[rating: 3]
I have a love/ hate relationship with this single from new Scots funk label Starla. I love the A side and I hate the B side. The instrumental A side – Don’t Doubt Me combines a snappy organic breakbeat with some of the most Ray Manzarek/ Doors-like keyboard playing I think I’ve ever heard on a funk track. Adding in a dash of wah-wah guitar it also shows admirable restraint by not overdoing the piccolo – Bamboos take note. Plus you gotta give mad props for the tartan label on the record. Then there’s Open My Eyes. Drawing from a much later era of funk it features a disco beat, the admittedly excellent falsetto vocals of Starla Records’ co-founder Marco Rea and a soaring chorus. It doesn’t so much tip its hat at the most insidious kind of ‘acid jazz’ as climb into it’s nasty corduroy flares whilst donning a black polo shirt and leather blazer. Evil. Very evil!