In Praise of Soul Jazz Records

It was the ugly yet distinctive packaging that first made me notice London-based Soul Jazz Records. I was in an eccentric little record store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and in the used world music section, I saw a bright yellow carboard sleeve. As Mercenárias: Brazilian post-punk, 1982–1985. It was like it was designed for my pretentious musical tastes: underground music by an all-female band in a foreign language? Where do I sign up? I bought it, and I love it. It's like a little bit of Wire mixed with a little bit of Gang of Four, with some samba influence and in Portuguese, all packaged in perfect little two-minute songs.

After that, I was seeing Soul Jazz everywhere. My favorite art historian picked up a double CD called Big Apple Rappin': The Early Days of Hip-Hop Culture in NYC, 1979–1982, filled with early rap that is surprising to someone (like me) who thought all early rap sounded like "Rapper's Delight." The highlight song, "How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise" by Brother D & The Collective Effort, shows that rap has always had its political side. Then I found New York Noise Vol. 2, a collection of music by early eighties post-punk and No Wave bands (and I learned what No Wave was). It includes a song by the Del-Byzanteens, featuring Jim Jarmusch on vocals and keyboards, which would make it worth the price even without all the other great (and greatly weird) songs included with it.

They specialize in just that sort of thing: collections of obscure music that appeals to geeks of various stripes. Perusing their catalog, you see reggae that's not Bob Marley, early dance music, lots of Latin American and Caribbean music, something called Deep Jazz, and lots of other weird discs, several of which are going on my wishlist.

Their packaging, aside from the eye-catching colors, is a little lacking. The liner notes are curious: there's often a level of detail that borders on the obsessive, but then they'll forget to include the release date of several songs. Their spelling could use some work (the Del-Byzanteens are listed as the Del Byzantines, which made googling difficult). They include a wasteful cardboard sleeve, which, you will remember, attracted me in the first place. But that's all the wrapping: it's what's inside that counts, and everything (admittedly, only three CDs) has been great so far.