Various Artists (Numero Group) - Eccentric Soul: The Bandit Label - 3x Vinyl LPs

The Bandit Records legend could almost be fiction. The house passing as a home, the harem passing as a family, the rising star brutally murdered in his prime, the dream, the con: The end. Arrow Brown inhabited the same south-side Chicago landscape as Afro-Noir author Iceberg Slim's ghetto characters, taking inspiration from the same sources that shaded Airtight Willie, White Folks, and Blue Howard. Drawn to the underground and fancying himself a rogue entrepreneur, Brown and his Bandit label operated somewhere in the space between money laundering outfit and sex cult. Brown poured proceeds from straight jobs held by his many "daughters" into sumptuously rendered, forward-looking soul records by the egotistically named Arrows and the Majestic Arrows, as well his seven-year-old son Altyrone Deno Brown, whose father hoped to push to Jackson-style child-fame heights. Putting beauty and genius in front of commercial viability, Arrow laid down lush, sweeping strings to lure the listener into a hipster fantasy world, sharply incongruent with the sometimes-criminal reality of the city that dreamt it. Our triple-LP unabridged edition brings 40 tracks to the CD's 20, and the 14,000-word accompanying book, crackling with odd and dazzling imagery, makes our original notes read like a Babysitter's Club entry. In 2005, novelist and essayist Jonathan Lethem called the entirety of the Bandit Records tale "Haunting... haunted... Like a little novel." In its darker corners, Eccentric Soul: The Bandit Label may more closely resemble true crime.

TracksCredits
- Disc 1 -
1 We Have Love - Arrows
2 The Love I See Now - Arrows
3 Boogedy Boogedy - Arrows
4 Bring Back the One I Love - Arrows
5 You've Got to Crawl to Me - Johnny Davis
6 My Heart Will Never Lie - Sandy Cleveland
7 We Love Together - Sandy Cleveland
8 You're a Habit Hard to Break - Linda Ballentine
9 Glad About That - Linda Ballentine
10 Sweet Pea - Altyrone Deno Brown
11 If You Love Me - Altyrone Deno Brown
12 Lift This Hurt - the Chosen Few
13 You've Been Unfair - the Chosen Few
14 Ghetto King - Hassan
- Disc 2 -
1 One More Time Around - Majestic Arrows
2 Love Is All I Need - Majestic Arrows
3 Doing It for Us - Majestic Arrows
4 Going to Make a Time Machine - Majestic Arrows
5 Ladies and Wonderful Girls - Majestic Arrows
6 I'll Never Cry for Another Boy - Majestic Arrows
7 We Love Together - Majestic Arrows
8 Another Day - Majestic Arrows
9 The Magic of Your Love - Majestic Arrows
10 Going to Make a Time Machine (Instrumental) - Majestic Arrows
- Disc 3 -
1 Poon Tang Thump - M.A.S.O
2 I Will Find You - Altyrone Deno Brown
3 The Eclipse of Love - Altyrone Deno Brown
4 Don't Let Them Tell You - Wind
5 People - Wind
6 One More Time Around - Majestic Arrows
7 Love Is All I Need - Majestic Arrows
8 If I Had a Little Love - Majestic Arrows
9 Make Yourself Over - Majestic Arrows
10 I'll Never Cry for Another Boy - Majestic Arrows
11 Thought I Was a Playboy - Altyrone Deno Brown
12 Come Back Home - Darnell Jones