Put the name Sex Face into Google and you’re just as likely to end up redirected to some shady adult content hosted in a server in Krakow. Get that name in the the shops, and some two-bit morals campaigner will have a community boycott organised before you’ve had time to thrust your groin in solidarity with Sex Face’s ’70s funk grooves.
And all of that would be a crying shame, because Sex Face have got some serious licks going that need to be shared with the world. The curiously-titled Sphygmomanometer rests on a riff so slick it’s bought you a drink and run its fingers down the nape of your neck before you’ve had time to remember your own name. Chicken Funk is more linear in origin and destination, all slapping bass and flashing dance floor lights; Lylian takes a while to find its place, the proverbial nervous guy trying to summon up the courage to cut loose. Pounce emerges from the edges of sonic existence, a crescendo of groove on a mission to take you to places your mother warned would come to no good; I Stack My Filters swaggers into action in a Buffalo-meets-Bootsy Collins prog-rock-funk sort of a way.
There’s a live track – Sandfly Dub – to round out the album, its existence serving to confirm that this ain’t no cheap studio project. Get yourself a bit of Sex Face, if you dare.
Key Track: Pounce.
If You Like This, You’ll Like: JAMES BROWN, PARLIAMENT/FUNKADELIC, CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY BAND.
In A Word: Sex.
