Jonny Trunk & Joel Martin Present - Bollywood Funk Experience (Nascente - 2010)

You've got two parts in this compilation. The first part is a bit disapointing: the tracks selected are undoubtely Bollywood but there is not much funk in it. It's not that it is bad, it's just that I don't know much about this musical form and it sounds more like Indian restaurant muzak to my profane ears. Things start to get serious with the 9th track, a surf/funk piece fused by a wah-wah guitar called Pyar Chahiye Keh Paisa and due to Charanjit Singh. Then comes 4 tracks by Indian funk master RD Burman, an artist often compiled in the Western World: the instrumental Unknown Incidental Music,  the minimalit Dance Music, all tablas and saxophone, another track called Dance Music as well, clearly influenced by Italian soundtracks of the time, and Music, a song that cannot hide its psyche rock influences. Laxmikant Pyarelal spent some time listening Morricone sountracks as well before composing his own Theme Music. Anuradha Paudwal is the more original, mixing Bollywood voices with a dub rythm and electronica for Mainne Kaun Koi Kya Jane. If you must possess this compilation for only one reason, then it will be for Salma Agha minimalist space disco, Come Closer, a song that is so good and so catchy with its killing bassline and its psyche sitar licks that you listen to it again and again. If only all Bollywood were that good...

Download => Bollywood Funk

Those Shocking, Shaking Days - Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock And Funk : 1970 - 1978 (Now Again - 2010)

If you are fed up with my previous Mods posts, you'll find today rarest and more unusual sounds. Egon's one and onely Now Again Records label, explores this time the Indonesian psyche scene of the 70's. American, West European and African scenes have been largely explored, compiled and reedited but the Asian artists stay relatively ignored. Egon associated his digging forces with Jason "Moss" Connoy and Benny Soebardja to release this 20 titles anthology. Those Shocking Shaking Days is your only chance to ear Rollies funkd Bad News, Shark Move's Evil War, already sampled by Madlib, Super Kid slow psyche funk People, a mix between The Temptations produced by Norman Whitfield and Roy Ayers, or The Gang Of Harry Roesli fabulous break at the beginning of Don't Talk About Freedom. All this makes me think to the Tropicalia movement that was happening in Brazil at the same time. In both countries you find artists that were trying to break traditional musical molds and using Western music forms like a breath of fresh air in a harsch political context charaterized by a dictatorship. Like always with Now Again, the reedition work is splendid. You can find a nicely illustrated book accompanying CD with pictures of all the records covers and complete notes on each songs.

Download => Those Shocking Shaking Days

The Mark Four - The Creation (EVA Records - 1992)

If you like my Decca post a couple of weeks ago, then you'll appreciate this german pressing compilation of the sides recorded by The Mark Four/The Creation between 1964 and 1967. The Mark Four switched their name for The Creation in 1966 and had already changed two of their original line-up members (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_%28band%29). When Alan McGee decided to create his label in 1983, Creation records, he borrowed the name of his favorite band, The Creation. This is probably one of the biggest legacy of The Creation, a band that is still vowed by garage aficionados. When you here the raw energy of the tracks of this nice little compilation, you easily understand why.

Download => The Mark Four - The Creation