Disco Club, based on the successful response to the Black Devil rediscovery and used it to make new music based on old unused dance recordings from that period. Fevre is now getting a full on rediscovery with three of his most sought after library records from the seventies being reissued for the first time: Black Devil, Suspense and Cosmic 2043.
While the Black Devil Disco Club records were good, their steely sheen was a little too polished compared to the sonic dirtiness of the Black Devil originals, which sound like Giorgio Moroder and Arthur Russell in a darkly exotic reverie of drugged out fleshy vice. Strobes pulsing in a painted black room, poppers popping, hands groping, lots of congo driven disco beat and vocodered male and female vocals. Imagine Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer in a hedonistic night of orgiastic dancing after the fall of man, and you get the idea. Enter if you dare!
Download card included!
Been just a little confused by this Lo Recordings release... and we're not the only ones. Ok, get this: a 1978 French disco single by the hitherto unknown Black Devil's Disco Club (perhaps, or was it titled Disco Club by an artist named Black Devil?) was reissued on 12" vinyl a couple years ago by the Rephlex label. 'Twas some pretty cool dance music for retro-minded folks, full of spacey electronics and bongo rhythms, the sort of thing that jaded DJs are always happy to dig up from the vinyl past. Now we get this album by the same artist... or is it? And is this new stuff, or old? Or a bit of both? (Most likely). Verrrrry mysterious. (Though we're sure that in certain circles all is obvious about this, not to us though.) Anyway, what really matters is, have we still got some pretty cool dance music for retro-minded folks? And the answer is yes. Super groooovy, what sound to us like sampled '70s Italo-disco synth beat stylings, full of analog sizzle. Goofily effected vox intrude amusingly as well, at times. It's a bit Giorgio Moroder, but more organic somehow. 6 tracks, 32 minutes, (maybe) 28 years in the making, and right on time, really.
The mystery of it all is heightened by the packaging -- an all black jewel case, with the credits ("written and produced by Bernard Fevre") and track titles printed only on the cardstock slipcover. Inside the jewelcase, in lieu of a cd booklet, you get a folded, 10" x 10" one-sided, black-and-white photo of Mssr. Fevre (presumably), taken back in '78? Dunno.
Hmm. We're pretty big fans of Bernard Fevre's earlier Black Devil Disco Club releases, but this new one is a bit of a departure. Rather than continue to mine/emulate his archive of '70s-recorded Italo-disco cosmic synth stuff, which was a motherlode of instrumental atmospheric grooviness, here he's recruited an impressive (and unlikely!) array of guest vocalists, including Nancy Sinatra, Jon Spencer, and Afrika Bambaataa, along with members of Yacht and The Horrors, and Fevre's compositions backing them up are suddenly in a much more current-sounding synth-pop dance music style. We can see people really digging this, of course, but not because of the things that previously attracted us to the Black Devil Disco Club. Give us his spacey "library music" any day. Well, some of this still evokes the likes of Morodoer and Kraftwerk for sure, but that's overshadowed by all the guest stars. Check out the sound samples is our advice.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Soul/funk/wah soundtrack to this 1975 blaxploitation flick, reissued on vinyl complete with full size movie poster insert! That by itself may be the reason to get this. It's a pretty insane painting -- Black Power Nazis??! ...However we haven't cracked one open yet so 1) we can't vouch for the quality of the music and 2) we can't guarantee that their definition of "full size poster" is what you and I think it is... let's hope so!
For this one, I (Allan) have got to tell a little story... 'round Christmastime I was back home in Pennsylvania, where I spent one of my evenings hanging out with some old pals who I know from one of my hometown's record stores. You know, some folks in a basement, with some beers, something funny-smelling being smoked (no, not by me), and lots and lots of records being spun, mostly jazz and funk and R&B 'cause that's what these friends of mine dig the most. Well, one record comes on that immediately makes me say, hey, this sounds like something that shoulda been on that Chains And Black Exhaust compilation from a couple years ago. Real bad-ass, fuzzed-out psychedelic '70s funk. My friends hadn't seen that comp, but perhaps you have since you're reading this and we did pretty well with it here at AQ. Sadly it's long gone now. Well, another track (a nice bluesy number) goes by, and then boom, there's a song that WAS indeed on that comp! All chunky wah-wah groove and grunting badassitude, "Cynthy-Ruth" turns out it's called, and one of the highlights on Chains and Black Exhaust ('twas track three).
The record my host was spinning was a vinyl reissue of the first album circa 1970 by Detroit's "folk rock funkateers" (it said right on the cover), a band called Black Merda. We kept listening and it was clear that this was a pretty killer album from an obscure bunch of "black rock" pioneers, contemporaries of Funkadelic and similiarly influenced by Jimi Hendrix. Dang, I immediately figured that no doubt quite a few of you who dug Chains And Black Exhaust would want this!
So when I got back to work here at AQ, I had to track it down. My diligent investigations revealed that both this first album and its 1972 sequel Long Burn The Fire (released under the shortened sobriquet Mer-da) were soon to be reissued together on a single cd. And this is it, The Folks From Mother's Mixer (the name of one of the songs from the Mer-da LP).
