The “Strange Games & Things” compilations have been my introduction to the deeper end of Rare Groove, Soul and other Breaks. Still have at least one of them in my box when I go out spinning. They’re like my safety net. If nothing works I get those out. Not that they are a guarantee to success but when I hear Linda Williams, Father’s Children or Foxy (yep, the first one is still my absolute favourite) the world can end and I wouldn’t care a single bit. And they are handy to give my Southport loving friends some SP afternoon goodness.

Anyway, after two Pete Adarkwah LP’s/CD’s, a Kenny dope LP/CD and a mixed CD with tunes from the first 3 volumes by Spinna BBE have finally released a new volume of this great series. With the Soul compilation hype BBE have helped to create it was a lot more difficult to bring something fresh. All classics have been re-released on compilations, re-issues or bootlegs so there was a big chance they would have released a collection of tunes you already know and have or tunes that are rare as hell but nothing more than that.

They went for the rareness but kinda avoided to dig up music that’s only interesting to people that live on eBay, devour all of an album without actually listening to it afraid it might damage it. That last thing being the reason why so many ultra rare tunes are as boring as prime time television on a Saturday. The Sky King and Society of Seven songs are hot and fresh at the same time. And there’s some more in that vain. Some lesser interesting ones on it too (The Discoettes is a cool name but they shouldn’t have covered that Allen Toussaint classic). But all in all a great record.

Another great thing is they kept true to the concept for the cover. A simple but powerful image, nothing more, nothing less. For that alone it’s worth buying it.

The songs are selected by Mr. Thing, who’s James Brown tribute mix at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide awards last year impressed me a lot. Keeps impressing me with this effort.