All of I-Level, as an album, sounds remarkably prophetic in that respect, but it's also very much a record of its actual time. In recent years, Britfunk, being an ever resilient creature, had initiated a more explicit dialogue with American synth-funk and boogie than had been the case when Incognito or Beggar & Co. were still unassailable. A turning point may be Imagination's sterner productions or Central Line and Junior having some of their songs remixed for the American market and becoming briefly part of the fabric in underground New York, but by 1983 I-Level were an attractable proposition, a London trio whose funk would be as relevant at home as it would on American black radio. Their sound is a supple thing of space and pace; rather than the often vigorous, Lacy Lady tempos of Linx, Light of the World and other groups who got their start in the Ensign/Elite/etc days, I-Level sound like they've responded primarily to the recent ripples of "Forget Me Nots" or "A Night to Remember". They're never as frenetic.
Which only makes sense, as it's not 1980 anymore. But consider the histories of the players themselves; Duncan Bridgeman and Joe Dworniak had briefly recorded together as Shake Shake!, who released a much subdued punk-funk single with the same name for Tot Taylor's label in 1981, while Sam Jones had been a member of Brimstone, a roots reggae outfit who recorded for Grove Music and Lark and regularly played with Aswad. In other words, all three members bring spacious pedigree and this seems to particularly play out on their penchant for dub spaces; "Shake Shake!", for instance, has atonal synths echoing into its every backdropped leeway, while Brimstone's "Final Judgement" from 1978 is already heavy and bass-centric enough before the "Final Dub" on the flip, where incomplete vocals melt through in much the same timbre as on "Ire Feelings (Skenga)".
I-Level signed to Virgin, whose hitherto only Britfunk release was Hudson People's 1979 side "Boogie on Downtown", and their 1982 debut "Give Me", while making no showing at home, was a hit on the US R&B and Dance charts. The domestic 12" lays their inaugural template down; Sam's romantic odes to living the moment, orange nebulas of synthesiser, undemanding but undeniable slap bass and crisp electronic drums, components which together flow in and out of the subtle, glistening dancefloor fantasies they conjure together. The bleeping melody foresees Beck's "Dreams" by decades and even though the US mix by John Luongo is named a 'dub version' it's intriguing to hear how near-identical and full-blooded both mixes are. Finally a band of their kind barely needed to change to survive the Atlantic crossing. Plus, with only a few more minor alterations to the song you'll arrive at Sandy Kerr's disco sierra "Thug Rock", which samples it liberally (nay, swallows it undigested). Not that Britfunk needed Stateside approval, but it was a big deal when "Mama Used to Say" or "Walking Into Sunshine" blew up there, and so it would have been with "Give Me", a pat of confidence that if American discos like this stuff in its raw state you must be damn good.
Not that there was any guarantee of sustaining, or topping, this peak. They only had one more American club success and back home they sadly never managed a proper hit, etching the charts numerous times but never splintering the Top 40, while the album itself bottomed out at number 50; attention would ultimately shift to their likeminded peers Loose Ends, who cruelly enough were also on Virgin. Had more fans of "Give Me" being paying attention they would have found the remaining songs on I-Level expand on its lush proposals on how to move British funk forward, with "Give Me" and its dubwise flumes being the overall text. Beyond that song, the album open-mindedly absorbs all manner of other signals into the smooth funk surface – fluid bass fills, pocketed horns, concise beats that practically foresee house on the horizon, Jones' mature but undisciplined soul – and it's all set to songs that whether of infatuation ("Treacle", "Teacher") or contentment ("Minefield", "Music") all, as mentioned, take place in the here and now and seize what there is before it slips away. Appropriate enough, given I-Level's short lifespan.
"Minefield", second single and opening song, plants its flag after-hours in a Harlem club and its non-sequitur imagery is so jumbled that for all we know he might be proposing that we dance in an actual minefield. But the music, at once nimble and busy, is far from blurry or incendiary. Jones keeps his singing fluent and sophisticate while bass figures provide ladders for interlocking horns to leap frog each other while the beat goes on and on. The components in "Treacle" individually stop and start, providing understated animation in a steady song. The snapped-up "Stone Heart", an almost abstract assemblage of electro-disco, freestyle and even Japan over which an echoing Sam sings disproportionate shapes, calls to mind no-one as much as the Arthur Russell of Calling Out of Context (the vocal similarity is again there). It unexpectedly restarts mid-way through with a spare interlude of drum machine patterns over which a parade of sound effects and vocal snatches freely come and go as unresolved as they please. The cohesion that still emerges from the songs' quite unlikely structures is an accreditable point that isn't lost on me.
Later on, the great capaciousness of "No. 4" conceals the song's almost rock-like dynamics (clock the guitar figures that pass distantly in the background alongside – how's this for the album's sponge-like existence in the pop of 1983 – occasional Horn orchestral stabs). At least from the outside "Teacher" looks like it'll be the sort of clean-escape childhood fable that Linx, Junior and later Level 42 were no strangers to, and not a quaintly racy song uncomfortably wrapped in of-its-time teacher-student metaphors ("teacher can you teach me everything I need to know...") But although blatantly the album's least convincing track it's still a discursive enough retread of "Minefield", unusually timed harmonies n' all, and keeps the seat warm for the ensuing love song to music's comforting and healing powers. There's nothing specific in "Music", rather it, in perhaps classicist disco spirit, uses its lyric as a blank canvas to go about moving in one direction and suchlike. The closing "Face Again" is not so much a delve into lovers' rock, although it comes closer than other songs, but an elemental, dub-steady jazz-funk that reminds me of I-Level's adjacency to Sade (play back-to-back with "I Will Be Your Friend") and how this period of British pop ultimately has so many puzzle pieces that not many people get directed to try and fit.
But two songs I have kept back, from side one, stand as the album's most obvious and inclusive sideways glances to other worlds. "Heart Aglow" is a gorgeously skewed ambient excursion that is gently laced with surprising cuicas. It is largely weightless but for stray beats darting into the steam, before daring to come together in the second half only to simmer on the surface as momentary fireworks of horn and strings randomly ignite and evaporate; I am reminded of the unlikely blend of instrumentation afforded a song like Linx's "Intuition", but overall this sounds more like a kindred spirit to, say, "Sunshower" by Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, another aqueous, leftfield slide into the lazy summer. The ocean waves, remote island tenor and Style Council-bordering piano on "Woman" are hardly subtle, but combining these accents with almost obtrusive drum programming, which is playing at some odd angle, and you've got a would-be Balearic classic ahead of time. The etherealness of these songs are in their own way as woozy and unstraightforward as anything 4AD were putting out.
I-Level, despite fitting the tapestry as neatly as anything, despite being an engaging and inspiring dance record, and despite its numerous glances to both the wider present and the future, has sadly never been re-released (and seemingly Virgin UK's only since acknowledgement of its music was the American remix of "Give Me" appearing on their excellent Methods of Dance 1973-87 collection, while the seven-inches of both that and "Minefield" have resurfaced on Britfunk compilations from Old Gold and The Hit Label). After a further album that did even less business, 1985's Shake, the three members all went off in their own orbits (with Duncan Bridgeman notably to become a member of 1 Giant Leap in years to come; fill in the gaps yourself) and that was that. Still, if it has to sit pretty in some lost corner of the 1980s, it seems pretty assured of its own quality anyway. Why else the statuesque "i" on the sleeve (not even A.R. Kane did that), so huge it has life growing atop it? Quite a good metaphor, I think.
