El Michels Affair make impeccably crafted cinematic instrumentals recreating the sound of late-Sixties and early-Seventies funk and soul.

Close your eyes, turn up the volume and you could be in a fleapit cinema watching a Blaxpolitation movie some time in the early Seventies.

Brooklyn band El Michels Affair is an instrumental ensemble whose cinematic sounds are rooted in vintage soul, jazz, funk, rocksteady and afrobeat.

They’ve made their name with hip-hop collaborations, making two album length tributes to the Wu-Tang Clan and collaborating with other rappers.

But they made their first appearance with the album Sounding Out The City, released in 2005, from which this is taken.

Using analog production techniques, Michels creates a near-perfect simulacrum of late-’60s/early-’70s deep funk, jazz-funk, and soul-jazz, right down to the dub-like lo-fi quality of the sound, as if it were recorded quickly in a cheap studio.

Its not just a hommage either; the tunes bear comparison to the influences behind it as well, ranging from the hard funk of debut single Detroit Twice and smooth soul of Behind The Blue Curtains and the Latin-influenced This Song’s For You and a cover of Isaac Hayes’s Hung Up On My Baby.

The band is led by organist/drummer Leon Michels, who started out at the age of 16 in The Mighty Imperials, a Brooklyn band inspired by The Meters, and went on to play with Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, before forming his own ensemble.

I highly recommend the whole of that debut album – and their Wu-Tang tributes – but this is my pick of the tracks from that debut. They’re really good live as well: check out Grateful, their collaboration with rapper Black Thought.