Various – Space Funk (Afro Futurist Electro Funk In Space 1976-84)

Most of the tracks here are rare, expensive and have not been compiled before. Ernest Flippin II / Sound Surgeon's I.N.C. - Supersonic Space Lady, The Sonarphonics - Super Breaker and Neftali Santiago - Bionic Funk are probably the rarest of the included titles and the combined value of the fifteen original 7” or 12” releases would set you back in excess of $2500 if you can find them in 2022, even though the compilation also includes dollar bin material, like Funk Machine (2) - Funk Machine and stuff that a few years you couldn’t give away for free, such as Robotron 4's “Electro-?” which, like the Funk You! releases on Metrovynil I often saw on walls and hanging from ceilings as record store decoration in Germany back in the 90s, rather than in collections or on turntables.

I appreciate that this music gets a second airing (and for younger listeners possibly a first…). The packaging design by Adrian Self is great and will ensure that people will pay attention to the release if they come across it in years to come.

Unfortunately, I somehow struggle to warm up to the whole thing Simply picking 78 minutes of music and claiming that it is “Afro Futurist Electro Funk In Space 1976 - 1984“ doesn’t make a cohesively packaged compilation. Especially by not including any liner notes Stuart Baker missed a trick in presenting this as anything but a random selection. For me the range of tracks is too eclectic, ranging from jam-bank Funk of the Funk Machine, and P-Funk of Plunky Nkabinde's Juju (9) & The Space Rangers - Plastic and P-Funk influenced Disco-Funk like Solaris (30) - Space Invaders, early disco rap like Ernest Flippin II / Sound Surgeon's I.N.C. - Supersonic Space Lady to vocoder Funk of Rodney Stepp - Break-Out and Egyptian Lover - affiliated, 808-driven Electro of Jamie Jupitor - Computer Power.
Personally, I think there is a lack of quality with tracks like L E O - Fee Fi Fo Fum and Copperfield (2) - Make It Good To Me Baby which are rare but not really good. The Sonarphonics Featuring Margarita Thompson - Super Breaker isn’t particularly good either, but a bit of historic info about it’s relevance for the Miami Bass scene would have helped to put it into context. Without liner notes how will listeners establish the connection from Sonarphonic via James McCauley to Osé - Computer Funk? Where is the commentary on a compilation that has the sub title “Afro Futurist Electro Funk” about these two tracks being by a white guy who under monickers like Maggotron and DXJ (amongst many others) and on labels such as Debonaire Records, Jamarc Records, Bound Sound Records and Pandisc would help to define a whole genre.
Where is the background story to explain why the Robotron 4 track was only ever released in Germany?
Apart from a few lines of stupid hype-text on the inside (!) of the packaging, the opportunity to make this a relevant compilation was missed by Mr. Baker and the Soul Jazz team.