The PC's Ltd. - Fast Man
The 'Great' Deltas - Tra La La

I'm sure this will come as no surprise to our loyal Cacophony readers, but independent record labels didn't start with punk or even the first wave of garage-rock. It's hard to imagine but there was a time most of the labels were 'independent,' and often generated regional hits and geographical stars. I'm sure Patrick could tell you more about this than I, but my point is simply that there is a ton of great music hidden away in obscurity. Sometimes 45s only had 1,000 copies pressed and once they were gone, they were gone. And while the collector's mystique still lingers on dusty records, the internet and the CD format has changed our relationship to these rare records. Before eBay, Google and Rhino Records, collectors visited thrift stores in every town, the swap meet on weekends and read the obits for hot tips. Now a simple keyword search can get you just about anything.

Will "Quantic" Holland is one of those record collectors and a notorious musician with his band the Quantic Soul Orchestra. But lucky for the rest of us, Quantic is generous enough to share. He's compiled some of the rarest and best deep funk sides onto one party-strarting disk, Quantic Presents: The World's Rarest Funk 45s.

I've posted two tracks for you to sample, and it was pretty hard to narrow it down. "Fast Man" comes to us from 1969/1970 in Carolina and serves up deep, heavy funk with lip-smacking grooves and the oft coveted and allusive party-vibe. "Tra La La" opens with a strange, funhouse beat but moves into a howling Hammond, perfected bass-horn interplay, and some of the most pathogen-like grooves ever captured on wax. And I definately have a soft spot for tracks were the band breaks down to just the drums and then reintroduces the instruments individually.

Unfortunately, it seems this album was only released in Europe, so you'll have to pay import prices or find the mp3s. (Like at, let's say, allofmp3.com). But here's some links anyway.

(Buy Quantic Presents: The World's Rarest Funk 45s at Vibrantsounds.)

(Buy Quantic Presents: The World's Rarest Funk 45s at Jazz Man Records.)