Thrust Too by Wilbur Niles

Thrust barely made a blip in the marketplace; it was mostly available around the Akron area. But Niles was undeterred. He returned the following year with the just-as-good Thrust Too, which is a touch more muscular, more precise — partly due to being recorded in a slightly upgraded studio meant for jingles.

What Thrust Too loses in atmosphere, it makes up for in deep grooves, like on “Hang Ten,” “Parrott City,” and “Machelle.” McNeal — the namesake of the latter — appears on the final track, “Survival of the Funkiest,” featuring rap-inflected vocals from the trio Coffee, Cream and Sugar.

While Thrust Too is sometimes lost in the conversation surrounding its predecessor, it’s just as worthy from a musical and collector’s — hence We Are Busy Bodies releasing both records together, to trace Niles’ early evolution. But in a sense, Niles was just clearing his throat — he’d go on to make more mature, sophisticated works, from Re-Entry to Lunar.

Thrust exists in that blurry, liminal space between jazz, funk, soul, and R&B.