Overall, there's a doomy, druggy vibe again akin to a lot of early Funkadelic, an atmosphere that can be mellow but menacing, dark and gloomy, with loosely-chanted choruses full of socially-conscious protest lyrics. And yes, there's a buncha funky heavy groovers in the style of "Cynthy-Ruth" alongside a goodly amount of laid back psychedelic blues-rock jamming in the Hendrix vein. Fans of early Funkadelic won't be disappointed at all. Their somewhat cleaner, brighter second album perhaps ain't as good as the first, but definitely also has its strong points and you'll be glad it's on here too.
Comes packaged with Afro-filled photos and lengthy liner notes that tell the whole Black Merda story, from their days as Edwin Starr's backing band to to their embrace of '60s heavy electric guitar rock to their signing to Chess Records (the famous blues label was trying to get into the psychedelic, underground rock thing at the time) and brief shot at fame to the eventual derailment of their career due to forces beyond their control. Now, 30+ years later, Black Merda's music gets another chance to turn on, funk up, and weird out music fans.
The killer, groovy music from around the world, out of the past, just keeps on coming... and more often than not we have the fantastic Soundway label to thank for such vintage international reissue discoveries. Here's their latest, a rescuing of the sole release, circa 1976, from a group with the promising name of the Black Truth Rhythm Band. It's an album rife with soulful call-and-response chants, polyrhythmic percussion, some spacey synth, funky horns, whistling flute, and sprightly kalimba melodies... We'd have thought the BTRB were an Afrobeat band from West Africa, but it turns out they're from Trinidad, so this is Afro-centric funk with a bit of mellow Caribbean, calypso flavor as well. Though, Africa is their main thing, and and we're not just talking the jungle noises heard on the track "Kilimanjaro".
The BTRB has both a gentle touch, and deep, DEEP groove. So good, why the heck has it been out of print for so long? And why did they only make the one album?
The occasional synth squiggles remind us of the JB's, like James Brown getting down on "Blow Your Head", but the real big influence here was probably Fela Kuti - and BTRB leader Oluko Imo (bass, kalimba, conga, flute, percussion, lead vocals, whew!) indeed did get to record with Fela later on in the '80s.
This first-time reissue includes a bonus track on the cd version, while the 180 gram vinyl comes with a bonus 7" single, and includes a download code for the entire album as well. Damn fine stuff, highly recommended. Using those terms "killer" and "groovy" with regard to this album is NOT in any way hyperbole.
Arguably the definitive blaxploitation horror film (though William Girdler's Abby from1974 is definitely a close second!), the soundtrack to William Crain's Blacula (1972) finally gets the reissue treatment.
Scored by Gene Page who arranged many hits for Barry White as well as being the pop genius behind Syd and Marty Kroft's Puff N'Stuff and The Banana Splits, you know this is gonna be all kinds of cheesy awesomeness! From the disco funk of the opening title "Blacula (The Stalkwalk)" to the pensive creepiness of the finale "Wakeeli (Swahili Farewell)", this is the sordid tale of an 18th century African Prince, cursed and held captive for centuries by Dracula, seeking his revenge on 1970's Los Angeles. Page has all the classic blaxploitation musical cues down: the lilting love theme, the frenetically groovy chase theme, spine-tingling harpsichords and noirish horns. With vocal help from his brother, Billy Page (who sings the sexy/sleazy "Main Chance" which for some reason reminds us of "Dracula The Rock Opera" from Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and The Hues Corporation, years before their hit "Rock The Boat", Blacula is a highly thrilling and amusingly nutty soundtrack, but what else would you possibly expect?
Pretty cool new disc from R&B star Mary J., who also boasts a cool new haircut in her cool new video.
Here's a vinyl reissue of the first album from Blo, a great seventies psych/funk band from Lagos, Nigeria. Chapter One originally was released in 1973, and as we've said before, it's on the "bong-ier" side of Blo's discography, as their earlier material like this was quite laidback, stoned, and super fuzzed out.
The trio of musicians in this group were previously part of the band Salt, formed by drummer Ginger Baker from Cream during his residency in Lagos in the early '70s. Striking out on their own as Blo, they effortlessly melded Afro-beat funk with trippy Western garage psych choogle. Afro-American influences, the likes of both Jimi and the JB's, are certainly heard here also. Wah wah fuzz guitars, sunny melodies, spaced out vocals, and rhythms from hand percussion, clanking chains and bells, all coexist here in blissful grooviness.
Gatefold sleeve, obi.
Here's a vinyl reissue of this Nigerian band's second album, as you may have guessed from the title, originally released in 1974. As we've said before, the first two albums from this Afro-funk outfit are on the "bong-ier" side of their discography, with more stoned '60s psych fuzz stuff going on - though we also like their later, more discofied direction too, as displayed on the also recently reissued & reviewed Step Three lp from just a year later. Phase II is maybe just beginning to cross over into that dance-boogie roller-rink worthy territory, but their idea of a groovy love song here is called "Whole Lot Of Shit"!
Afro-beat funk is melded with with trippy Western garage psych choogle. Wah wah fuzz guitars, sunny melodies, spaced out vocals, and rhythms from hand percussion all coexist here in blissful grooviness.
