It's a dark sweety club and the floor has been expertly raised to a level of excitement by the man DJing before you who has slammed down a whole bunch of funk winners. You need to take the dancefloor to another level, but you also want to announce your presence to the floor. You rifle through the pile of 45s, a rising sense of, well, not quite panic, perhaps anxiety filling your system. Then it hits you, what you want is a kick-ass instrumental, a crisp drum beat, some blaring horns and some blaring Hammond organ in a style that can only be described as screaming.

Over the last few years, all sorts of funk has been lionised, from the James Brown shouters to the soul sisters, from Blaxpoitation monsters to proto-disco anthems, and yet for as long as funk has filled floors, some of the most popular anthems have been instrumental. Instrumentals that sound like they were recorded in a shed in Mississippi, or in the slickest studio that King in Cincinnati has to offer. The tracks that worked without vocals also seems to cover a wider range both musically and time-wise, meaning that the dancefloors will allow more gritty R&B numbers from the mid-60s through to wah-wah funk from a decade later. "Instrumental Explosion" is a homage to these sounds. It has the screeching Hammonds, horns, flutes, hip talking over grooves (maybe not strictly instrumental - though the credits would have read 'instrumental with speech'), mumbles and a few vocal chants. Not a song in sight. Over at BGP, Dean Rudland has dug deep to find the unreleased and obscure tunes but have also - in traditional "Superfunk" style - dug out some well-loved classics that have never or rarely been issued before.

Dean Rudland must have one of the top jobs in the country; he spends all his time listening to music, talking about music and compiling music, he even gets a pay check for it when the month is over. We should hate him by rights or at least sneak him a crafty kick in his shins when we see him on the street. But envy aside, what we have here is, in my humble opinion, perhaps the most together and essential compilation LP of any genre yet released, at least the best I've ever heard, undoubtedly a benchmark for future releases. Every single track is an unconditional guaranteed real work of art - its like Kylie Minogue in a rubber gimp suit telling you she has a twin sister and they are both feeling naughty! There are a small number of reasonably well known funk classics alongside an abundance of out and out rarities and unknown obscurities - so something for every kind of collector / dj / music lover be what you will. Twenty instrumentals may sound like overkill but with plenty of background grunting, hoopin', hollerin' and wailin' you barely even notice the lack of vocals. Gritty, jazzy funk and R&B instrumentals from the late 60s and early 70s. Guaranteed to set dancefloors alight. Ripped from 2xLP @ 256kbps.

Tracklisting:
1. Ninety Eight Cents Plus Tax - Detroit City Limits
2. More Soul - Ron Buford
3. Chocolate Cherry - The Joe Tex Band
4. What Time Ye Got - Gene (Bowlegs) Miller
5. Humpin' (AKA Stuffed Peppers) - Frankie Armstrong & The Stingers
6. Stuck in the Mud - Miles Grayson
7. Machine Shop Pt. 1 - Untouchable Machine Shop
8. Skunk Juice - Pazant Brothers
9. The Point Pt. 1 - Aaron (Chico) Bailey
10. Bad on Bad - Chet Ivey & His Fabulous Avengers
11. Bullitt - Louis Jordan
12. Elijah Rockin' With Soul (extended) - Hank Jacobs
13. Roly Poly Mickey Lolich - The Fans
14. Sunshine - Afro-Blues Quintet
15. Soul Drums - Pretty Purdie - Pretty Purdie
16. Herm - San Francisco TKOs
17. Put Your Weight on It Pt. 1 - Filmore Street Soul Rebellion
18. Thing - Lowell Fulsom
19. Sundance Pt. 1 - Lorenzo Holden
20. Stokin' - Leon Ferguson & The Groove Tones

Part 1
Part 2