LACK OF AFRO: Remixes & Rarities (2012)

It was the sampler last month, this time round it’s the full twenty-seven track odyssey that is Lack Of Afro’s Remixes & Rarities LP. What is there that can possibly be said that hasn’t been said already? Well…quite a lot really since there’s another twenty-two tracks on here that weren’t on the sampler. As with its harbinger, anyone into funk-related beats should be kept happy whether it’s jazz-funk, latin-funk, hip-hop, breakbeat instros, disco (or all of the above) that rub your rhubarb. Also, it bears repeating that, far from the shitsack of ‘contractual obligations’ filler normally signified by a title such as this album possesses, quality runs throughout and to keep that up for nearly two hours worth of material is some achievement.

Of course a number of tracks still stand out even so. Obviously the highlights from the sampler are on here – such rarities as the Herbal T-featuring On My Way, the drums of death-featuring Daddy Brings His A Game and the remix of the Hot 8 Brass Band’s It’s Real and obviously they were picked for the sampler because they were highlights – but a particular mention in dispatches has to go a few others too. There’s the muscular remix of Ray Camacho’s Si Si Puede which mutates the original’s boogaloo into dirty latin funk for example, hip-hop instro Step Up If You Want To Get Heard and LOA’s funk rework of Mr Confuse’s Lookout Weekend. Oh and of course superb funky breaks cut Numero Seenko which was once a B-side. A B-side! Honestly. Full LP preview on the juno player below and that Ray Camacho remix in rather better quality below that…
(Out 30 April on Freestyle Records)