Asian Godfathers

Back in 1994 when Nils Landgren started up his Funk Unit, there were those who asked whether there was actually any need for Swedish funk. After seventeen years, ten albums and several hundreds of concerts, the question has basically answered itself: to find the most fired-up take on this music anywhere, a sound which is inextricably welded into soul, rhythm and blues and jazz, and in which all of the instruments – and the vocals too – have an irresistible rhythmic urgency about them, this is definitely the band to see and hear. And if one turns to the pioneers, godfathers and grandees of the funk world – Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, the musical prime movers behind James Brown, Ray Parker Jr., or Joe Sample from the Crusaders – then there’s no need to look any further: each and every one of them has played with the Funk Unit.