Album features 4Hero tracks, as covered by other artists.

"Ghettos Of The Mind" is a poetry album which loop diggers often look for.

The duo 4hero originally covered this version of John Coltrane's "Naima", track A2, on the various artists compilation album "The Good Good" originally released on their own label "2000 Black" in 2000.

Very soulful jazz piece, as many versions of this track tend to be, so worth owning for this alone. The Visitors were essentially Earl and Carl Grubbs, as 4hero mention in their credit 'Based on the Grubb Brothers 1971 version'.

I am not wholly sure this was deliberate in any way, but perhaps this duo of independent psy-trance artists Benji Vaughan and Joe Williams, in naming themselves simply as "Vaughan Williams", had a certain famous English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams when they decided to name themselves. Who knows?

The "Vaughan" half of this duo, Benji Vaughan, is more likely to be collaborating with yet another "Williams", as he's a frequent collaborator with Sean Williams.

In 1971, America was in the throes of cultural revolution at home and military conflict abroad. While stationed in Germany, some soldiers hailing from all corners of America battled it out in an army stage-band competition. Runners-up East Of Underground best captured the spirit of a turbulent America with their sweet-soul covers of the Impressions, Sly And The Family Stone, Funkadelic, and the Undisputed Truth.

The sound encapsulated on their ultra-rare army promotional LP was not that of powerless soldiers trapped in a quagmire, but instead, one of hope. This sense of hope is best reflected in song choice and the songwriting genius of America's greatest soul composers, from Curtis Mayfield to Motown's Norman Whitfield.

Unlike other obscure funk reissues and compilations, "East Of Underground" is immediately familiar, instantly gratifying, and endlessly playable. And especially poignant today. With covers of "People Get Ready", "I Want To Take You Higher", and "Smiling Faces Sometimes", the album's charm and sincerity evokes profound nostalgia and insight into a time when music reflected life.

East of Underground's musicianship shines throughout this record. The falsetto harmonies, gritty guitar, and all-encompassing drums are a testament to the group's talent and the caliber of this superior album. With only a handful of original copies known to exist, "East Of Underground" is now reissued for the first time ever by Wax Poetics Records as their debut release. Comes available on digipak CD or hand-numbered 180 gram vinyl, in a limited-edition run of 2000. The LP is not shrink-wrapped, but comes in a sealed sleeve.

The Police song "Wrapped Around Your Finger", taken from their 1983 album "Synchronicity", contains the line 'you consider me the young apprentice, caught between the Scylla and Charybdis'. What or who were "Scylla and Charybdis" you may ask?

Well interestingly there are two answers to this.
The first is Scylla and Charybdis are two sea monsters of Greek mythology who were situated on opposite sides of the Strait Of Messina between Sicily and Italy. They were located in close enough proximity to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; so in avoiding Charybdis meant one would be passing too closely to Scylla and vice versa. A bit of a progenitor of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place" you might say.

The second meaning attributed from the Greek mythology is in the naming of many ships in the British Royal Navy. There have been to date, five named Scylla, and six named Charybdis.
There is a sad story in connection with the fifth Charybdis. A cruiser launched in 1940 which was sunk in the English Channel by German torpedo boats T23 and T27 in 1943 just off the north coast of Brittany, causing the largest Channel loss of the war with 30 officers and 432 ratings. 21 Royal Marine and Royal Navy men were washed up on the shores of Guernsey, where they were given a burial with full military honours by the German occupying forces. The islanders showed their loyalty for Britain and opposition to the Nazi occupiers by 5000 showing up en masse to the funerals and laying 900 wreaths. This was effective in demonstrating the anti-Nazi feeling enough, so the German occupiers subsequently banned the public from attending the funerals of the other 29 sailers whose bodies washed up later.
Every year a commemoration service is held, which is attended by local naval veterans, Sea Cadets and representatives of the Royal Navy. The wreck of the ship was located in 1993 under 83m of water.

Another interesting fact relating to Scylla and Charybdis, is a metalcore band called "Trivium" also referenced them in the title of their track "Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis" on their 2008 album "Shogun".

There are three releases all with slightly differing versions of this track under different names, making four versions altogether. All of them take their sample from Aretha Franklin's gospel track "Mary Don't You Weep", written by Inez Andrews, and taken from her album "Amazing Grace".

Out of all of them, in my opinion, this release has the best version. Mainly because Joe Claussell has introduced an organ into the track, which as it gets stronger towards the end with the vocal mixing between it, adds quite a soulful edge the other versions don't have. Also the length of the track, whilst reasonably long at 9:35, seems to be about right without getting too boring and repetative, again, mainly because the track grows in interest as it goes along.

It's certainly funny how these releases came along at nearly the same time with very similar versions on them.

Don't know if anyone has ever noticed this, but Róisín Murphy has recently during September/October 2007 covered --or perhaps that should be re-used-- a most excellent Tracy Weber track called "Sure Shot" from 1981, under Róisín's track titled "Let Me Know".

Same groove, just re-instrumentalised and re-vocaled by Róisín Murphy. Just type "Roisin Murphy Steals" into YouTube for an example.

Sounds good in both versions in my opinion, so you can't loose either way.

Don't know if anyone has ever noticed, but Tracy Weber's most excellent track "Sure Shot" has been covered or should that be re-used by Róisín Murphy recently during September/October 2007 under her track titled "Let Me Know" released on Echo/EMI Records (UK).

Same groove, just re-instrumentalised and re-vocaled by Róisín. Just type "Roisin Murphy Steals" into YouTube for an example.

Sounds good in both versions in my opinion, so you can't loose either way.

Seems funny that Joshua Milan and Kevin Hedge, the two main members of the renowned house music production group Blaze, appeared as recording engineers on this hip-hop artist's record...

On further investigation via good old Google, it seems that the New Jersey boys were learning the art of recording, producing and engineering to a professional standard near the start of their career and remixed/produced for hip-hip/R'n'B artist Babyface as well during this time. Even though they had, of course, already recorded a couple of classics before this time with the tracks "If You Should Need A Friend" and "Whatcha Gonna Do".

This as we now know certainly gave them good stead in their future recording life, as one look at their discography reveals just how many further productions kept rolling-out of their studios year on year.