Foolishness and Mayhem are Your Friends

On the Style Network’s Clean House, Niecey Nash routinely scolds families for their “foolishness and mayhem” – code for house clutter on such a high, pathological order that the families really belong on A&E’s Hoarders. Rare soul obsessives the Numero Group aren’t that bad, but on their home page, they admit:

Numero has come to a space crossroads. Sometime around the middle of this year we noticed the warehouse was feeling a bit cramped. And by warehouse, we mean every single inch of office floor that isn’t occupied by a chair or a toilet. We already built new shelves, took out a lease on a storage unit, and reorganized the entire office, then 14 pallets of Light: On The South Side arrived and completely turned this place sideways. Hallways have gone from casual arteries to stomach-sucking traffic jams. The conference room is lined with LPs. Even the bathtub has boxes.

To alleviate the space crunch, they’re having a sale – details here – and there’s a lot worth having, starting at the brilliant Soul Messages from Dimona (psychedelic funk/soul gospel from Africa), and the various label/scene-oriented comps are snapshots of funhouse mirrors on R&B’s history, revealing the stars and sounds of their moments reflected in the regional singers who hoped to somehow match their success.