It’s hard for a music to be created that translates to times that haven’t occurred. And I can’t say that I feel that Mandre has faired well in this transition. But being touted as an integral part of Black Rock – while I don’t think that’s a real genre – Mandre, aka Andre Lewis, has impacted a number of different kinds of music. Even before releasing tunes under his own name or pseudonym, though, Lewis played with everyone from Grant Green to the Who. He toured Europe with Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and solidified relationships with players on that side of the Atlantic. But the composer, singer and keyboard player may me most remembered for inadvertently impacting the way hip hop is produced.

After supporting a vast many groups and putting in time with Frank Zappa, Lewis earned the opportunity to front Maxayn, which eventually turned into the spacier Mandre. Just from taking a look at the cover, it’s pretty obvious that what was devised for the release was beyond the normal scope of funk and soul. Of course, George Clinton was and is tripped out and Sun Ra already proclaimed to be from another planet by this point, but we all knew what those guys looked like. Lewis, though, attempted to obscure his physical appearance to further his storyline about being an alien. I guess it didn’t work out completely, I know who he is. But on this disc, released by Motown in 1976, Lewis apparently was the first to record using the 808 – a drum machine that’s not only still used currently all this time later, but even named checked by Kanye on his last album.

Regardless of the electronic drumming implications of the recording, the music can – at some points at least – be figured to push beyond what was going on even in Clinton and Sly Stone camps by this point. With the reliance upon his new found friend, the synthesizer, Lewis was able to layer ethereal sounds atop of his already easy going and sometimes languid funk backing tracks. Granted, for the most part, not too much comes close to funk classics from the decade, but in addition to the Zappa cover on here, a few moments do bear re-examinations.

The interlude that closes side one of the album doesn’t sport a beat, but in its emptiness, the track creates a mood that persists through the rest of the disc. This moment isn’t necessarily representative of the rest of the music here, but it is an adept compositional moment – and one that’s ripe for sampling. A bit further along, Mandre or Lewis or whoever he is, gives listeners “Third World Calling,” which could easily be considered one of the more traditional moments on the disc even with the utilization of the synthesizer. But even this six minutes of future funk can’t save the disc from its mediocrity.

So while, Jurassic 5 saw fit to sample portions of this album, it’s probably not the most listenable album to come out of the ‘70s funk scene – futuristic or not.