Karl Hector + The Malcouns—Sahara Swing

Record label Now-Again has emerged as a funk aficionado’s dream, time and time again. As a side label to the forward thinking hip-hop label Stones Throw, it’s been the outlet for the upper management’s collection of obscure funk 7-inches, preserving rare soul gems from the dustbin of obscurity. With such sophisticated and honed tastes, it’s no surprise that when they discover a new artist, it’s like entering a time machine. Karl Hector’s full length debut merges the backbeat and horn ensembles of the rawest funk, with the poly-rhythmic complexity and found sound of Pan-African ethnomusicology. If you remember Mulatu Astatke’s Ethiopian jazz featured prominently in Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, then consider this your new tonic. With contributions from Poets Of Rhythm’s Jay Whitefield and his European soul brethren, this instrumental jazz-funk owes as much to the progressive exploratory vision of Funkadelic and Sun Ra as it does to the pure smoking grooves of Africa’s most dynamite soul ensemble.