You’ve got to love Rush Hour.

Having brought us some of 2009’s most valuable reissues – including retrospectives of Daniel Wang’s Balihu Records and Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir’s Frictional – they show no signs of slackening the pace in 2010. As well as the imminent Virgo re-press, the Amsterdam-based label will soon release Mandré 4, the lost 1980 album by Michael Andrew Lewis AKA Mandré.

Lewis was part of the funk group Maxayn, which released several classic records for Capricorn Records in the early 70s. When that group disbanded, Andre signed to Motown and developed the sound and persona of Mandré. Cultivating a unique, electronics-augmented space-disco sound, Mandré was promoted by Motown as a “mystery man from outer space” who was “funkier than Parliament”. Oh, and he was hiding his face behind a big-visored robot mask long before Daft Punk had the same idea.

He released three albums for Motown, Mandré, Mandré Two and M3000, but until now his little-known fourth full-length has been largely the stuff of dance music folklore, heard by few, and what few copies of it that exist changing hands for hundreds of pounds on eBay. We’ll let Rush Hour tell you more:

“The elusive Mandré 4 finally sees a proper release. After his three albums notorious for Motown, Mandré released his fourth record privately in the Bay Area on his privately run Future Groove label. The story goes that just after the album was shipped, most of the stock was accidentally destroyed in the warehouse.

Only a few copies made it to the local stores, thus making this one of the most rare 80s fusion/funk albums. Most fans don’t even know that this album exists.”

The music won’t be to everyone’s taste, but tracks like ‘Rain’ and ‘Fantasy’ are hard not to love – check out some clips here. Rush Hour will present Mandré 4 in its original form – clear vinyl, clear PVC sleeve – in a limited vinyl edition, and digitally.

The exact release date of the reissue is as yet unknown, but we expect it to arrive some time in the next two months.

Tracklist:
1. Rain
2. Isle De Joie
3. Fantasy
4. Magic Woman
5. I’m On Your Frequency
6. You’re Freaky Girl
7. Freaky Freaky Land of Freakiness
8. Freaky Feeling