The Soul Surfers

“Soul Surf” b/w “Tornado”

Funk Night Records

scum stats: who knows?

Two weeks ago, if you’d have told me there was a deep funk scene in Russia, I’d have laughed my ass off.

But much in the same way that Japan has churned out amazing interpolations of “authentic” Sixties garage and Seventies punk, it appears that instrumental funk has some main line into Mother Russia and the results are impressive.

(as of right now, the only other band I can find as a part of this “scene” is the Misha Panfilov Sound Combo who are technically from Estonia, but they seem to be buds with the Soul Surfers and Estonia is probably close enough to Moscow, right?)

The a-side here is feels like it vacillates between funk and surf unintentionally and I think that’s a good thing. The instrumentation, production and fidelity are all fairly accurate recreations of some Detroit basement micro-pressing from the 70’s. That’s not easy to do and I’ve actually peeped other Surfers songs that do it even better. “Tornado” on the b-side is more tasty groove. Seeing how long these guys have been kicking around (nearly seven years), I’m kicking myself that it’s taken me so long to find out about them.

Note on the label, Funk Night Records, out of Detroit, they operate in much the same world as Daptone Records and any fan of the output of that essential label would most definitely find gems in the FNR catalog. But don’t sleep, as it appears a lot of the Funk Night titles sell out pretty damn quick. Still need to track a copy of the Surfers “Signals” single as that’s what’s originally turned me on to all of this. Also, a label that almost exclusively puts out 7”s…please do give them your money.