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Pearsall presents There & Back 008: August, UK Funky 2008-2011

UK Funky was a highly under-rated genre – here Pearsall goes in on a selection of 20 gems from this scene!

Pearsall presents There & Back 008: August, UK Funky 2008-2011

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Pearsall ยท There & Back 008: August, UK Funky 2008-2011

Recorded in Berlin, September 2024
100% Vinyl
(60:10, 142 MB, 320 KBPS MP3)

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Cue file

Direct link to the mix:
http://sonicrampage.org/mixes/thereandback/Pearsall-ThereAndBack008_August_UKFunky2008-2011.mp3

Tracklisting:

  1. Cooly G – Up In My Head [Hyperdub]
  2. DVA – Natty [Hyperdub]
  3. Altered Natives – Love Switch Off [Eye4Eye]
  4. Untold – Just For You (Roska Remix) [Hotflush]
  5. Hard House Banton – The Music [Spoilt Rotten Entertainment]
  6. Emvee – Nocturnal [Wireblock]
  7. Doc Daneeka – Mario’s Mushrooms [PTN]
  8. Mosca – Square One (L-Vis 1990 Remix) [Night Slugs]
  9. Sticky – Look Pon Me ft Natalie Storm [Mixpak]
  10. Cooly G – Narst [Hyperdub]
  11. Girl Unit – IRL (DVA’s Hi Emotions Remix) [Night Slugs]
  12. Lil Silva – Against Yaself [Night Slugs]
  13. Champion – Bongoshot [Formula]
  14. MJ Cole – Flux Riddim [Prolific]
  15. Martyn – Viper (London’s Arches Edit) [Brainfeeder]
  16. Beneath – Prangin’ [Keysound]
  17. Walton – Cool It VIP [Keysound]
  18. Lil Silva – Funky Pulse [DDJS Productions]
  19. Lone – Pineapple Crush [Magic Wire]
  20. DJ Zinc – Wile Out feat Ms Dynamite [Bingo Bass]

There are few cities that have seen as much musical innovation over the years as London, and UK Funky is one of those lesser-known examples of just how vital the London music scene has been. A relatively briefly-lived scene, it emerged in the late 2000’s as a London take on the classic ‘funky house’ sound, where American-style soulful house was kidnapped and taken to a South London council estate and fed on a strict diet of soca, African percussion, dubstep, grime, UK garage, and broken beat in order to produce something that was completely London and absolutely, compulsively danceable.

I don’t actually have a ton to say about this mix – I’m not really an expert on the sound or the artists, I just like it. This was the era when the dance scene was transitioning from vinyl to digital, so lots of the best tracks never even made it to vinyl, but I managed to pick up a few. Great music!

It’s a bit of a weird one as to why this sound wasn’t bigger in the end, because it’s super fun, super danceable, and you would think that it could have been huge in a way that it wasn’t. I mean, Drake sampled the UK Funky classic ‘Do You Mind?’ on ‘One Dance’ and that was a mega-hit, so it seems like people would have been open to it, right? Somehow the stars never aligned.

This mix is not strictly 100% stuff that would be considered UK Funky, but it all has that vibe (in my opinion), and I like the stuff, and I never made a full mix, so I figured why not?

If you want to read more about UK funky, here are some articles: