FUNKADELIC — Free Your Mind...And Your Ass Will Follow (review)

FUNKADELIC — Free Your Mind...And Your Ass Will Follow album cover Album · 1970 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
dreadpirateroberts
There's an inordinate amount of messing around on this album - it really does sound like everyone is trashed. Nearly everything is awash with distortion or reverb, or is at least treated in some way (Worrell's piano for instance) and the mix sounds as if Clinton and co had stumbled into the control room and started wrestling with dials and knobs in a gleeful quest to unsettle the listener - a kind of acid experiment.

He claims as much in the reissue liner notes and despite the attempt, the pyrotechnics don't completely conceal a few actual songs alongside the freakout experiments. Beneath the heavy blanket of psychedelia the P-Funk team play the blues with 'Some More' or protest-funk songs like the catchy 'Funky Dollar Bill' (an attack on materialism) or the excellent rocker, 'Friday Night, August 14th' which features typical Hendrix-inspired Hazel (not a bad thing.)

But 'Free Your Mind and Your Ass will Follow' is dominated by two longer jams, one being 'I Wanna Know if it's Good to You?' and the opener, title track and ten minute sonic exploration, touching on space rock keys while the guitars play the blues, albeit a heavily (almost casually somehow) distorted blues. Clinton fills the song with snippets of vocals rather than anything resembling a song, basically riffing as it were, while the piece eventually leads into a massively distorted organ before Hazel solos the song off to a fade.

An album with much more in common with its predecessor than with its stellar successor, 'Free Your Mind...' has its moments, and it's certainly interesting sonically, but the songwriting had yet to peak. This one's still fun, but not my favourite Funkadelic release.
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