Lightin’ Records, early 70s

Listen: “All Praises To Allah.”

So, it’s officially cool for guys that were into funk (exclusively, mind you) to obsess over modal jazz. I vaguely recall the days when most funk collectors looked at those who collected modal jazz as they’d regard the poor sap caricatured as the lame, tweed-wearing “jazz guy” in Jerry Maguire who professed his love for In A Slient Way. Well, that is, besides the likes of Gerald Short, who always stood one step ahead of his peers and recently released an excellent comp of the stuff. It’s hard for the most hard-headed funk-nerd to scoff at Salah Ragab’s “Neveen,” so thanks G.

I knew something was up, then, when I got an early morning call from my English friend telling me about a heated auction that was about to end on eBay. At stake, “All Praises To Allah” by the Lightmen Plus One. “Isn’t that on one of the albums?” I inquired, before thumbing through my shelves in disbelief. No, indeed this song only ever saw release as a poorly-disributed 45 on Bubbha Thomas’s Lightin’ Label. Luckily, I’d found a couple copies back on my first trips through Texas, so I threw it on the turntable and was blown away.

What had I been thinking, when, after I first found this 45, I convinced myself I liked The Kashmere Stage Band’s funk cover (on their Zero Point LP) better? This track rocks! So here I stand, another one of those ex-funk snobs who now intersperses the likes of this song in his DJ sets. Well, at least I had the foresight to buy these records when no one else would pay five dollars for ’em. There’s some justice in that? Surely?

Buy the “Fallen Angels” CD and digital album here.

NA 5034 – 12″ Single. NA 5041 – CD and digital album.

The third Heliocentrics 12″ from their album Out There, “Sirius B,” featured the band’s “Sirius B” remix with Cannibal Ox’s Vast-Aire and was paired with an instrumental and a new direction for the band: the dark, psychedelic “Vibrations Of The Fallen Angels.”

These three songs were paired with songs from the band’s previous two, vinyl-only EPs and are now sold digitally and as a CD under the name “Fallen Angels.”

Listen: “Las Cuatras Culturas (Edit)”

Ok. I’ll just step out there and say it: funk just doesn’t get better than James Brown. Or those who can competently imitate him (see: Carleen and The Groovers) or cover his funkiest songs. Hence, we’re now talking about Mexico’s finest funk group, who have the silliest name, the Rabbits and Carrots.

Phillipe Lehman, of Desco, Soul Fire, and “The Best Funk Collection In The World” fame, played me this album the same day that he played me The Universoul’s “New Generation” and Brother Williams “Cold Sweat.” Every track on the album hit hard, but the stand out, at least at that time, was their obvious rip off of “Give It Up Turn It Loose” which they renamed “Las Cuatras Culturas.”

Some years later, when I finally found the record in Japan for sale northward of six hundred bucks, the track had held up to my mind’s recollection. And the band’s dirge-like cover of “Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet” convinced me that I’d found the pinnacle of Mexican psychedelic-funk.

That is, until I found out about the band’s four song 7″ EP that contained a killer version of JB’s “Sex Machine” alongside the heaviest cover of Charles Wright’s “Express Yourself.” You can find those on Vampisouls official reissue of the R and C’s album (CD only!) and you can find this edit of “Las Cuatras Culturas” on the James Brown cover compilation Get Back! Save yourself the time and money – these Musart pressings never show up, and when they do, they’re just too hammered to spend any real money on.