Mandrill - Mandrill Is

Mandrill - Mandrill Is is a new 180g vinyl edition of the Brooklyn group’s adventurous second album. Originally released by Polydor on 1 April 1972, the record was made at Electric Lady Studios during the winter of 1971–72 and found the seven-piece, led by brothers Carlos, Lou and Ric Wilson, sharpening the eclectic musical language introduced on their debut.

Funk provides the foundation, but Mandrill Is refuses to remain inside a single genre. A powerful horn section, layered percussion and deep bass grooves are joined by soul, jazz, rock, Latin rhythms, psychedelic colour and passages that move toward jazz-rock and progressive arrangement. Ape Is High and the horn-driven Git It All deliver some of the album’s most immediate funk, while Cohelo and Kofijahm emphasise the band’s engagement with Latin and wider Afro-diasporic rhythmic traditions.

Elsewhere, pieces such as Children of the Sun and Lord of the Golden Baboon stretch the group’s sound into more expansive territory. These tracks reveal a band as interested in atmosphere, arrangement and instrumental conversation as in straightforward dancefloor impact. That breadth is central to Mandrill’s identity: rather than treating funk, soul, jazz and rock as separate categories, the musicians allow them to overlap continuously.

The result is an important early peak in Mandrill’s catalogue, more focused than the debut while retaining the curiosity and unpredictability that made the group distinctive. This Vampisoul reissue is pressed on 180g vinyl and contains the complete eleven-track album, from “Ape Is High” through “The Sun Must Go Down”.