Championed by the likes of Gilles Peterson, critically lauded by the music press and with flawless musical credentials, Amp Fiddler was one of the underground stars of 2004. The press release for ‘Afro Strut’, the follow-up to his debut, confidently asserts that this is a further leap forward composed of ‘12 slices of raw funk’.  As a former band-member for Prince and George Clinton’s P-Funk All-stars, surely you’d expect nothing less.

What he has actually produced is a fine, sophisticated soul record, expertly ticking off a range of musical reference points with excellent musicianship. With highlights like ‘Faith’ and ‘Find My Way’, he’s made an album that, alongside Maxwell, Bilal, Musiq et al, can be added to the Nu-Soul cannon.  

There’s a departure into 1920’s style swing (‘If I Don’t’), an inspired link-up of dancehall and funk featuring Derrick Irie (‘I Need You’), a little drawn-out synth doodling (‘Empower’), some refreshing 4/4 beats (‘Right Where You Are’), amid a mass of perfect bass chords and harmonies.

He also has a nice line in off-key trad-love lyrical sentimentality, encoding his message in pre-school 1+1=empowerment math sums (‘Empower’), and then expressing how much he needs his love by comparison with how much a pimp needs a hoe, a fiddler his bow, a John needs some ass and someone else needs some grass, etc (‘I Need You’). If only he’d pushed that boat out a little further and nudged his way of thinking slightly more askew he might have conjured up something deeply memorable.

Overall though, the album lacks that rank, sweaty, fetid stink of what ‘raw funk’ is. It should smell like a tramp. Instead, Amp Fiddler only ever smells a little musty.

For all its variations on the theme of funk-soul, it’s too over-produced and lacking in real grit and drive. The mix of influences is blended too finely so, instead of a lumpy funk stew, you are left with a kind of funk pâté.

There’s nothing wrong with pâté. Given the right mood, a bit of pâté on toast can be quite nice, especially when it is pâté of this quality. But it’s never going to fill you up like a load of stinking mutton, cabbage and gristle… Mmm...!

Best 3 Tracks:

1) Faith

5) Empower

4) Find My Way