The genius revealed in one chapter of Prince’s bulging back catalogue is hardly a secret; everyone from Kylie to Outkast has successfully sourced the paradigm funk he unleashed between 1980 and 1988.
London duo The Loose Cannons are the latest in the crop currently feeling Mr Nelson’s funk. Having made their name as DJs in the late-night haunts of Soho and helped shine the sh*te of assorted inadequate signings to various major labels, Kaiser Saucy (vocals) and Lord Fader (Mac manipulations) decided they had both the musical chops and the chutzpah to make their own tunes.
Cue "Make The Face", a louche, libidinous, lazily funky debut which leans on Prince and Bootsy Collins, most certainly, but updates their sound with a lean, thoroughly contemporary R&B/hip hop feel, the application of massively distorted bottom end and the irresistible gleam of French filtered house. Sensibly, it jettisons the bass workouts that date 80s funk so badly and allows Saucy’s sweetly soulful falsetto to convey real-deal emotion alongside wry self-commentary.
The duo have summed up their sound as ‘R&D’ (as in ‘rhythm & dirt’) and that’s a fair description of their grubby, decidedly sexy grooves, which document 24 hours in the big city – a series of monster nights out and heavy mornings after, punctuated by drunken conversational exchanges and addled phone messages left in the small hours. Selecting highlights is like picking out the brightest flicker in a mirror ball, but the punch-rolling "On Fire" - which suggests Beyonce joining Etienne de Crecy – and the inspired Daft Punk-do-dancehall of "Out 4 The Nite" (whose exuberant chorus, "I was only coming out for one" may well be the Cannons’ motto) are particularly dazzling
If this suggests that Kaiser Saucy and Lord Fader are no more than good-time boys, the genuine pathos of "Confessional" (“I’m asleep but my hands are awake; please forgive me”) proves otherwise. Their debut provides 64 supremely good-time minutes, but implicit in it is an awareness that after the party comes the clean-up. Somehow, this makes "Make the Face" sound all the sweeter.
