weeep

A track by Cymande that you haven't heard a million times before

The whole point of this blog is to write about new stuff that I buy. Hopefully it will share some new music with other fans of soul and funk, and it also means I actually have to listen to stuff I buy before it gets slotted into the record shelves. But of course, rules are there to be broken, or at the very least bent a bit. So for this post I'm going to cover an LP I've had for years, but had never listened to properly.

I guess we all have those "That's f**king brilliant! But what is it?" moments when in a record shop, and the  shop assistant plays something totally blinding that you've never heard before and you simply HAVE TO OWN IT. Of course you never just come out and say that. Instead, you wait until the next track has started, and nonchalantly sidle up to the counter and say 'what was that last tune?' as casually as possible, while in reality your pulse is racing and panic is setting in with the thought that this might in fact be the only copy of said tune ever made, and that bloke on the left looking through the racks of 'Pop goes Brass' albums has already decided to buy it - even though you, as a true music lover, deserve to own it more than him.

Anyway, if you are anything like me, 9 times out of 10 it turns out you already own it and either a) have totally forgotten where you put it or b) listened to the first 10 seconds the first time you got it home and decided instantly that it was sh*t.

I had one of the b) moments last week. The LP in question turned out to be 'The best of Cymande'. Now Cymande are one of those groups that you have to own music by if you profess to love funk music. It's one of those universal unwritten laws, like 2nd hand bookshops having at least one copy of 'The Moon's a balloon' by David Niven, or every record shop having a pristine copy of Stevie Wonder's 'The secret life of plants' that nobody wants to buy, ever, because it's rubbish.

Cymande are also one of those bands which produced a dollop of music of sheer genius, and quite a lot of music that's really not that great. (for other examples of bands like this, see Mandrill, Brass Construction and T-Connection, amongst many, many others). So you end up just playing tracks like 'The Message', 'Dove' and 'Bra' and forgetting the rest.

What made be go back to this LP was hearing what turned out to be 'Getting it back'. It's a brooding, urgent tune, with discordant strings and horns at the start giving it a bit of a scary vibe. As with most Cymande tracks, it's got a great rhythm with congas and drums in unison. What makes it special are the vocals, which aren't done in harmony like many of the better known tunes. Even though it's a bloke, it really sounds like Nina Simone - quite gritty and tough. Choon!

I also 'rediscovered' the track 'Genevieve', which was covered by Greyboy in a bit more of a hip-hop stylee a year or so ago (weirdly enough, it's the tune that is currently playing on his website. Spooky).

Anyhow, enough waffle. If you already own this album and like me have only really listened to the good bits, dig it out and give it another chance. If you don't own any Cymande, then you are a bad person and need to get some immediately.

Right-click here to listen to Getting It Back by Cymande

Call the cops...

This was a nice little score for a couple of quid last week - an early 90's reissue of this little funk gem by F.B.I., also known as Funky Bands Incorporated.

This LP was originally put out by this UK funk collective in 1976 and as happened another great UK outfit, Oneness of JuJu, they quickly dissapeared without any real commercial success. I doubt that this sold many copies when reissued either, as it's got a pretty shitty cover - is that a photo of Charles Bronson?

It must have been tough being a UK band trying to play funk when so much of the stuff (and usually much better too) was coming over from the  US. There are definite shades of early Earth Wind & Fire, as well as the 'big' sound of groups like Brass Construction and B.T. Express. What I like about it is the rawness - it could easily be a live set in a dark and sweaty nightclub.

It was reissued again recently by Soul Brother Records, this time with the original artwork and probably a better pressing - this 1991 version is a bit ropey. For me the best track is the opening tune, F.B.I., but there's a decent mix of different vibes for different tastes.

Maybe not essential, but keep an eye out.

Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse

This isn't the sort of title you'd normally associate with a funk album. But in fact, this is an amazing LP from what was obviously a very strange man, Eugene McDaniels (or 'The Left Rev. Mc D', as he calls himslef on the sleeve).

Eugene (or plain old Gene McDaniels, as he was better known as) had a pretty middling career in the early sixties as an R&B artist with a couple of hits. After this brief burst of fame he bacame a producer and writer, scoring probably his biggest hit with 'Feels like makin' love', which was recorded by Roberta Flack.