Funky afro-rock from this '70s Nigerian band. This compiles tracks from their four albums, and ranges from the mellow psychedelic rock (in a West Coast mode) of their early stuff to a much more dance-oriented, disco-inflected groove later on, that you could
Nigeria's Blo were one of the very first '70s Afro-funk-rock bands we ever encountered, some years ago when their now out of print Phases 1972-1982 compilation came out. And they're one of the best. Their early stuff, from their first two albums Chapter One (1973) and Phase II (1974), is generally more mellow psychedelic rock, sounding super stoned and fuzzed out. But then gradually the funk took over, their grooves got a lot more uptempo and energetic, and on their next couple records later in the '70s, Blo went disco! Which is really cool too. Step Three was of course their third album, from '75, and the tracks on it are definitely meant for getting sweaty, and up close and personal with the opposite sex, on the dancefloor (er, not to imply that same-sex couples wouldn't enjoy this too!). The little cartoon drawings found on this album's artwork, of a guy and a gal with big Afros and bellbottoms, doing a sexy dance, is basically the pictographic owner's instructions for what you're supposed to do with the music on this record. Also both cute and sexy is how the singer talks to a girl about the first time they made out, in the intro to the second song, "Rhythm Of Love".
And although this is infectiously disco-fied, it also rocks, the chicka-chicka funk guitars with a fuzz edge, and plenty of sizzling fat synth all over the place. The JB's had to be a big influence on 'em. Also, despite what we had assumed, NONE of these tracks appeared on that Phases 1972-1982 comp, which for some crazy reason skipped over this album entirely. So it's great to hear 'em now. It makes for quite the party platter to spin, recommended to fans of other recent Afro-funk-disco reissues by The Funkees, Marijata, Edzayawa, the Lijadu Sisters, etc...
Here we have the newest piece of hypnotized dream-hop, back alley drug murk, neuro-mantic soul collage from Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland, formerly (?) known as Hype Williams! And while the sound here is a little more "put together" than some of their previous works, its still filled to the brim with that fucked up what-the-fuck sonic cough syrup sound we have all grown to love! Still hazy as hell smoked out buzz and hiss, mixed with draggy beats and screwed up samples, droney and dark synth drifts, Inga's vocals dubbed out to the max, haunted and peaking in the red on those louder syllables. The songs here are a woozy sprawl, but all mostly under four minutes, making the whole thing really feel like an album "proper". The jams maybe a little more focused than before, and maybe a little more pop-tones in the vocals, but that otherworldly element in their music is anything if not more pronounced. It's just so nice to not be able to put your finger on something, and that is exactly what Hype Williams does for us here. Hype Williams' music is all about reference points on system crashing overload. A combination of sounds and textures resulting from many a late night/early morning YouTube wormhole, filtered through narcotic smoke machine fog, resulting in a sound that is totally confounding, but equally seductive.
Track 2 is a dark and sexy crawl through the moonlight, drum machine toms ping ponging from left to right, while a minimal synth outlines the progression. Honestly kind of reminding us of a gloomier, more damaged Enya (such a good thing!), but with Inga's voice being a little more breathy and spaced out. There are many hidden layers in such seemingly stark music. There is a lot of sonic space in the sounds at the forefront, but at about the 1:10 mark of track 2, a haunting little synth wash creeps in, WAY down in the mix, almost perfectly blending with the omnipresent tape hiss buzz. This sort of subtle sonic fuckery is a trade mark of Hype Williams, and Black Is Beautiful seems to exercise it to the point of perfection. Its understated psychedelic drifting, the sound lulling the listener into a sort of fugue state. Track 5 has very strange, euro-infomercial "world" vibes. A snappy little pop song buried in hiss, a gem that sounds like it would fit right in on one of those Sublime Frequency radio comps. Lo-fi dreamy, and catchy as hell. But it's tracks 9 & 10 that really have us reeling. The centerpiece to the album, and the longest songs here, we are treated to EVERYTHING that make Dean and Inga's sound so damn interesting. Track nine starts with a screwed up down-pitched voice (Dean?) talking about reaching the promised land with some homegrown, and then the phrase "Never Look Back" is repeated over and over and over again, kosmiche-y synth drones start to appear and build as the repetition of the phrase goes on and on. Really tranced out, stony subliminal message type of vibe. Than suddenly a song erupts! With Dean rapping the verse in his Houston via Hackney cough syrup drawl, and Inga singing an ear-wormy chorus. This is a pop song, albeit delivered through thick layers of opium smoke and TV glow haze. Hype Williams at their most accessible but still, WTF? Also AMAZING use of samples: "When white people tell other white people" etc. etc. LOL. Track 10 is a draggy slow jam, gothic sort of thing. An aphotic dub jam, slow and low with layers of synths gurgling and bubbling up. The beat just going forever while all sorts of disassociated noises creep in and out of frame, filled with feedback and tripped out dubwise vocal intonations. A jammy hypnotic drugged out creepy crawler of a tune! The rest of the record follows suit, an ecstatic tapestry of blurred vision, lo-fi yet space agey subliminal beats music!
Black Is Beautiful sees the duo growing musically without losing sight of their unique aesthetic. A sound track for the over-saturated information age. It seems like it has meaning and message, but whatever that is, is not plainly seen, instead buried under layers of obscure reference and abstract signifiers. And the music itself (our main concern, admittedly) is as fucked up and hypnotic as ever! So, fully recommended!
The first Doug Blunt release, Gentle Persuasion, we made record of the week almost a year ago and people went totally nuts for it. And it's really not hard to see why. Blunt's mellow brand of lo-fi outsider funk is both catchy and rather odd. Sounding like a smoother, Caribbean-inflected Wesley Willis, made with simple keyboard loops, congas and Blunt's own acidy guitar solos. It also had a off-kilter timelessness to it, where we couldn't tell if it was recently recorded or made decades ago.
Doug Blunt came in the store the other day with this new (?) release, Big Top, an ep composed of three songs and three instrumental versions. Complete with cheap color-copied covers of a screen shot from the one video performance we have seen on Vimeo of him performing,"Gentle Persuasion" with an all female backing band (it's totally worth seeking out if you can find it!). While these are new songs, the backing tracks sound almost exactly the same as the tracks on Gentle Persuasion, but with stranger lyrics mostly about being under the stoned spell of sexy freak show women. But the songs are still catchy and crazy as ever, and we may like these new ones even better!
As always it's hard to tell what the real story with Doug Blunt is. Though a super nice guy, sometimes we get the sneaking suspicion he's pulling one over on us. Every time he drops off more cds, he always leaves with a slightly mocking chuckle, as if to say, "those crazy fools". Indeed!
It's pretty phenomenal that this record went from getting the suspicious side-eye when we first took it in on consignment, to becoming one of our favorite "WTF?" records of the year! When it first appeared, no one seemed to know where it came from (it had been brought in by Blunt himself, one day). And we weren't too sold on the cover, a generic photograph that looked like it was shot in the eighties, of this fellow Blunt, standing with a woman (a close friend of his, in a head to toe orange outfit that looks like it could have been prison garb, and who as it turns out, may no longer be alive) in front of a Mercedes parked in front of the mural on the side of the O'Farrell Theater on Polk street in San Francisco. Also, whenever there's a bunch of "ASCAP" logos plastered all over the front and back cover, our internal "uh-oh" meter goes way off.
So it just sat on our new arrivals shelf for a few weeks. But then a couple of folks (one of whom runs the Gloriette label, who have supplied us with some Ariel Pink and Nite Jewel records) started asking about it, because they had heard about this record, so we gave it a listen and were pretty surprised and rather blown away by what we were hearing. A lo-fi but breezy outsider funk, made with repetitive cheap-sounding keyboards loops and tones (the kind being currently exploited by Dam-Funk, Ariel Pink, and James Pants), strange metallic tropical guitar tones that sound more like steel drums and flute sounds than actual guitar, and sly, laid-back vocals and catchy, infectiously naive grooves that work their way into our heads and never let go. Everybody here ended up really really digging it.
We sold one copy immediately to someone in the store when playing it, and then when we tried to contact Blunt to get more copies, we discovered that somehow we'd neglected to get his contact info, d'oh! The cd had no contact information, and searches online only revealed that the title track, a raunchy but coded come-on to a sexy stranger, was included on a James Pants mix. This only piqued our interest further, as Blunt's skewed Caribbean inflected songs would obviously be simpatico with James Pants' more recent tropical themed output. We could also see folks into Ariel Pink and Dam-Funk getting WAY into this. So we thought maybe this record was a rare private press record from the eighties. It does seem to have a strange hard-to-pin-down-time-wise quality.
Thankfully, Blunt eventually came back in and we got more copies and found out that he had pressed vinyl copies too. He also told us that this record was recorded ten years ago in 2000, but that didn't diminish our new found love for this record's questionable mystery, as it still predates all of the artists mentioned above that it reminds us of, though we're pretty sure Blunt probably has never heard of any of them. It also has the left of center oddness of other outsider funk artists like Tonetta, or Wicked Witch, albeit way more toned down than either of those two. Not that it's completely off the wall weird, but it's one of those records that we went into with such hesitation and were pleasantly surprised that we then became totally enamored with its home-brewed charm.
The lp is 5 tracks, with extra shorter versions of the songs "Fly Guy" and "Gentle Persuasion" and comes housed in an old school white cut-out 12" sleeve. The cd version has two extra songs and instrumental versions of four of the tracks. Oh, and the vinyl has a gold star sticker that boldly proclaims "HIT!" We couldn't agree more!
RECORD STORE DAY 2015!!
Here's one of this year's crop of Record Store Day releases we were most excited about, and thankfully managed to get a good number of - which was kind of amazing, since it is limited to just 350 copies!! So we have a bunch (for now) to review, which was also helped by the fact that, d'oh, we somehow forgot to include it on the list of RSD goodies we posted last weekend. Anyway, so glad to be able to list this now 'cause Doug is very special to us.
Faithful followers of the aQ list probably remember when we made Doug Hream Blunt's Gentle Persuasion cd and 12" a Record Of The Week a couple of years ago. A home-brewed breezy outsider funk masterpiece about woman's butts that was so catchy and infectious, likely recorded by Doug back in the eighties, but not widely released until around the year 2000 (we could never really get an official answer). We had no idea of the cult appeal of Doug Blunt's music when he one day dropped by and consigned the record, and apparently neither did he, or at least he never alluded to it or seemed to care much about it. But ever since we listed it, we have sold it quite regularly to many customers who seek us out specifically just to buy a copy, and seem quite surprised that we actually can get it. The cd version is out of print now, but we have and can still get more of the original 12".
Then, this Doug Hream Blunt release on David Byrne's Luaka Bop label was announced for Record Store Day this year, surprise, and it turns out Doug is on the brink of getting a full scale archival release of his music this summer (just like the label did for Tim Maia and William Onyeabor)!. Such great news for someone so super nice and low-key about himself, really we are super-psyched for him!. So with this special RSD 12" remixes of the song "Gentle Persuasion" by renowned remixers, British DJ duo Psychemagik and Hype Williams aka Dean Blunt (apparently Dean Blunt named himself after Doug), we sort of get a teaser of what makes Doug's music so cool. The choice of Psychmagik and Hype Williams as remixers are on point, because both are known for their less is more approach, taking out more than they put in and emphasizing and extending the money shots of the track. The Psychemagik "Move Your Butt" remix focuses on the groove, bumping up the bass and drums and reducing much of the main lyrics to just edited snippets like "Girl, Move Your Butt" in phased out psychedelic echoes while still including much of the steel drum keytar solo and female backing vocals of the original (see the original review for a sampling of the original track). The Hype Williams side "get choong and look at the sky" remix is much stranger, because if it is the same speed as the Psychmagik side, then this is the screwwwwwed version, totally slow and murked out, also editing the vocals completely out except for the female backing track and keytar solo in a strange dreamy "warts-and-all" twist. If it was meant to be faster, which it can be, than it is sort of a more stripped down version of the original. Hard to tell, because the release doesn't even mention who's doing the remixing, we had to go online to figure it out. But truth be told we prefer to hear it much more slooooowed down.
The 12", which is housed in a blank white single sleeve with only the Luaka Bop logo on the center label, does come with an elaborate album-sized gatefold "magazine", which is supposedly dead stock of an Italian sex mag from the nineties that has Doug's name written everywhere along with sexual fantasies and soft-core retro porn material reminiscent of Hustler's Forum, along with full color cardstock insert artwork. Weird. Not sure what that's all about, but it's quite (literally) cheeky!
But we also have a very special treat for our customers in that we got Doug himself to come in and SIGN every copy of this we had left (with the help of his young granddaughter Juanita who added cute hearts to Doug's name!). Sorry if you picked this up before it was signed, Doug didn't show up until the Monday after RSD! Needless to say this is very limited and likely all the copies we'll ever get, so do yourself a favor and move your butt on this!!!
We can't believe it's been five years since Doug Hream Blunt himself walked into our store and consigned his self-released recordings of home-brewed, proto-chillwave dance funk, recorded with washy and chirpy synths and genuinely out there guitar solos, with songs about dancing, fly guys and ladies' butts. Kind of a smoother Wesley Willis (ok, much smoother!) with Jimi Hendrix dreams, Blunt's genuinely infectious musical enthusiasm shined through on each track. We made Gentle Persuasion record of the week back in 2010, without knowing much about its backstory. Doug was very vague on details too, saying the recording was from 2000, but we believe that was when it was pressed, but not recorded. Having suffered a stroke a few years before, he couldn't go into great length about the recording at the time (he's doing much better now, as evidenced by our recent record signing event!), but we had an inkling that the recordings were known in certain crate-digger / DJ circles, which were immediately confirmed once we had it on our website and orders from all over the world started pouring in.
Seriously, we have sold tons of his release, and now lo and behold, Doug is finally having his well-deserved, big moment of larger recognition and discovery via David Byrne's Luaka Bop label, with this reissue of his complete recordings which include the two previously self-released discs we previously listed: Gentle Persuasion and Big Top, remastered and put together for the first time - these tracks have never sounded better! A lo-fi but breezy outsider funk, made with repetitive cheap-sounding keyboards loops and tones (the kind being currently exploited by Dam-Funk, Ariel Pink, and James Pants, all Doug Hream Blunt fans by the way), strange metallic tropical guitar tones that sound more like steel drums and flute sounds than actual guitar, and sly, laidback vocals and catchy, infectiously naive grooves that work their way into our heads and never let go. So delightful!!
And we finally get more of the story behind these recordings: Back in 1985, when Doug was 35, he decided he wanted to learn guitar and found an extended learning class called 'How To Form A Band' run by Victor Flaviani out of his garage. Victor taught Doug the guitar, even though Victor barely knew the instrument himself, and Doug set about writing and recording the songs with his other class mates. We remember seeing the video of Gentle Persuasion we found on Vimeo from a cable access TV video with Doug and what seemed to be an all-girl band, which turns out were his fellow classmates, which included Victor and his wife Angela too on drums and guitar respectively.
It's pretty phenomenal that this record went from getting the suspicious side-eye when we first took it in on consignment, five years ago, to becoming one of our favorite "WTF?" records ever. Not that it's so impossibly strange, but it's a genuine home-grown San Francisco DIY funk artifact with minimal ambitions that is finally being turned on to a larger audience, and we couldn't be happier for Doug! For fans of that Personal Space compilation of private press electronic soul, Dam-Funk, Ariel Pink or Dean Blunt, who apparently took the Blunt name in tribute to Doug!
Download code included with the vinyl btw. Also btw, if you missed the remix 12" that Luaka Bop put out as a teaser for this earlier this year for Record Store Day, we still have three or four signed copies of that left in stock...
