[Soul Jazz Records Presents] Space Funk 2: Afro Futurist Electro Funk In Space 1976-84

More disco influence than funk. Only stand out tracks Mack Simmons - Skin Tight & Junei - Let's RideCorrect Track Listing For Volume 2Alien Starr– Music-A-Lizer 3:38Chance – Master Groove (Instrumental) 6:05Bobby Deemo – More Ounce Rap 5:26Mack Simmons– Skin Tight 3:24Maggotron– Computer Pop 5:58Tribe– Vulcan Voyage 4:01Command Performance – Breakdance 4:12Junei– Let's Ride 4:08The Graingers– Shine Your Light 5:31Mid City Crew– Get Right 3:00Chapter Three– Smurf Trek 8:04X-Ray Vision– Video Control 8:28Rich Cason And The Galactic Orchestra– Year 2001 Boogie 5:48Frank James And Shadow– Summer Time 4:01

Most of the tracks here are rare, expensive and have not been compiled before. Ernest Flippin II / Ssinc - Supersonic Space Lady, The Sonarphonic* - Super Breaker and Santiago* - Bionic Funk are probably the rarest of the included titles and the combined value of the fifteen original 7” or 12” releases would set you back in excess of $2500 if you can find them in 2022, even though the compilation also includes dollar bin material, like Funk Machine (2) - Funk Machine and stuff that a few years you couldn’t give away for free, such as Robotron 4's “Electro-?” which, like the Funk You! releases on Metrovynil I often saw on walls and hanging from ceilings as record store decoration in Germany back in the 90s, rather than in collections or on turntables.I appreciate that this music gets a second airing (and for younger listeners possibly a first…). The packaging design by Adrian Self is great and will ensure that people will attention to the release if they come across it in years to come.Unfortunately, I somehow struggle to warm up to the whole thing and think Stuart Baker missed a trick in presenting this as anything but a random track selection. Simply picking 78 minutes of music and claiming that it is “Afro Futurist Electro Funk In Space 1976 - 1984“ doesn’t make a cohesively packaged compilation.For me the track selection is too eclectic, ranging from jam-bank Funk of the Funk Machine, and P-Funk of Plunky Nkabinde's Juju (9) & The Space Rangers - Plastic and P-Funk influenced Disco-Funk like Solaris (30) - Space Invaders, early disco rap like Ernest Flippin II / Ssinc - Supersonic Space Lady to vocoder Funk of Rodney Stepp - Break-Out and Egyptian Lover - affiliated, 808-driven Electro of Jamie Jupitor - Computer Power.Personally, I think there is a lack of quality with tracks like L E O - Fee Fi Fo Fum and Copperfield (2) - Make It Good To Me Baby which are rare but not really good. The Sonarphonic* Featuring Margarita Thompson - Super Breaker isn’t particularly good either, but a bit of historic info about it’s relevance for the Miami Bass scene would have helped to put it into context. Without liner notes how will listeners establish the connection from Sonarphonic via James McCauley to Osé - Computer Funk? Where is the commentary on a compilation that has the sub title “Afro Futurist Electro Funk” about these two tracks being by a white guy who under monickers like Maggotron and DXJ (amongst many others) and on labels such as Debonaire Records, Jamarc Records, Bound Sound Records and Pandisc would help to define a whole genre.Where is the background story to explain why the Robotron 4 track was only ever released in Germany?Apart from a few lines of stupid hype-text on the inside (!) of the packaging, the opportunity to make this a relevant compilation was missed by Mr. Baker and the Soul Jazz team.

I really disliked this compilation for a number of reasons.- Firstly I have bought Soul Jazz cds for about 20 years now and they always had excellent accompanying literature and information about the bands and music featured. This collection has no information about the music and bands on the cd whatsoever apart from an almost impossible to see copyright listing behind the casing. Where is the fat accompanying book Soul Jazz?- Who are these bands, from which country do they come, what impact did they make on the music from 1976-84.- Also Amazon list this as a 4.5 out of 5 review from 19 reviewers. But when you press to see all the reviews only 3 come up and 2 of those are below 3 out of 5. Where are the rest Amazon.- So to the music. I have to say it is pretty average at best. It is neither funk of The Meters and Funkadelic/Parliament nor electro of say Kraftwerk or early Hip hop and rap. Some tracks have a kind of early computer bleep in the background and rudimentary sci fi effects.- At best it sounds like these tracks were downloaded off You Tube and remastered and polished in the studio!A Not satisfied customer!

I bought this for one song “Bionic Funk”!

Hi both buyers that have give this cd a bad revieuw dont know what they are talking about..just stay in your corner with soul jazz and dont give bad revieuws about music you will never get..If icould find more compilations if would be treasures in the rest of the middle. Great Buy !

Ah, where do I start? How do I find the words to describe how thoroughly awful this compilation is? Well, let's just say ... it's bad. Annoyingly bad.Normally, I enjoy the compilations that the Soul Jazz label puts out. They tend to find some very obscure music that is well worth a listen. Not so in this case. It's described in Amazon's review as "Afro Futurist Electro Funk" which sounds intriguing, but unfortunately that's where anything interesting or innovative ends.Basically, if you enjoy listening to repetitive beats and strange sound affects, and perhaps have an affinity for early 1980s video games, maybe you'll find this collection to your liking. But if you are a fun of truly well-played funk and memorable tunes, you can skip this one without any worries. The only song I even remotely enjoyed was the the self-titled track by Funk Machine. The rest of it is very forgettable. And don't expect any booklet or essays or liner notes either. Maybe that's because this weak music didn't warrant the effort.