Back catalogue: Funk

Review: Two powerful soul sessions from Alice Clark's eponymous debut 1972 album. "Don't You Care" is a hard-hitting soul standard (that became very popular in acid jazz scene in the early 90s) where Alice opens her heart for all to see while her incredible band ebb and flow with Clark's emotions. "Never Did I Stop Loving You", meanwhile, languishes in sentiment at a slightly lower tempo that allows her to really dig deep for those low notes. The real fun happens as we reach momentum towards the end and every band member brings out their A-game and bounces off each other - backing up Alice every step of the way. You will care about this.

Review: Detroit musician and producer Dave Hamilton hears two fantastic early emissions of his reissued via BGP. Known originally as a guitarist and an early member of the Motown house band, Hamilton's influence on music, especially the later Northern soul firestorm in the UK, is perhaps understated. His guitar contributions to the likes of Marvin Gaye's 'Stubborn Kind Of Fellow' and John Lee Hooker's 'Boom Boom' are indeed cherished additions to the Michigan funk and r&b canon, but perhaps it's his later outings as Dave Hamilton and the Peppers - and later founding of the labels Demoristic and TCB - that house the real trinkets. 'The Deacons' and 'Pisces Place' both came out via the TCB label, and brought vibraphonic blues and astrologic easy listens respectively to wax.

Review: Defiant, spruce and intractable, Hodges James Smith & Crawford's 'Nobody' marks this brilliant new funk reissue with a caustic grip-quip after at the slippery satins of love: "nobody's gonna tell me that you don't love me, baby. They just don't know that you're an angel..." Walking a universal tightrope of ambivalence - this is a situation that we'd wager everyone of one stripe or another is familiar with - this record could function either as a tell of blind infatuation with a ne'er-do-well, or a real statement of loving intention for a misunderstood penitent. 'It Cracks Me Up' backs up the B with an ensouled, ensemble-armoured musing on "girls with shiny faces" and "superdudes", resolving on a tonic note of equal sexual charge. The West Coast vocal group outdid themselves back in 1971, so much that original copies of this fetch unholily exorbitant prices; high time for a repress!

Review: Freddie Love was a blind singer from Baton Rouge in the United States. He recorded two incredible 45s for Eddie Shuler's ANLA label and his debut release featured the dynamic two-sided track 'Crazy Girl'. It is a heart-swelling soul sound with slow but funk drums and bass riffs under a brilliantly expressive vocal heavily influenced by James Brown. On the B-side is Part 2 which has more guitar action laced in. This has long been a sought-after record and it is now receiving its first-ever vinyl reissue which will bring renewed attention to Love's powerful sound.

Review: First released back in 1973, Flying Dutchman aver their grand standing on the parapet that is the New York jazz scene with a timely new reissue of Leon Thomas' 'Just In Time To See The Sun', which now appears with a different B-side counterpart. Shaker-uppers, these sonic sailers are! Where As 'Just In Time...' itself first surfaced as the B-side to a stirring album cut 'Never Let Me Go' - which also graced the pimpin' Tennessee blues-jazz musician's later record Full Circle - it now comes paired with the pentatonic skiffle 'China Doll'. FD's new curative duopoly on Thomas' bellowing sound flaunts the singer and musician's deep range, contrasting the styptic funk explosions of the titular Santana cover on the A with the shaker-laden Orientalist groove on the B.

Review: Funkadelic superstar George Clinton knew many a side project as a producer; one was the ingenious, part-cyborg duo, The Brides Of Funkenstein. It was Clinton's idea that two other backing singers, Lynn Mabry and Dawn Silva, become the Brides Of Funkenstein, a character he invented for the 1976 Parliament LP, The Clones Of Dr Funkenstein. So popular were the brides that Clinton wasted no time in signing them to Atlantic Records; their debut album here followed the rip-roaring fan feedback that ensued from their debut single 'Disco To Go' / 'When You're Gone' in the US. The decision to break the male-fronted P-funk mould was intentional: simply *that many* Clinton instrumentals could not be credited to the man alone. "He's got thousands of tracks. He's got a whole cupboard full of them. He's got enough tracks to keep him in albums for two years," once chimed Mabry. Enchanting each jam with mecha-augmented femme flair, we're urged to be taken to the limit, across a blistering seven, smackout tracks. Mark 'Warship Touchante', the star tune by far: a wonky hi-NRG nutter, splattered with surreal, performative electronic vocal effects.

Review: Parliament-Funkadelic offshoot project Brides Of Funkenstein was masterminded by George Clinton but fronted by Lynn Mabry and Dawn Silva, whom originally served as the two core backing singers for Sly & The Family Stone. Funk Or Walk was their cyber-augmented opening statement as a duo, combining archly histrionic vocals with truncated funk struttage, and crossing into wonky hi-NRG at points. The record’s wonky and experimental bent epitomises the P-funk sound whose name Clinton helped coin, and which is finessed in the myriad usages of ARP String and Hohner Clavinet, best heard on the light-handed claps of ‘Birdie’ or the polyvalent brass-off ‘Amorous’. The weird brides of Parliament did go on to record two further great records, but this is by far their chef-d'oeuvre.