- DāM-FunK sounds more self-assured and chilled-out than ever on this cooler-than-cool instrumental LP.
- Appearances count just as much as the vibrations—sometimes more. It gets lost that funk is a genre that reflects all the shades of the human experience: struggle, setbacks, perseverance and overcoming. The music can be ambient, groove-centered, gauche, post-punk, languid balladry or boogie street-jazz with churchy vocals. It encompasses Herbie Hancock's electro fusion, Patrice Rushen's sophisticated in-your-feelings post-disco and Kaidi Tatham's Rhodes-driven Afrobeat. Funk is forever real, never a trendy fad, with a shelf-life longer than the '70s. As George Clinton once told me back in the early '90s, "Funk is just the blues sped up."
DāM-FunK is the progenitor, point man and ambassador for the modern funk and boogie movement, with his own distinct interpretation, attitude and philosophies on life. Over the past 15 years he's given agency and support to next-gen producers who look like him and me, making them feel like their opinion and ideas on life—from Leimert Park to Chicago to Oakland to Montreal to Compton, South Africa, Brooklyn, Berlin, Brixton, San Francisco and DC—are all unique and valid.
And, if nothing else, DāM-FunK is unique. He's as much a prog head as he is a funk connoisseur. Put together some Prefab Sprout, Roger Troutman, Gary Wright with some Sa-Ra and Computer Jay, and you're getting close. These are airy textures no one else is mixing up in the same way. DāM-FunK has been laying clues to these disparate tastes over the past couple years with the Private Life series on Music From Memory and the Architecture EP trilogy on his own Glydezone imprint, and now all those influences come together, full-on tropospheric and woozy, on Above The Fray, the first DāM-FunK album in six years.
The funk spirit—or as he calls it, "G-code"—is working at its apex now. This ten-song collection expands the bandwidth of textures using an-all instrumental approach. First single and title track "Above The Fray," with its odd time signature and earworm bassline, all played live—he doesn't sample—recalls his salad days, back when he made raw sketches. (Or, in his words, those "innocent times when I used to make homemade CDs and tapes of my own music.")
There's a clean-break feel, a liberation of sorts, in "Begin Again." Here he takes a house music template (like the Architecture EPs) and stretches it into something light, gliding on the wind, with its modal arrangement and purposeful acoustic piano, adding distinct shades beneath the pastel synths. And just after the eternal sunset of "Allies," where it all goes awash in a deluge of synths, "City Beach Groove" rolls up and posts that familiar chilled-out clinking drum pattern. It's a snapshot of tranquility with an almost humble rolling rhythm.
But Above The Fray is not all about kicking your feet up. "2071" packs a wallop of a groove, with a trademark beefy bassline that anybody else would kill to come up with. Moments like these help you understand why Todd Rundgren hired DāM-FunK to open for him and even join his touring band back in 2015. "Levitate From It All," a ten-plus minute workout with cowbell, includes some of his most intense and inspired keyboard soloing to date.
Anyone who's seen DāM-FunK DJ already knows how he becomes so enraptured and consumed that he literally sings over top of the already recorded vocals, an authentic moment that lays bare his deep love of this music. Above The Fray might be the closest he's come on record to encompassing the wide variety of genres, as well as the vibe, he conjures up in person. Minimal techno, odd-duck AOR, proto-house and danceable prog notions have always been part of his repertoire.
I usually instruct DāM-FunK newbies to go back to "Galactic Fun," with its infinite boost and all-around positivity. It's been an outlier in his catalog—until now. Raw and soulful, it's a simplicity that makes us believe he's entered another chamber, conjuring up freehand sketches, allowing the undefined to re-enter the picture again.
Tracklist01. UHF
02. Above The Fray
03. Begin Again
04. Evolution
05. Allies
06. City Beach Groove
07. 2071
08. Get There
09. Levitate From It All
10. I Mean Well