Aestuarium, who put out the amazing Philip Cohran disc, now bring us some ultra-serious Fela-style jams. Dan Boadi had some huge hits in his native Ghana in the seventies, and came to New York in 1978 to record these two epic cuts of heavy, heavy afro-funk fused with disco danceability. Apparently, his music didn't resonate with Americans in the same way it did with Ghanaians, and though Boadi has continued to record in Ghana and Chicago, these mighty tracks faded into obscurity. Luckily, Aestuarium has ressurected them for us. Recommended for those with a tooth for raw, dirty disco and/or seventies afrobeat.
Great sweet flowing smooth vintage soul from the late 60's. The vocal harmonies on here are stunning. A total gem that we're sure The Numero Group wish they had gotten their hands on.
The more we think about it here at aQ, the more we can see the similarities between the regional funk and soul scenes of the late '60s/early '70s and the regional punk and hardcore scenes of the early '80s. Take, for example, what Kwame Steve Cobb -- the man propelling this fiery slab of ultra-rare '70s heavy, funky soul from behind the drum kit -- has to say about Boscoe: "Our intent was to play music that would inform and inspire our community, speak to the unspoken anger most folks felt at that time, and to confront those who chose to escape the realities in the clubs and bars we played." Don't even try to tell us that's not some serious Ian MacKaye level P-U-N-K right there!
Just like their skinny white comrades would do a decade later, Boscoe took the means of production into their own hands, set aside any aspirations for mainstream success, and DIYed the heck out of their one and only studio effort, this self-titled release now lovingly and painstakingly reissued via the Numero Group's Asterisk imprint, the cd in a mini-lp style gatefold sleeve. Perhaps due mostly to its obscurity, this record has been heralded as a kind of holy grail of the same late '60s South Side of Chicago that also included heavyweights like Philip Cohran, Sun Ra, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago; that association might be more than a bit misleading if you're hoping to find the kind of ensemble-based jazz improvisation that characterizes those other groups. However, what this record does share is the same social consciousness and community focus that made records like The Malcolm X Memorial (a record so nice we listed it twice... lists 262 and 281) not just essential musical documents, but also essential social and political documents.
Boscoe is chock full of social commentary (drugs, violence, racism, being poor and black in America) layered over dense funk grooves, snaking bass lines, and intricate horn arrangements, with both the ballads and the scorchers being marked by a similar burning intensity. While the mythology and hyperbole surrounding this long-in-the-making reissue might set some listeners up for disappointment, the fact remains that this record is more than thrilling enough to transcend the novelty of being a rediscovered, long-lost obscurity -- something that very few reissues of the "greatest album you've never heard"-type manage to do. Listen to it with open ears, hear it for what it is, and you'll find a record full of hits that could've been, had they only been toned down, tightened up and fed through the cookie-cutter press of the mainstream record industry. What makes this record worth serious consideration is that Boscoe chose to do exactly the opposite -- leaving behind a single document that is raw, unpolished, ambitious and exactly what the band wanted it to be.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here's a cool concept, particularily if you could see 'em in person: a live funk covers band does the work of a hiphop dj. That is, they play a groovy medley of classic funk/soul breaks all segued together in a very dancable mix. On noted DJ Peanut Butter
The first two volumes of "James Brown's Funky People" (collecting tracks recorded for Brown's early '70s People Records imprint by his revue's various sidemen and associates) have long been essential funk must-haves, and now we get a surprise third volume! These tracks have never before been released on CD, it says here. Featuring the likes of Bobby Bird, Hank Ballard, The Believers, Sweet Charles, Beau Dollar, Fred Wesley & The J.B.'s, Lyn Collins, Vicki Anderson, Marva Whitney, Dee Felice Trio, and A.A.B.B.
Ok, we didn't make this record of the week or anything, but it would be hard to argue that this package doesn't contain two of the best musically-impregnated plastic and aluminum discs reviewed in this week's list! Heck, the 19 minutes of "It's A Man's Man's
Can't go too wrong with early '70s JB funk, now can you? This compilation of unreleased (live and studio) tracks circa 1967-1973 was first issued in 1988, now it's been reissued with 2 bonus cuts. Though these 13 tracks didn't make it to wax back in the day, that's only 'cause the Godfather was so prolific, and like it says in the liner notes: "he sometimes released forgettable recordings and forgot releasable tracks". Tracks here include a live "There It Is" from the Apollo, 1972, a nine-minute extended version of "People Get Up And Drive Your Funky Soul" from the 1973 soundtrack to Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, also the full-length version of single-only cut "I Got Ants In My Pants (And I Want To Dance"), and a couple instrumentals, one untitled, certainly funky but with uncertain personnel, and eight others. James Brown fans may recognize vamps and lyrics used elsewhere in the JB canon, as Brown was often re-recording, re-using, re-arranging, re-forging the funk, so that a 1956 composition, radically altered, could become a 1974 hit, that sort of thing. For instance, the bonus track "You've Changed" (1969) uses the words to "What Do I Have To Do To Prove My Love To You" as previously sung by Brown diva Marva Whitney. This collection IS definitely a motherlode (stress on the word mother) of unearthed funk. Get down and check it out.
