Wonderful words by the ever erudite Adam Turner. 

In May 2022 Luke Una released É- Soul Cultura, one of the year’s surprise packages, a compilation of rare, undiscovered and unknown songs from around the world, unified by being the sort of tunes that Luke would play when arriving home from a night out/ DJ gig and wanting to keep the party feel going. Volume 1 was Balearic in outlook, in that it wasn’t limited any genre of music other than that which sounded good at 5am as the sun came up – soul, house, disco, jazz- funk, old, new, whatever, just keep it coming.

Volume 2 has hit the shelves, offering a further eighteen tracks for your late night adventures. As with any multi-artist compilation there’s a real mixture of sounds and styles and maybe not everything will chime with everyone, but there’s so much here to enjoy and get lost in. The collection sets in the `70s, with the Real Things’ Children Of The Ghetto bursting into life with soaring strings and warm bass. Avis, a cover of a song that originally featured the vocals of Minnie Riperton, heads further into soulful territory, sleek and deep. Veronika Mickie’s Lost Children is in a similar vein, gospel, with funky horns, and a tale of hard times from 1990.

Just as you think it’s all going to be street soul, there’s a swerve into Rare Silk and their strange, dubby, downtempo Storm – all percussion, space and synths echoing around with sax weaving its way in. The last minute is beautiful, the topline drifting, and eventually fading into static and space echo.

Erick Cosaque’s Guadaloupe, Ile De Mes Amours brings a bit of the French-Caribbean, the sort of music that should be heard at a beach bar, mid-afternoon, sipping a cocktail and sporting a straw hat. That’s followed – and the sequencing works a treat with each song setting up the next – by Frank Hatchett’s Malibu Nights, low key and smooth, the rhythm of rain falling in a warm climate, bongos, gently padding patterns and floating melodies. Unexpectedly, but somehow perfectly, Yorkshire bleep geniuses LFO turn up next. Their 1996 track, Shove Piggy Shove, is a masterpiece of spaced-out house, totally in tune with the selections around it in feel if not style. The Bach Revolution’s D.E. 108 is similarly spacey and minimal, a lost gem from 1979 by a Japanese synth outfit with Russian poetry for vocals. The drums and stuttering synths sound like they’ve been beamed in from somewhere else entirely.

Andi Otto’s Bangalore Whispers, 2016 psychedelia with Indian singer MD Pallavi, keeps things in the east. This is a deliciously trippy piece of downtempo music with all kinds of of space and room. The bass keeps pushing slowly, barely changing, while the strings and voice dance around it. It’s followed by Taht Min Aini by Unnayanaa and Irfan Rainy, plus vocalist Ibtisam, a song spanning New York, Manchester and India. It slows the pace and provides a moment to reflect.

The mood shifts again with Michael de Albuquerque and the blues rock/ funk groove of We May Be Cattle But We All Got Names, a 1973 stop- start song with the lead guitarist very much at the reins. Pyranha’s Clepsydre fades in with brushed cymbals and organ, and an understated guitar part that becomes crunchier and bluesier, early `70s psychedelic rock with a Crazy Horse feel, kicking up a storm in a school hall somewhere, gaffer tape, pedals, leads and amps. Despite sounding like they’re playing directly from Neil Yong’s barn, Pyranha are Swiss and Clepsydre is seven minutes of guitar jam heaven.

Eloah’s Logun Ede – part of the digital release only – switches continents and genres yet again. A beautiful 1978 Brazilian folk/ soul, the voice of Eloah swooping and diving as the percussion and horns play. From Brazil in the late `70s Luke then transports us to Manchester in the late `80s, and Yargo, a largely unsung Manchester blues/ soul/ funk band, best known for supplying the soundtrack to Tony Wilson’s legendary late night music program, The Other Side Of Midnight  – which gave us memorable TV appearances from both The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays in 1989 as well as a televising a rave in Victoria Baths soundtracked by A Guy Called Gerald. Marimba was the B-side to the Other Side Of Midnight 7, a vision of Latin America brewed up in Hulme, singer Basil Clarke’s voice dancing over the thump of the drums and guitar, delivering some urgent driving night time music. Whistles and drums launch us into Okyerema Asante & Black Fire’s Play A Sweet Rhythm On Them Drums, African rhythms crossed with 70s jazz as recorded in Washington DC. Then with another hairpin turn, Josan’s Vendedor de Mangaios bursts out of the speakers, Brazilian funk from 1982, all irresistible rhythms and busy-ness. In contrast Mr Scruff picks up the baton with Giffin, a slice of Sci-Fi vocoder funk, sleek and futuristic chunky house, co-written with Naveed Aktar. The album finishes with Isis’ In Essence, a deep house ride from 1996, a midnight glide, with warm bass, xylophone, piano and wigged out synths.

Many of the songs that Luke has uncovered and compiled here are available at silly prices on Discogs – although admittedly some are available very cheaply too – and there’s no doubt both volumes are a crate-digger’s delight, the result of a life spent in record shops and at record fairs, looking for gold and then spinning those finds for punters in clubs and bars. For us now, an album with all these treats in one place, É- Soul Cultura Volume 2 is a beautifully judged collection of songs, many unheard and obscure but accessible and vibrant too. Luke says that he hopes the compilation is about ‘telling stories… and adding something back to the pot’ and one of this album’s many strengths is that it does find a common thread through these 18 wildly disparate songs, weaving a story from Luke’s record box for the rest of us to enjoy.

Luke Una presents É- soul cultura Vol 2 is out now, on Mr. Bongo.

You can find more proper, on point, prose from Adam Turner over at his own brilliant blog, The Bagging Area. Adam is also part of the admin at the mighty Flightpath Estate.