Freestyle 4 Funk 3 finds Timewarp doing a ‘bestsellers-from-the-catalogue-in-the-past-two-years-job’ although at thirty-one tracks you might be forgiven for thinking they’re re-releasing their entire catalogue from the last two years. If so you’d be wrong. Timewarp are no strangers to the compilation odyssey – the Greek label’s Quincy Jointz-selected Lime Sorbet IV drop in March weighed in at a fairly hefty seventeen tracks though this puts that somewhat in the shade – why it contains practically as many tracks as there are Greek islands! Or something.
Incidentally, strictly speaking, only twenty-one of the cuts on this are previous best sellers – the balance is made up on ten fresh and unreleased nuggets. Half the release takes in nu-funk, electro blues and downtempo – and the other half consists of nu-disco. Of particular note are Trotter‘s chilled Funky Jazzy Lesson, the narcotic eastern promise of Drumspyder‘s broken beat sitar-romp rerub of AfroQBen’s Dream The Impossible and the blacktop heat of Pour Soul’s electro ‘electric’ blues Driving Force. Topping all of these though is Niles Phillips‘ ridiculously funky electro blues take on Worldstylers’ Gimme One More – which is pretty much essential.
(Out 23 June on digital and special edition CDR formats on Timewarp Records)