Okay, in case the "Live at the Apollo Volume II" deluxe 2cd set that we listed in AQL #118 wasn't enough for you, here's a special anniversary edition of this previously unreleased 1968 James Brown concert extravaganza (which means it came out in 1998, but we
2006 ended on a sad note for music lovers everywhere as the Godfather of Soul passed away, but in true JB style he picked one of the highest profile days of the year (Xmas morning) to make his grand exit. It was a pretty fitting way to go out, as his whole life was about exclamation points, fierce grunts, dynamite dance moves, hard earned sweat and full throttle expression. Since his passing we have been digging in our record collections pulling out all his recordings and listening in awe to what the amazing legacy he left behind. There is no doubt that he was one of the greatest songwriters and performers of the last century!
With that in mind we wanted to highlight a record of his that maybe not everyone was familiar with but we think shows the range and undeniable power of his presence. Reissued a few years back, Soul On Top was recorded in Hollywood in 1969 with the Louie Bellson Orchestra conducted by Oliver Nelson. And wow, what a standout performance... Brown belts it out with a conviction that shows his long running love of jazz jammed right up next to the soul and funk spirit he helped cultivate. Soul On Top is so over the top in all the right ways! Huge drums and horns creating such a big sound that JB then slams right out of the field with his voice, sounding as strong as ever, radiating in its prime. Almost like some magical version of James Brown doing a Vegas show but not as a bloated lesser version of himself as most Vegas performances tend to be but at the very peak of his performing prowess. This has some of the best howls and screams ever to come out of that man's mouth for sure, and it also shows the great range and versatility he had as we works his way with some big band and pop standards, a totally smoking version of Hank Williams "Your Cheatin' Heart", as well as reworking some of his own classics. While it's unlike most everything else he did, we think Soul On Top is one of his most shining and captivating achievements!
This could be the funkiest five dollars you ever spent. Payback came out in 1973 as a double album, making the most of those four sides of wax, its eight tracks for the most part consisting of sprawling, seemingly endless grooves that run for like 7, 8, 10, even 12+ minutes. There's a couple gorgeous soulful slow jams ("Doing The Best I Can", "Forever Suffering"); the rest are hard-hitting, extended, mesmeric funk workouts. All crammed full of oohs and unghs and squeals from James Brown, as he preaches it, rasping and rapping about real-world subjects like jobs, poverty, hunger, and inequality. And, of course, "Payback"! Also "Mind Power". What it is, and what it is. He gets immediate support, whenever he asks for it, from the funky horns of Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker and the rest. He's got a call-and-response thing going too with a bevy of sweet soul sister backup singers. Not to mention the always crucial drumbeats of John "Jabo" Starks. It's a groovy tour de force, 73 minutes of pure funk with the Godfather in charge. Payback was originally conceived as the soundtrack to the Blaxploitation film Hell Up In Harlem, but was rejected (!) believe it or not. Released on its own, it was a big success, and it's now a classic in the JB canon.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Now reissued on vinyl...
Eponymous debut and only ever release from this soul jazz outfit circa 1970, reissued now probably primarily because of the unmistakable presence of avant-jazz electric guitar legend Sonny Sharrock on six of the album's seven tracks. Definitely for Sharrock fans who've got a taste for some groove and soul (this ain't Last Exit!). Sharrock's spidery skronk sneaks out betwixt the sunshiney day horns and positive vibe vocals on this freely funky platter. But if the name Sonny Sharrock doesn't mean anything to you and you'd like to rectify that, we'd recommend checking out his 1991 classic Ask The Ages (sadly out of print at the moment), or perhaps his 1966 debut on Pharaoh Sanders' Tauhid album.
AfroStrut continues to mine the depths of Nigerian music history to demonstrate that all that came out of Lagos was not just Fela. Keyboardist Segun Bucknor, who had been included on the 'Nigeria 70' compilation, gets the spotlight with an entire disc of
The follow up to their great debut from a couple years back does not disappoint AT ALL. More solid and lively instrumental funk informed by all the great sounds: Afrobeat, Ethiopiques and down home soul. Great to hear modern day players with such a fine ear for cranking out classic jams that capture the raw and impassioned spirit of vintage funk, and exciting that those modern funk folks still know how to find a groove and make it shine. Very inviting sounds and further proof that Daptone has their fingers on the pulse of riveting soul and funk done right.
Daptone's The Budos Band has always been pretty fantastic, kicking out the killer instrumental '70s style Afro-Soul-Funk jams, super tight and groovy and quite authentic-sounding (even though they're from, like, modern-day NYC). We've dug all three of the ensemble's previous albums, but Burnt Offering (pointedly not titled Budos Band IV, even though it follows II and III) might be their best one yet. First, it's got some cool artwork of a Gandalf-lookin' wizard on the cover, a total stoner/psych image that looks like it should be on a Sleep album (or the side of a van). That art might clue you in that The Budos Band has been goin' through some changes... well, what's happened is that they've seriously heavied up their sound, the guitar parts are fuzzier and riffier, supposedly inspired by '70s heavy psych and proto-metal, like Black Sabbath and Pentagram!! They're still quite funky, though, so it's not a total extreme metamorphosis into doom metal or anything. We had kind of figured that meant this would sound like '70s Zambian garage-fuzzsters the Ngozi Family or Witch, but no, not exactly, 'cause what with their big horn section, they still sound like, well, themselves, but just with an additional edge of fuzzy, gritty guitar. Along with the hard-hitting rhythms, and spirited, darkly soulful brass, it's pretty darn cool. Think Fela Kuti gone super heavy psych, with a dark Ethiopiques vibe. Also, this new Budos Band sound reminds us of that awesome Italian 'library music' reissue by Blue Phantom, just a bit. Oh, and we halfway wonder if this transformation wasn't perhaps inspired by the success of Swedish Afro-fuzz voodoo psych sensations Goat?? Certainly Goat fans ought to dig this, too!! Super recommended.
