Westbound Beats

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The American funk explosion of the '60s and '70s—for which we must always thank James Brown and his band the JBs—is such a fertile, fascinating, and groove-laden sound that it's no wonder it continues to be a font of inspiration today. From hundreds of reissue-based hip-hop and R&B songs to the dozens of new artists working within that framework for labels like Colemine and Daptone, there seems to always be new ground to discover within these rhythms.

Detroit-based label Westbound, founded by Armen Boladian in 1968, is best known today for its many exceptional records by Parliament-Funkadelic, though they also released three albums and multiple singles by the Dayton-bred Ohio Players. Both Funkadelic and the Players were more influenced by the expansive, Jimi Hendrix-side of funk. And both were definitely not afraid to get weird. Ohio Players mixed extreme studio artistry and nearly orchestral layers of jazzy studio artistry with BDSM-themed album art. They were truly one of a kind; it's impossible to calculate how many children were sired while their records played in the background. 

To celebrate the relaunch of Westbound Records, the tracks here have all been released as five special, limited edition 7" records. Naturally, the powers that be called on New Jersey's 1980s hip-hop pioneer Mark James AKA the 45 King, whose song "The 900 Number" has been sampled almost as much as classic James Brown joints. Producer of Queen Latifah's debut album and hit tracks everyone knows—from Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life (The Ghetto Anthem)" to Eminem's "Stan"—King's concise skills are applied here to the Ohio Players catalog in one of the more unique reissue/remix efforts in recent memory. 

Elements of classics from their three Westbound albums Pleasure, Pain, and Ecstasy (plus solo jams by the band's onetime vocalist and keyboard player Junie Morrison) are chopped and diced and recombined expertly by the 45 King. With the exception of "Armen," these new compositions are all instrumental, and they really are entirely new works. 

It makes perfect sense to approach the Players' Westbound-era sounds this way. Because while a slow dance classic like "Varee is Love" is propelled by gorgeous harmonizing, one is far more apt to remember the horns on the Curtis/Isaac-meets-the-Meters vamp "Pain" than its stuttery vocals. Some of the O.P.'s best songs from this era, like "Walt's First Trip" and "Climax," are basically instrumental to begin with. These players weren't just players in the sense of sexual conquest, they were players.

It's super that the 45 King was granted such unprecedented access to the label's archive of recently rescued master tapes. The results don't always equal the brilliance of the originals, but these breakbeat-driven tracks are propulsive and evocative enough to force little movies onto the listener's brain. © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz