A long-lost album by Thailand's leading funk band sounds more like the set-up for a practical joke than something most folks would want to seek out, but
the Impossibles
have gained a potent reputation among crate diggers in recent years, and 1975's
Hot Pepper
shows the band had much more than novelty going for them. Led by vocalist and guitarist
Setha Sirachaya
,
were one of the biggest acts of the 1960s and '70s in their native Thailand, playing original pop tunes as well as covers of then-current rock and R&B hits from the West, and they released a handful of successful albums on local labels. After a successful tour of Europe, the band signed a deal with the Dutch
Philips
label, who flew them to Sweden to cut the sessions for
; the results lack the melodic eccentricity and stylistic range of their Thai releases, largely because there's only one band-written original song on the album, with covers of American hits dominating the track listing. But
also sound tighter and more emphatic on
than they did on their Thai releases, and though their local releases leave a lot to be desired in terms of production and fidelity,
sounds punchy and professional, with the clarity doing wonders for the thick basslines, funky percussion and trap drumming, and lively horn charts. Their cover of "Love Will Keep Us Together" comes off like unremarkable disco by numbers, but the two
Kool & the Gang
numbers nearly match the originals for ferocity and groove, and
' version of "Easy to Be Hard" from Hair gives the tune a deeply soulful undercurrent that fits just right. And the title track, written by keyboard player
Pracheen Songpao
, is one of the album's best numbers, a hot instrumental with funky breaks that practically beg to be sampled. If
were big fish in a small pond as Thailand's number one funk band,
shows they could have gone elsewhere and still made a major impact; this is polished but powerful vintage R&B that's bound to please fans of '70's funk and soul. ~ Mark Deming