Funk

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!