Tomorrow's People - Open Soul

Pitchfork 68

When he’s not touring as Floating Points, Sam Shepherd also DJs a funk and soul party, called You’re a Melody. His selections skew ludicrously rare, and for most DJs, just flashing them before the trainspotters is enough. But Shepherd’s love of the music led him to start up Melodies International, a reissues label run in tandem with DJ Love on the Run, Mafalda, and Javybz. They suss out, lovingly remaster, and (legitimately) reissue long-lost singles for a new generation of fans, from a $500 7” to the complete recorded works of the woefully obscure Detroit band Aged in Harmony, housed in a picture sleeve with an accompanying newsprint fanzine. This level of care and dedication towards the physical artifact is rare in an increasingly streaming-only world. And while such speculation over old records typically benefits only the seller, the profits from these reissues wind up going back to the original artist themselves.

For the third release on the imprint, Shepherd went beyond, reissuing the lone full-length from Chicago soul-disco group Tomorrow’s People. Comprised of four brothers (Kevin, Maurice, Gerald, and Timothy Burton), their 1976 album Open Soul may not have sold many copies on the short-lived Stage Productions label, but since then it’s become a true “holy grail,” with copies in the last year changing hands for over $1,500. With the master tapes lost 20 years ago, the label set about reissuing the LP sourced from multiple copies of the original album. Alas, the foxy cover of the original is now replaced with a drawing of the four brothers.

For those not taken with the rarefied stratosphere of private press funk and soul albums, the first half of Open Soul might leave you wondering what the fuss is all about. “Lovers to Friends” is a slow-burner featuring the brothers’ effortless harmonies, but there’s not too much that would have made it stand out during that decade. “It Ain’t Fair” continues along at nearly the same tempo, with a bit more eerie analog synth and a saxophone line drifting across as the brothers coo “ooooh, don’t take your love away.” It’s a soulful plea, but unless you’ve worn out the Gamble & Huff discography, there’s more immediately rewarding fare to be had there. More upbeat is “Let’s Get Down With the Beat,” which features the kind of proto-disco beat and cymbal work that Earl Young pioneered during those years. The fidgety instrumental “Hurt Perversion” puts the keyboards front and center—but it’s contemporaneous of Bernie Worrell and his key work with Funkadelic, and not nearly as wigged out.

No matter how rare the album might be, no one is paying a month of New York City rent for the first five songs of Open Soul. And no one pleaded during a You’re a Melody DJ set for this album to be made available again (based on the A-side). But flip it over and you’re presented with the stunning 20-minute title track. Brother Timothy’s spare organ work and Brother Gerald’s guitar cast a spell, and for the first minute, you might think you’re in for a beatless cosmic soul trip. Just as the two-minute mark approaches, though, that guitar tightens up, a conga drum flares to life, and “Open Soul” bursts into full flame. “Soul.../Everybody’s asking me what it is,” the brothers chant as the drums and hand percussion run at double time.

Like any good writer, in providing an answer, they show rather than tell. “Open Soul” soon moves into a psychedelic break, with each successive electric guitar solo and sax squall nudging the temperature up a few more degrees. Seven minutes in, the brothers’ harmonies return, and it seems that surely the song will begin to lose steam or focus. But the Burtons keep that momentum going (and going). And while the song never veers off the path of funk, in its tirelessness and doggedness it starts to mutate and resemble a motorik groove, seeming like it might forever run to the horizon.

There’s examples of such audacity in African-American music of that time—Funkadelic’s double-digit explorations, the unreleased J.B.’s album, and Norman Whitfield’s ambitious productions for the Temptations immediately spring to mind—but none are as determined and downright exhaustive as “Open Soul.” By the time that final drum roll comes around some 17 minutes in, it feels like a marathon runner collapsing at the end of a race and the song recedes back to its soul ambient opening. The song no doubt wore down even the most fervent of dancers during Shepherd’s DJ sets. And thanks to his due diligence, now it can perform a similar feat in your living room.