Tru Thoughts Funk: Review

Genre spanning Brighton label Tru Thoughts has enjoyed a fantastic eleven years, putting on some of the area's most essential club nights, hosting a killer radio show and of course, putting out records. But whilst a great deal of their roster have left in recent years, signing for American labels like Ninjatune or the larger British label, Warp- Tru Thoughts have kept going, building a formidable catalogue of releases and artists. This is clearly demonstrated on this Tru Thoughts Funk, which pulls in 18 tracks from the label's funk-inflicted artists. There's always a danger of record label retrospective compilations being both self-congratulatory and an irrelevance. Anyone who owns the albums from which these tracks are pulled will find little they couldn't knock up with a playlist, save an out-of-print recording and the almost mandatory 'two original tracks'. But the partisan audience isn't this record's preferred audience; it's raison d'etre instead is to educate the uninformed listener on all that crazy funk thats been happening in Brighton for the past decade. And in this light, Tru Thoughts Funk gives a very decent account.



Production is impeccable (and you'd suspect, digital) throughout. As an aside, it may be that the genre constantly references an age when music was digested on vinyl, I do feel that the polished sound of contemporary recordings does the musicianship a disservice. This is especially evident on some of the record's instrumental pieces- where the urgency of the groove is lost under the weight of 'clean' digital sound aesthetics. Perhaps I just miss the vinyl hiss. But such moments are rare. Opening with the 70s-inspired strumming of the Quantic Soul Orchestra before giving the platform to brightly-voiced soul diva Alice Russel- guesting with The Bamboos, the record shirks instrumental jams between lyrical numbers. Kyle Auldist's 'It's On' is frank, sun-drenched and everso horny. It's one of the best songs on the comp, delivered with insistence and guile. The backing band playing like they mean it, everyone smiles. In moments like this, it's impossible not to start moving, or smiling with them. Tru Thoughts Funk is a hugely enjoyable start-to-finish listen, perfect DJ fodder and a fine testament to the continued success of this Brighton record label.