Calypso King & the Soul Investigators

Consider the rhythm and blues instrumental. Its utilitarian nature—solid timekeeping on the drums, expansive liquidity on the bass, tightly strung chicken-scratch riffs on the guitar, preferably a Telecaster, and incandescent organ lines that curl like your pubic hair—may make for a rigidly defined format, but in the proper hands, the result is a recipe for some serious buttshaking. If you’re at all aroused by Josie-era Meters, Booker T & the M.G.’s and their tight ilk, and don’t mind a needle-in-the-red recording that sounds like a crappy Atlantic/Atco pressing circa ’67, dig these 12 prime cuts. What’s coolest is that this quartet ain’t from New Orleans or Memphis; it’s from Helsinki, as in Finland, as in how did a bunch of Scandinavians hunker down with whatever the reindeer-and-pivo equivalent of a mess of barbecue and a fridge full of malt 40s is and get this butt-crackin’ squinky? Ti-ight!