But none of that history matters when you listen to this. It's a crazy, dischordant mess that somehow does more than just stick together - this is a sublime LP that mixes blues, jazz, soul and funk effortlessly. It's also an album with a very strong social message, brimming with a sense of confusion and injustice of Black America. It's actually not a million miles away from Marvin Gaye's masterpiece What's Going On, which was also released in 1971. I'd say that McDaniels' work feels a lot more contemporary and raw.

It's also a great album for beat junkies - some of the tracks are like playing spot the sample. Just try and listen to the opening track, Jagger the Dagger, without thinking of A Tribe Called Quest.

This is an album of crazy genius, made by a man who obviously needed to vent his frustrations the only way he knew how. It's a classic that should certainly be part of any collection.

sweet sweet funk from Hot Chocolate

Aaaah, the world of a rare funk collector - paying obscene money for truly obscure records, then finding that the LP has been reissued at a budget price. I'd feel sorry for them if it wasn't so funny.

In the case of this self-titled LP from Hot Chocolate it's the nice people at Soul Brother Records who have done the reissuing. And just to avoid any confusion, this isn't the UK band of the same name featuring a lead singer that closely ressembles a malteser, and who was once voted the world's sexiest man.

This is a reissue of a stupidly rare LP from 1971, of which less than 500 copies were ever made. I bet that means that Keb Darge has a box full of them. Anyway, it's been around in reissue form for a few years now, but you should still be able to pick up a copy for a tenner or so.

True to many of the rare funk tracks  you'll hear, it's got a gritty, homemade feel. But where it differs from many others is the quality of the material - songs are well written, instrumentals are well balanced and very tight, even on the obligatory sooooooul ballad.

If you are looking for a bona fide floor filling funk monster I don't think this is the right LP. The closest it gets is What you want to do, an uptempo instrumental, not a million miles from something The Meters would do, but maybe with more congas (that's a good thing, by the way - can never have too many congas).

This is certainly a great LP for funk and soul fans. While it might not be a dancefloor killer, few funk groups have ever put out a whole LP of material that sounds as sweet and smooth as this.

The Baddest Hubbard

This is worth buying for one track. Red Clay. It's god-damned genius. I haven't done this much jazz-style head nodding since I first heard the first Headhunters album.

The track kicks off with some general free-jazz style noise lead by Hubbard on the trumpet. But it soon settles down with an awesome drums-bass-and-keyboard riff (thanks to the genius of Herbie Hancock who plays on this track) that's the perfect foundation for the rest of this 12 minute-plus tune.

If you want more detail then check out the entry on Allmusic.com , which is full of long words and musical terms, which must mean that it's properly good in an academic sense. ("Henderson even takes his solo outside a bit without ever moving out of the rhythmnatist's pocket." WTF??)

This is one of those tunes that I'll keep playing and playing. Forget the rest of the album, this is the only 12 minutes of Hubbard you need.

Right-click here to listen to Red Clay by Freddie Hubbard (9769.4K)

Brass Fever by Brass Fever

This isn't the sort of album I'd normally look at twice, but it's all part of my ongoing effort to channel people like Giles Peterson and DJ Shadow, who can get excited by some miniscule bell noise lasting 2 seconds in the middle of a boxed-set of Mariachi band music.

With that in mind, I checked out this LP after being told it had one decent tune on it, Djingi. Brass Fever was released in 1975 on ABC records, one of only 2 albums this 'group' put out. And as the title might indicate, there's a hell of a lot of brass going on - I counted 5 trombonists listed on the sleeve - too many? To someone, 5 trombonists must have sounded like a good idea. Anyway, It's got a pretty good line-up on there too - John Handy and Lee Ritenour make appearaces, alongside a couple of other respected players.

To be honest, with the exception of Djingi I would normally give this a miss. It's the LP the Crusaders would make if they were stuck in a lift with Kenny G - lots of noodling solos and overcomplicated arrangements. But Djingi is a great tune. It's got a real summer vibe, using the brass section as punctuation for the other soloists, giving the track plenty of room to breathe. It does the usual trick of running through a queue of different soloists inbetween a chorus riff, but it never gets too cheesy. I'd whack this onto a mixtape next to Kool & The Gang's Summer Madness, or maybe Joy and Pain by Maze.

If you see it around, grab it - but I wouldn't go out of my way.