More Sounds from Future Funk: An Interlude

Last week Dam Funk featured an unlikely mix on Mary Ann Hobbs’ excellent BBC Radio1 show. The Los Angeles deejay and multi-instrumentalist is known for spinning obscure early 80s boogie and R&B vinyl, or playing original material from an ever growing personal catalogue, but this time Dam showcased some contemporaries, exploring what he called “the future sounds of modern funk.” You could call the mix a companion piece to my article on future funk published just days beforehand. What timing?

The modern funk mix is cut from a 90-minute live set in Croatia, and features a broad range of producers inclined towards the sounds of machine music set to a groove, melodic and bounce-heavy. Ms. Hobbs alluded that the full uncut mix might see the light of day on the Internet sometime in the coming week. Some of my favorites come from Teeko, a San Francisco producer/deejay and core member of the future funk group FAME, which just dropped a free digital compilation last year called Truthpics (it’s got these great interview sequences too). Here’s a short interlude from King Tee:

Sadly, Ms. Hobbs recently announced that September 9th will be her last show on the BBC. In the past five years Ms. Hobbs has helped both define and curate particular strains of future electronic sounds from across the globe: She nearly single-handedly broke dubstep out to the far reaches of the underground electronic music community (or even Pitchfork!) and also put the shine on Los Angeles’ post hip-hop beat scene. Her skills as a selector, expertly honed for risk-taking and challenges, succeeded in achieving what any deejay could dream for: to build listeners’ taste for a dynamic musical style still in its evolving stages. I imagine her last month of shows will be quite inspiring.