VA - Down In The Valley 4 (2019)

The Perfect Toy label continues its righteous quest to unearth the finest rare sounds from way out with Volumes 3 and 4 of its Down In The Valley series and in doing so delivers what is most certainly "A heavy dose of garage rock & psych-funk."

Vol. 4 commences with Frozen Sun's acid rock beast Electric Soul, then rocks even harder with Pax 72's Ezra before Stars and Stripes's Listen edges in a funkier direction, adding syncopated rhythms and wah-wah into the mix. Then it's the turn of another unreleased track from GIN to make an appearance – Pseudo Funk - a blistering psych-rock band-rehearsal recording that the label is excited to include in the DITV series. Super-heavy funk-rock is the name of the game on Pushin, a wah-wah-drenched monster from The Outer Edge - recorded when they were 16 years old and their one and only 45 before they disbanded in 1971. The funkiness continues with Watch My Baby Do It – a shingaling and boogaloo dance-celebrating funky soul nugget from Chicago music-scene mainstays The Bossmen, dope garage-funk crossover Away With Me from Soul Intentions and groovy country-funk bump Keep On Walking from Rocky Barra, the man behind the famous Strictly Elvis fanzine. All of which just leaves space for the heavy soul-laden garage rock of Forum's Who Needs You, a mellow psych groove from Morning Reign (a name that should ring a bell since Perfect Toy dropped an album full of their unreleased material in late 2018) and Grainger Hunt 's Noah (a new discovery in rhythm & blues circles when it was first re-issued on 45 in 2011) whichmakes its first appearance on any full-length album here.

Deepest respect goes out once again to crate-digging supremo, Chan The Man, the curator of these two brand-new volumes in the Down In The Valley series. His ambition to search for the impossible and get his hands on private pressings that no one except the freakiest vinyl nerds knew existed has set the path to the release of these two discs. Accompanied by detailed liner notes and never-before-seen photos of the artists, Down In The Valley 3&4 continue the same attention to quality and detail set by their predecessors.