Kashmere Stage Band: "Zero Point"

No words.  Sound and fury.  All descriptions fall short.  This rarer-than rare LP defies categorization, and to know that it was made by a bunch of high school students is simply absurd.  How does one ever go about making music like this, and when they’re a teenager no less?  Yes, it’s funk, and jazz, and soul.  There are of course blueprints being followed here, considering that many of the tunes are covers.  Yet where said blueprints might amount to a faded carbon copy in lesser hands, here they transcend their origins to become something else completely.  This version of “Scorpio” holds the rare distinction of possibly besting Dennis Coffey’s original, and the break on it is untouchable.  Then there’s “All Praises,” a band original and maybe the best song I’ve ever heard, complete with another killer break.  So yeah.  This is heat you’ll burn your hands on.