Loving On The Flip Side - Sweet Funk and Beat-Heavy Ballads, 1969-1977

I recently happened upon a pretty fantastic funk ballad comp on the Now-Again label called Loving On The Flip Side. It features smooth crooners, off-kilter lovelorn teenage harmonies and heartbroken soul-bearing over some seriously deep funk. These songs were, as the album's producers put it, "just a bit too pretty for the deep funk comps of the past decade." Thank goodness they've found a place here! From Thomas East's "Slippin' Around" which includes one of the dopest piano breaks I've heard in a long time, to Darling Dear's captivatingly bizzarre collaborations with backing band Funky Heavy (doleful, slightly off-key teeny bopper laments over chunky, nasty funk), this collection of rare songs is worthy of heavy rotation. I have to once again credit Matthew Africa who pointed me in this direction with his Ego Trip blog post on the Darling Dears and led me to dig deeper and find this record. Full liner notes can be found here.