If lo fi funk and soul is your bag, and it definitely is mine then this Charles Stepney reissue coming soon on International Anthem is going to be right up your street. The good people at the label have put a few tracks out there as previews for the album and its looking like a classic. The release consists of home recordings created by Stepney alone, in the basement of his home on the Southside of Chicago, sometime in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In many ways he's the guy that made a lot of the tracks that introduced that dusty sound so beloved of Tribe and many others as sample sources for some of their best work. Obviously they sampled tons of other stuff but you can see a direct link from the dusty hip hop producers like Q Tip and Dilla to that Stepney sound...

To paraphrase the press release, "The compilation is made up of 23 tracks that in the most were never again recorded by him or any other artist. It also features prototypical, seedling-style demos of Stepney compositions for Earth, Wind & Fire as well as the original version of “Black Gold,” which would eventually be recorded by Rotary Connection as “I Am The Black Gold of The Sun". It's sounding amazing to these ears.

Step By Step is released on International Anthem though er not until September so enjoy these tracks above until then.