Trends come and go, particularly during the 90s, but the mavericks and reprobates at Acid Jazz refused to let dopey tags like ‘speed garage’ blur their impassioned vision of music as an emotional force which made you dance or, in some cases, cleaved the cerebral melon with wigged-out barrier-busting. The label’s output, often beset by financial obstacles, was invariably funky and unusually cool, reflecting the disparate sides of London’s clubbing underground away from big room trance and short-lived fad-pits. Whereas London Street Soul, the first volume of the label’s 21st birthday celebrations, focused on more song-based releases, its beautifully-constructed follow-up goes after hours and a little bit crazy, easing in with the spaced-brass funk of UNKLE’s mix of the Emperor’s New Clothes’ ‘Leaders And Believers‘, before familiar names like Snowboy, Mother Earth and James Taylor Quartet acquit themselves accordingly. However, it’s the oddities and rarities, like Leftfield remixing socio-stoners the Sandals, Underdog and Brendan Lynch at play or honcho Ed Piller’s mindblowing Introspective Funk Collective, both on its own or turning THR33 Black Bros’s ‘Missing’ into a whiplash funk-up, which make this essential for anyone interested in London’s vanished clubbing underground.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs