Angela Wiedl - Nur Das Beste - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

One of the most underrated bands in the history of funk and soul music, Creative Funk was the brainchild of brothers Deek and Gary DeBerry. Gary started playing piano at 9 years of age, then stand-up bass at 13. He joined a jazz band in junior high school and played for talent shows and every assembly. They later added an alto sax and played a lot of Parks & Recreation gigs which led them to the Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. They called themselves the InchMighty FantasticsInch and came in second place to an R&B James Brown-type group who were older. Gary was only 14 years old at the time, but grateful to have played at the famed Apollo. In high school, Gary met an outstanding guitarist, and they started a band called Creative Funk that eventually led him to the Apollo again, this time as an artist with a record out that was making waves. That record, 1972's InchReady Made Family,Inch which Gary composed with his older brother Deek, was strongly supported by his New York family and community. The single sold 25,000 units plus in New York City and the surrounding areas. Gary credits his brother Deek for being instrumental in helping him get the band going, and the two started their own record tag called Creative Funk Enterprises. The band Creative Funk was truly an outstanding cast of players that included Gary on bass, Richard Currence (drums), Robert Banks and Walter Etheridge (guitars), Andre Johnson (trumpet, flugelhorn), Michael Johnson (saxophone), Denzil Miller (keyboards, trombone), and a talented trio of vocalists in Diane Jenkins, Veedette Williams, and Clarence Bassett. This great combination stayed together for four years and eventually parted ways in 1975. Primarily a live band, Creative Funk only recorded a handful of singles as a band on their own tag, but the music was exceptional enough to cement their standing in R&B history.

After Xmal Deutschland's success with four albums on cult labels such as 4AD, Huwe abandoned music to pursue her visual art career. But leaving her legacy in the past was not so easy. During the pandemic Huwe reconsidered her decades-long hiatusfrom music. With a push by her longtime friend Mona Mur - a singer, songwriter and film music composer (as well as the frontwoman of early-80s project Mona Mur & Die Mieter) - Huwe decided to join Mur in Berlin. Together with Manuela Rickers, guitarist and collaboratorin Xmal Deutschland, they tossed around music and poetic ideas that would eventually become the album Codes. Initially inspired by the diary entries of Moshe Shnitzki, who, at the age of 17, left his home in 1942 to live in the cavernous White Russian forests as a partisan, Codes is about the human experience and what extremes can do to an individual. InchThe result is a poetic, musical cosmos that encompasses the following themes forest, fear, pain, loss, violence, and loneliness but also beauty, longing, hope and the will to survive,Inch Huwe explains. These thematic extremities cause an erraticism to Codes- a passing thunderstorm, a cyclonic burst of nature's force - but one that exudes anticipation amidst the chill. With elegant production by Mur and Huwe and mixing and mastering by Jon Caffery (Joy Division, Gary Numan, Einstürzende Neu- bauten) epic builds crash and disseminate, the sleek synthesized drones of sound even feel claustrophobic at times. Xmal Deutschland, now marked as forerunners of the post-punk move- ment, were never complacent but consistently ravenous in their attack throughout the 1980s. Huwe's return is no different. Unexpected but long overdue, Codes is that missing page from post-punk's history books, the freshly splayed paint across the decades-old canvas - it is the product of the tireless will to survive on her own terms.

This powerhouse album is the musical manifestation of Katy's dreams, experiences, and relationships. Katy guides us through a love-infused journey, traversing her musical roots in the blues, funk and soul music, all the way to her days creating energetic dance anthems in the club scene. The narrative of The Sound of Courage encapsulates a sense of completion for Katy, a coming full circle as she blends her early inspirations with spirited remixes that invite you to dance your heart out!