V/A: Psych-Funk 101 (2LP) [WPFC]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket with liner notes for every song. It's a passport-stamping tour of the global psych-funk boom, with Mulatu Astatke, Omar Khorshid and Wadih Essafi among the names.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket
• Liner notes for every song

About the album

Psychedelic funk didn't stay home in America for long. Wah pedals, fuzz boxes and heavy drum breaks travelled the world in the late 60s and early 70s, and local musicians bent them to their own scales and rhythms. Psych-Funk 101 arrived in 2009 on the World Psychedelic Funk Classics label as a crash course in the whole movement, subtitled A Global Psychedelic Funk Curriculum.

Side A sets the pace with Hüsnü Özkartal's orchestra in Istanbul, a 45 from Lagos band Kukumbas and "Alemiye," a 1974 Addis Ababa single with Mulatu Astatke and singers Belaynesh Wubante and Assegedetch Asfaw, before a 1969 Seoul cut from an LP made with guitarist Shin Jung Hyun and The Men. From there, Athens group Petalouda, Iran's Mehr Pooya, Italy's Armando Sciascia, Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid, Lebanese singer Wadih Essafi, Turkey's Metin H. Alatli, Germany's Staff Carpenborg and The Electric Corona, George Garanian with The Melodiya Jazz Ensemble and France's Eskaton all take a turn. Several tracks come from scarce singles, one of them loaned by Cut Chemist.

Tracking down the original records would take years and several passports. This takes one trip to Queen Street, and the course has no exams.

Also at Kops: more Psych-Funk 101 on vinyl · browse World

Tracklist

Listen

On World Psychedelic Funk Classics (cat# WPFC 101), the 2009 compilation.