Original Soundtrack
Soul Ecstasy (Emperor Norton 7014)

Deeply funky, darkly groovy soundtrack music claiming to be from a lost blaxploitation flick from 1972, directed by former ABA basketball player Fulton James based on his own novel. The movie itself was supposedly destroyed in the same fire that took Fulton's life, so this CD is the lasting testament to whatever achievement or non-achievement the thing was.

Of course, don't believe any of that shit. It's an avant acid-jazz hoax, actually recorded in 1999 but played off as the real deal. It's so perfectly emblematic of the type of thing it purports to be, though, that I say: Whatever it is, it's real enough alright. Spacey, spooky, and a bit cheesy around the edges, the attention to detail is so perfect it must be real, because you can only get that perfect accidentally. Right?

For a hoax, it's an incredibly well-executed one. Then again, it's to the point now where the difference between the average new DJ-culture/acid jazz CD and a reissue of a period recording is pretty slight – cover art can seem absolutely dated even if it was done yesterday.

So Emperor Norton has "unearthed" Ricardo Tubbs' score for the film as well as photos and production stills from the movie, making this a pretty lavish package devoted to something that doesn't exist.

The music is fantastic, though, very much in the Vampyros Lesbos vein of heavy wacked-out fusion: sitars and electric guitars mix with goopy synths and deep bass lines that make perfect sense at 3 in the morning but not so much at 10 in the morning.

It's a late night CD for very late, the one you put on after the last CD of the night has ended. It pushes the night that much further, taking you to that space where chilling and grooving can happen simultaneously and you can only hear with the inside of your head. Soul meets flutey Orientalist pastiche and wah-wah frenzy. Funky drums throughout keep everything on track, while the horns, guitars, synths and percussion go every which way.

God bless DJ culture for its consistent weird-assedness. Driven only by what's cool, these cats frequently unleash all manner of baffling greatness. Soul Ecstasy is not out of control or overtly funny, not wacky nor truly out there – but it's deep like deep house, and bends your brain in all the right ways at the end of a murky night.

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Peanut Pattersen