Voyage (A Journey Into Discoid Funk)

Ask an elder Brit rock fan about Brian Bennett and you’ll probably get the brightest glint of recognition talking about his time as the drummer for Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Ask a beatmaker, though, and his library records would probably click a lot faster for them; his work on KPM has been sampled on tracks for ScHoolboy Q, Drake, Raekwon, Jaylib, and innumerable other hip-hop greats. A fascinating library record cleverly disguised as a cheapie disco cash-in, 1978’s Voyage is coveted for the midtempo billionaire-cosmonaut vibe of “Solstice” with its punchy, diamond-sprinkled bassline. The rest sounds like what we would’ve gotten if Star Wars went with disco instead of John Williams — brightly, shamelessly cheesy, yet infused with some compelling dramatic tension in its melodies.