Digipack cd, or gatefold vinyl w/ download.
There's never a question as to if a Budos Band release will sound good or not, they are one of THEE tightest and most masterful players of Afro-soul-funk around. And while their first two outings were totally great records, they have stepped up their game big time for number three. It's one thing to be talented musicians, it's another to create songs that have a really strong mood and presence, and that's exactly what Budos Band have done on III. It's a bit darker, wider in scope and just straight up ON FIRE! They've figured out how to take their inspiration from the music of Fela Kuti, James Brown, Sun Ra, Funkadelic, as well as hints of psychedelia from Turkey, Latin America and Africa, and bring it all together in such an infectious and surprisingly original sound. If you ever get a chance to see them live, go for it, cuz they always kill, and this new album is our favorite from them yet!
The Budos Band is another outfit spawned by Bushwick, Brooklyn's Daptone Records label, some sort of collective of fake ethno funkateers responsible for such undeniably groovy projects as The Daktaris and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. These guys LIVE and breathe authentic '60s greasy groove, so you know their take on "Afro-soul" is gonna cross all the i's and dot all the t's... not that it sounds nearly that uptight. Not uptight at all, but definitely tight! This large 11 piece band, plus guests, featuring members of the Dap-Kings, Antibalas and the Sugarman 3 among others, is the stuff of grass-skirted Lalo Schifrin dreams -- dynamic and colorful instrumentals with a loungey '60s/'70s feel. Lotsa horns, percussion, electric guitar and bass with groovy organ (and even some funky flute) make this something that people who like the more jazz/funk entries in the Ethiopiques series, or aforementioned Afro-pop revivalists Antibalas, should consider checkin' out.
The seven piece Bullfrog hail from Montreal and recently swept thru our town, bestowing just a few cds upon us. This is a 5-song 3" cd (their 2nd 3" cd). Not just a Kid Koala project at all, this band is really finding their sound and running with it, and Koala's turntables are just one part of the delightful equation. They play tone-perfect seventies sweet soul / Parliament-style
Bullfrog hail from Montreal and have bestowed two little 3"cds upon AQ over the past year. And now here's their full length -- which contains tracks from the two 3" cds but also lots of new stuff never before heard.
Not just a Kid Koala project at all, this band is really finding their sound and running with it, and Koala's turntables are just one part of the delightful equation. They play tone-perfect seventies sweet soul / Parliament-style funk (think "Can You Get to That" from Maggot Brain), complete with falsetto vocals and chiming bwang.bwang.bwang guitar. They also do a Sunday morning style of hip hop that's heavy on the SoCal-esque flowing vocals and wah guitar. Fans of Ozomatli, Jurassic 5, Antibalas -- this music is right up your alley. It's so good!
This late '70s, all-time disco classic and longtime crate diggers' obsession has been pretty impossible to find for years and years. Luckily it's finally been reissued on wax and what a great thing too, cuz this is one unique and outrageously fun record.
Bumblebee Unlimited were a studio project conceived by legendary producers Gregory Carmichael (Phreek, Inner Life) and Patrick Adams (Musiq, Universal Robot Band, as well as producing countless classics, check out the Master Of The Masterpiece records that compile so many of the amazing songs he helped create). With Bumblebee Unlimited they made this awesome high energy bee-minded record highlighted by the infectious nearly nine minute lead off track "I Got A Big Bee". With sped up vocals, the song in any other hands would have just been a novelty, but with the gorgeous arrangements and rich grooves, it still remains a total dance floor classic. This record has so many of dance music's greatest hands all over it, besides Adams and Carmichael, it was also recorded at the legendary Blank Studios with Bob Blank controlling the board.
Sting Like A Bee is all uptempo disco burners with those sped up vocals giving it a dizzying edge and moments on the record also foreshadow the sounds of the House scene that would blow up a few years later. Kind of like if the Jackson Five in the mid '70s got high on amyl nitrate and let all their inhibitions run free and wild. A must have for disco lovers!
How many Tortoise drummers does it take to make a totally great breakbeat album? Nah this isn't the set up to some dumb post-rock joke, the answer is three. Dan Bitney, John Herndon and John McEntire in fact. These three use their percussive chops to make a killer record that showcases some awesome breaks from all over the map: funk, African, Brazilian, Latin music and more. Makes perfect sense too that this would be on Stones Throw and not Thrill Jockey... as a bunch of these are the kinds of breaks most of the groups on the Stones Throw roster would be drooling over and sampling left and right if they found 'em on some obscure piece of wax. In fact, we're quite excited to see if there will be plans for some sort of remix record where different folks like Madlib, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Four Tet take these breaks and make 'em into actual tracks. While we wouldn't want to hear just any three drummers these 23 short tracks get right to the point and bump so delicious.
Folk/soul legend returns with this new album. The line-up includes Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone.
