Funkapolitan

Out of all the British blue-eyed funk bands from the early 80s, Funkapolitan was definitely one of them. They had an eight-man lineup, produced stiff but passable pop-funk, and released three singles and one album (produced by August Darnell, a.k.a. Kid Creole, with a cover design by Factory's Peter Savile) which was generally well reviewed. They tried a little Sugarhill-style rap on "There it is again," even mentioning "wheels of steel." The back cover of the album has a band member/song matrix with an instrument key that shows exactly who (Kadir Guirey, Simon Ollivierre, Nick Jones, Sagat Guirey, Toby Andersen, Terry President, Tom Dixon, Gregory Craig, and guests Larry Greenberg and Annise Hadeed) played what (drums, claves, congas, tambourine, bongos, shakere, agogo, caxixi, cowbell, guiro, timbali, cabasa, steel drums, marimbas, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, Clavinet, Rhodes, Synclavier, grand piano, Arp strings, Farfisa organ, Hammond organ, acoustic piano, Vox organ, synthesizer solo, statement, lead vocals, vocal, backing vocal, rap, handclaps, jawbone) on each song. As you can see from the list, the arrangements are interesting and make for good listening, even if the songs are not particularly memorable. Their Top of the Pops rendition of "As the time goes by" has turned up on YouTube:


Get the LP rip here or here.