Produced and co-written by the legendary bassist
Bootsy Collins, former
James Brown sideman and bottom end for Parliament-Funkadelic,
Freekbass' Body Over Mind is the kind of straight-up funk record that simply doesn't get made anymore. The grooves are deep and, for once, the cosmic lyrics about righteousness, grooves, and shakin' one's booty make perfect sense. Cloaked in the anonymity of space-cadet stage names, the band is fronted by the eponymous bassist
Freekbass, who is backed by a happy unit of keyboardist Beta-17, guitarist Sean McGary, drummer Swift, and keyboard and reed-man Joodi. For what it is, Body Over Mind is magnificent. The only downsides of the disc are its unvarying tone and its lack of stylistic experimentation. Body Over Mind upgrades funk production values to the present, but unfortunately doesn't add significantly to the style. Nonetheless, Body Over Mind is a deeply thumping, thickly grooved debut by an anomalous band. ~ Jesse Jarnow