GHOST FUNK ORCHESTRA Vinilo y CD

Review: Karma Chief takes strict instructions from Ghost Funk Orchestra here to 'Walk Like A Motherfucker'. It is a single taken originally from their 2019 album A Song For Paul which was written, arranged, and performed by Seth Applebaum with plenty of sidemen on cello, violin, trombone and trumpet all making it a fulsome and raw funk sound. The vocals are coated in sleazy reverb to add some menace to the sensuality of the tones and on the flip is 'Issac Hayes', another reverb heavy funk chaser.

Review: Ghost Funk Orchestra are a mystery. Plain and simple. Dirty, soulful production, verbed and fuzzed out guitars, mysterious vocals that feel like a lost score to a Quentin Tarantino film. Here Karma Chief do thorough justice to this elusive troupe's efforts, bringing together two excellent psych-funk encounters, 'Walk Like A Motherfucker' and 'Isaac Hayes'. The A is an incredible take on, well, "ghost funk", evoking a kind of Creedence-via-Khruangbin wash, in which we can only vaguely register the lyrics as a kind of subliminal, unconscious message (they really are that drowned in echo). The B is even more dreamlike, blurring various boundaries between hallmarks of 60s exploitation film music, modern dream pop and what can only be described as math funk.

Review: Seth Applebaum's NTC outfit Ghost Walk Orchestra originally released 'Brownout' on the Night Walker tape in 2016, distilling their hazy, psych-leaning funk sound into a perfect two-minute groove that shows off the band at their best. Now Karma Chief have pulled the track out of cassette obscurity and given it a pressing as a 7", backed up by 'Boneyard Baile' released the same year as a digi-only drop. If you love a moody funk jam played with finesse by a crack team, this record is a must.

Review: Colemine labelmates Ben Pirani and Ghost Funk Orchestra once again disprove lockdown's creative juice-sapping reputation with a remote collaborative single, 'Modern Scene / Can't Get Out Your Own Way', two intense new soul tunes that while pressed to 45" wax, were born from the file-sharing era. Exchanging remixes of existing material, both tracks are touted as remixes without the originals being known to us: 'Modern Scene' is a VHS-hissy lo-fi indie drawl through avant-garde synth orchestration and a dreamcore visual palette, while the B upends this dream-mood with one of the most shoegazed-up funk bangers we've heard to date.