In 2009, DāM-FunK released a track that doubled as a promise: “(My Funk Goes) On & On.” His sound stays true to a few fundamental building blocks: the hollow thwack of a vintage drum machine, sinuous synth bass, searing keyboard leads, jazz chords that hang in the air like Los Angeles smog. Those basic elements have spilled over into so many EPs, collabs, and side-projects that he seems to be scooping up fistfuls of the same stuff and preserving it in packages of different sizes and colors. So when he makes an album, it’s a big thing: His brilliant 2009 debut Toeachizown sprawled across five LPs, and 2015’s Invite the Light was a triple album blessed by his funk forebears—Junie Morrison, Snoop Dogg, Leon Sylvers III, and Jody Watley, to name just a few.
Compared to the aforementioned monsters, Above the Fray is a modest affair—48 minutes, half the length of Invite the Light. DāM-FunK eliminates his own small but self-assured voice from the palette, letting fake guitars and funky worms do the talking for him. And it doesn’t exactly introduce any new sounds, either; even the song titled “Evolution” sounds like a holdover from Toeachizown. Above the Fray is, in fact, a lot like his 2019 EP STFU II. Both peak with lengthy, climactic house odysseys: “Deeper” on STFU II, “Levitate From It All” here. And both explicitly advertise the music within as a respite from the madness of the world to which DāM-FunK, as a Californian, has a front-row seat.
But like a great ambient artist, DāM-FunK finds subtle ways to push forward without really pushing forward at all. Above the Fray puts less of an emphasis on chords and more on solos, which halfway through “Levitate From It All” seem to duel in midair like fighting dragons. The “distorted guitar” synth preset on “Allies” and “Get There” is such a richly colored sound, somehow triumphant and melancholy at once, that it competes with just about any tear-jerking classic-rock actual-guitar solo you care to name. And while “UHF” and “I Mean Well” cruise at the unhurried pace of a lowrider, the title track and “Begin Again” hurtle forward so relentlessly that the instruments sometimes need time to catch up. The overall impression is of his most romantic and awestruck album yet. If his earlier work suggests a bleary-eyed, late-night haze, Above The Fray is a cloudless vista where you can see for miles.
Even its comparatively short length has an advantage: Above the Fray plays like something that might’ve been made in the early ’80s, when vinyl was still king and more expansive formats like cassettes and CDs were just starting to make inroads. A 10-minute track like “Levitate From It All” feels more significant and proggy when it’s slotted alongside shorter tracks on a shorter album than if it’d been just a pit stop on a multi-hour odyssey. It’s easier here than it is on his EPs to see just how ambitious his vision is, how ardent his belief remains in the power of funk. It’s also easier to worry that he’s landed on a sound so foolproof he’s more interested in luxuriating in it than elaborating on it. There was another track on Toeachizown called “Searchin’ 4 Funk’s Future.” Is he still?
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