No original labels or release dates grace this package of two dozen Philadelphia funk rarities, presumably from the late ’60s (and possibly very early ’70s) by the sound of things. Nor will any of the artists ring any bells of recognition, even with the vast majority of specialist soul/funk collectors. Nor do the paragraph-long liner notes offer any clues about who these cats were, and whether all of this stuff was even officially released at the time. In a way, though, that’s cool, making you feel almost as though you’re an archeologist digging up unidentified objects from a civilization that, while certainly not lost, isn’t exactly well documented. For all its relative anonymity, however, the quality of the music is pretty good. Many of the cuts bear a specifically Philly regional spin on the funk sound: horn sections that sound as if they’ve sneaked off the football field to get into something hipper, peppy and upbeat rhythms, and a certain sweetness to the melodies and arrangements that set them apart from the more gutbucket variety of funk being ground out by James Brown and his imitators. There might not be anything here as hit-worthy as the chart singles by Booker T. & the MG’s, but neither is it as faceless as so many rarity compilations are. And plenty of idiosyncratic touches bubble upward to catch your attention, like the elephant roar in Philly Four’s “Elephant Part 2″; the oddly echoed horns of Willis Wooten Ork’s “Do the Train”; the deft blend of brass and wah-wah guitar in RDM Band’s “Butter That Popcorn”; the exceptionally tight party funk of Brass Rail’s “Penguin, Pt. 2″; and the almost doleful cast of the Interpretations’ funk ballad “Lineman.” The 25th and final track, “Bonus Funky Philly Virtue Acetate Beats,” strings together snatches of cuts that (at a logical guess) come from acetates produced at Philadelphia’s Virtue Studio, and might not have been used in full due to their deteriorated sound quality. – Richie Unterberger
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