French trio HornDogz sniff out the trail between hip-hop and funk on their debut LP #Wooof: Your Daily Canine Zine and have their tummies figuratively rubbed by a whole host of guests in the processs including three to bark about in particular – namely Ty, Amp Fiddler and Fred Wesley (!). As if that wasn’t enough they even had their current name bestowed upon them by Parliament/ Funkadelic’s bass player on a 2010 tour when they were good enough doggies to fill the breach left by an absent horn section at the last minute. ‘Horndogz’ certainly has more of a ring to it than ‘Greements De Fortune’ anyway. Imagine the looks you’d get shouting that out loud at the local park…
#Wooof delivers nearly an hour’s worth of scooby snacks that scamper from the smooth and soulful efforts like Movin On (feat. Ty, Breis and Peeda) and beatless sweet soul ballad Take My Heart (feat. Jee Williams) to something that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Red Hot Chili Peppers LP – like Mother’s Milk. In fact, isn’t that a sample of Anthony Kiedis I can hear on I Know (feat Blitz. The Ambassador)? In between are jazz-hop homages to Paris (Paris feat. Mike Larry & Jude Kidsude) and mellow, spacey p-funk tripouts (the Amp Fiddler and Sadiq Bey featuring All About You). Keep your ears peeled in particular for ultra sultry latin horn groove La Trompeta O Yo and two respectable covers: Rocksteady (feat. Breis & Mary Griffin), and Bibi & Tanga going at it on Move On Up. Also of note of course are Fred Wesley-esque jams People and In My DNA featuring, er, Fred Wesley – along with Juan Jozoff on the latter. Horndogz then: not to be sniffed at.
(Out now on Uptone Records)