For nigh on 15 years, London’s Steven Julien (Funkineven) and Detroit’s Kyle Hall have been sowing wild club oats in the grooves between deep house, electro-funk and jazz with a mutual sense of machine soul, as defined in their pair of FunkinEvil aces circa 2012-13. A decade later they reprise the vibe on ‘Crown’; five tracks that ooze with a luxurious, detailed finesse as testament to lessons learned and absorbed over the interim. It’s a triumph of late night steez, remerging well worn influences with a classic yet refreshed style and heightened sensuality.

The man known as DJ Escrow, a member of Dean Blunt’s Babyfather, James Massiah helps locate the record in Afro-futurist fantasy zones with a poetic vocal on the sci-fi-scoped opener ‘Page 1’, setting up Julien & Hall to shear between the debonaire jazz-funk chops and rawly sophisticated break chopping on ‘Page 2’, while syncing crafty Linn drum triplet with velvet-clad bassline torque on ‘Page 3’. However, they properly come into their own on the 8 minute space funk excursion ‘Page 4’, and a spot of beat-less midi synth-jazz ‘Page 5’ going like the saxy soundtrack to an ‘80s romance scene starring Eddie Murphy.

The remixers are equally on-point, with West Coast hero Dâm-Funk dialling up the inherent ‘80s Prince greaze of ‘Page 3’ with added P-Funky bounce to the ounce, beside a rare showing by Atlanta/Detroit one-off Reggie Dokes, doing his SciFonk thing to ‘Page 5’. In the words of Julien, “I think a lot of people have forgotten about what this whole thing is about. Musically, artistry and everything. So I’m happy this is what we represent on this project.”