***1/2 Sylk 130

WHEN THE FUNK HITS THE FAN

(Ovum)

King Britt, the man behind Sylk 130, is a musical nostalgist who can pass for a historian. When the Funk Hits the Fan is the first of a proposed three-part "autobiography" of his favorite sounds, conveying the tone of what someone would have heard on black radio in Philly in the '70s while updating it with '90s rap and production tricks. (Britt is probably best known for collaborating with techno-guy Josh Wink.) It's carried mostly by a rich stream of Gamble & Huff's lush, smoothed-out funk, as well as a couple of curious tributaries: the drawled poetry of the Last Poets and the '70s proto-rap of Hustlers Convention, which are approximated on a few tracks by poet/rapper Ursula Rucker; and the mellow diva disco that Britt honors with a gorgeous, faithful-in-its-fashion cover of "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life."

The loops that Britt pulls out of his crates are from a time and place where black and white pop nourished each other -- the cleverest sample is from Boz Skaggs's "Lowdown." At its best the album can suggest an entire soul-radio era: "When the Funk Swings" is Parliament via the Sound of Philadelphia with something like the Earth Wind and Fire horn section. It's got the deceptively utopian glow of nostalgia, but it glows with soul and warmth, too.

-- Douglas Wolk