Category: News

In 2000, deep funk anthologies were of the shoddy, bootleg variety. Then came the first fully licensed album of its kind – The Funky 16 Corners anthology, released on Stones Throw Records in 2001 – and, for the funk heroes and heroines that had recorded in the wake of James Brown in the 60s and 70s, everything changed. It’s not too much of a reach to say that companies like Numero Group, Jazzman Records, Light In The Attic – and their marvellous reissues from the past decade – might not have been had it not been for The Funky 16 Corners’ success. In 2003, two years after The Funky 16 Corners’ release, Egon revisited the deal that sent him on the chase for licensing agreements in the first place: a box set of 7” singles. The result was Soul 7 – a 7” box set of seven seven inch singles from the 60s and 70s, as Egon wrote in his original liner notes, “a companion piece to The Funky 16 Corners… a chance to stretch out, and dig a lil’ deeper into the backgrounds and musical legacies of some of the pieces that define the genre that Keb Darge dubbed deep funk.”

Download: Various – Soul 7.

The New World Generation’s (NWG’s) self-titled anthology is a collection of rare and unreleased soul, disco and boogie by a cult New England ensemble. You’ll hear echoes of the Roy Ayers produced RAMP sessions and the precise yet sensual vibes of the foundation known as Earth, Wind and Fire in NWG’s music. The majority of work on this anthology is previously unreleased: NWG bandleader Lekan Parsons spent years collating the various components of the first phase of his recording career – which stretched from New York to Boston over the course of a decade – but when he did send the music, we were thrilled. The songs he’d recorded with the Universal Rhythms and Orison ensembles were harbingers of the sophisticated soul he’d proffer with NWG: winsome, hopeful songs – and their existence offered us the chance to present this album.

Download: New World Generation – New World Generation.