Pitchfork

Numero Group has spent the past four years building itself into one of the best reissue labels in the world, with a catalog stuffed full of compilations gathering outstanding soul obscurities, kick-ass power pop, Caribbean funk, gospel with a groove, and private-press folk, not to mention an occasional full-album reissue and a handful of great early rap 12"s. Having established a story-based format for delivering dusty old sounds to a new (perhaps even a first-ever) audience, the label has now established a subsidiary, Asterisk, to explore other avenues, resurrecting the full catalogs of never-was artists who could have been something big given the chance.

The name of the label is appropriate-- these discs are delivered in a sort of "oh, by the way... listen to this" fashion, packaged in attractive cardboard gatefolds that mimic LP sleeves in miniature, each with its own set of extensive liners stuffed with primary source quotations and old photos. The spines all match up with each other, practically begging you to put them next to each other on your shelf, but the music ranges far and wide, from the harmony soul of Columbus, Ohio's Four Mints to post-hippy folk by Propinquity, complex but unheard rock from Connecticut's Johnny Lunchbreak, and mind-blowing art-funk from Chicago's Boscoe.

Of the four volumes, the best and most vital is definitely Boscoe. Their 1973 self-titled album sank without a trace as the band toiled in the shadows of Chicago's South Side scene. They fit right in with the other challenging acts in the scene, including the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, Phil Cohran, the Pharaohs and Earth, Wind & Fire (in their pre-disco days), but in the end they just couldn't get themselves heard over their neighbors.

Their album is a swirling near-masterpiece that pulls together smoking funk rhythms, strands of free jazz and deep soul, conscious lyrics, amazingly complex and harmonically sophisticated horn arrangements, and assorted other ingredients to make music that fell outside the lines of any particular genre. "If I Had My Way" is a stone-cold classic of socially aware funk that never got its chance to reach a wide audience, "I'm What You Need" is a surprisingly tender, harmony-drenched ballad that proves they could write a pop tune when they wanted to, and "Writin' On the Wall" is a tortured, lurching plea for people to wake the hell up and look at the problems of the world around them with an eye to solving them.

While none of the other volumes hit with the same fresh immediacy of Boscoe, there's some great stuff on offer. The Four Mints first entered Numero's universe on the label's very first release, a retrospective of Bill Moss' Capsoul label on which they had a couple of great tracks. Their album, 1973's Gently Down Your Stream, was cobbled together from singles, and with the three studio outtakes appended by Asterisk, constitutes their entire body of recordings. It's great early-70s smooth soul, essentially from the Philadelphia school, with creamy harmonies and a lot of call-and-response. But it's also a great example of how the quirks of old small-label soul can make it so interesting to listen to: the drums on this thing, played by Bobby Allen and Dean Francis, are freaking loud, and the utter rawness of the backing tracks creates a tension between the silky vocals and the music that would be hard to achieve if you were trying.

On the back of the CD sleeve, Propinquity member Jason Potter writes that his old band was, "neither the most nor the least creative, but we had the joy of exploration and made some interesting stuff along the way," which is a decent review of their sole album, recorded in 1973. The album was barely heard on its release in their home state of Colorado, and wasn't heard at all anywhere else (the tiny label that released it, Owl, has a story worth telling itself), but it's a pleasant excursion into acoustic 70s folk by a talented quintet. With three male vocalists topped by the fragile soprano of 18-year-old Carla Sciaky, they had a rich harmony sound, best heard on the stunning album opener "People Come", where the group creates kaleidoscopic layers of melody. Their name connotes nearness and affinity, and the spirit in which they chose it is evident in the music.

The final band resurrected here, Johnny Lunchbreak, never even released an album. The band had roots at King Philip Junior High in West Hartford, Conn., and their story is a prototype for thousands of groups-- start out playing because it's fun, get serious, find success elusive (complete with cool reception by the NYC press), call it quits in frustration when you realize that feeding your child is more important than gigging at bars in Vernon for chump change. But what most of those other bands didn't have was an album's worth of really good, unique songs that show a band tantalizingly close to a breakthrough. "Tinsel Days" has a colossal power pop hook and a great independent bassline, but the killer is "Not a Dry Eye in America", which shows off their harmonies and fakes you into believing it's a ballad before ramping up to a moody, blues-inflected climax. The recording quality is clean but not clear (these are demos in the true sense), but these guys had it, and it shows through the relatively murky sound.

Asterisk is off to an intriguing start with these four discs, and the message sent by the early release schedule seems to be that anything goes as long as the story is worth telling and the music is worth hearing. The Four Mints, Propinquity, and Johnny Lunchbreak volumes are niche recordings to a degree-- rare soul, folk, and power-pop hounds seem to be the ones most likely to pursue each one, respectively. And then there's Boscoe, who should be heard by just about anyone who has ears and an appetite for something funky that will blow them off their head.