Shake The Foundations: Militant Funk & The Post-Punk Dancefloor 1978-1984, 3CD Box Set – Cherry Red Records

Listening to the opening numbers from A Certain Ratio and 23 Skidoo confuse the very idea of post-punk recasting it more as post-funk. It was always an odd expression to begin with anyway, slightly ill-fitting yet also neatly apt to describe the flame of inspiration which fuelled Punk’s ethos while defiantly creating something altogether new in its wake. Almost as quickly as Punk became an expression it became a clique some could not escape from and in many ways this excitable, radical fusion of all things past, present and future was/ is all the more satisfying in retrospect. Bill Brewster’s thrill-seeking journey throughout the timeframe sees a perfect collision of guitars, synthesizers and political theory all rolled into one. So much so it’s hard to imagine now that contemporary music was once quite so varied, so experimental, so anti. As today’s industry feels like an industry in itself, a never ending spin on its own refection. There is something uniquely refreshing going on here.

John Cooper Clarke’s Post War Glamour girls is an all-time favourite for all sorts of reasons, as is Vicious Pink’s Cccan’t You See (thank you John Peel). Fashion, Modern Romance, Visage, The Surface Mutants, The Pop Group, Glaxo Babies, Fun Boy Three plus a whole host of the wired and wonderful, supremely funky, alongside the seditious collectively inspire and define what happened somewhere in-between 1978 to 1984. Those repercussions still echo. The final track from Family Fodder – Disco Purge says it all in under 2.30 minutes (listen below) also listen to Visage – Frequency 7 feed into Techno in 1981! A brilliant, inspiring listen that will tempt you into doing something else….

Release: March 26
https://www.cherryred.co.uk

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