Review: This new album is Dowdelin's therapeutic best and one that delves into themes of depression, life's highs and lows and resilience. Along the way, it blends Caribbean rhythms with jazz, electronic music and percussive soul to make for an ever evolving and intriguing trip through moments of struggle and hope that mirror those in everyday life. Sung in Creole, French and English, each track weaves rich melodies with deep emotion and makes for a powerful exploration of mental well-being. Dowdelin's take on well crafted funk is where tradition meets modernity and the result is a sound that is both healing and invigorating.
Review: Some serious gospel-soul action here from one of the most storied gospel groups in history, the Clark Sisters. The album, which was co-produced by their mother, the legendary choir director Mattie Moss Clark, first landed in US record stores way back in 1980. It's a stunning album all told, with the sisters' incredible vocals rising above backing tracks marked out by interesting arrangements, changes of mood and tone, and plenty of authentic soul and jazz instrumentation. The superb title track and the infections 'Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)' - the latter the subject of a number of re-edits over the years - are the best-known cuts, but other highlights include 'Pure Gold', the epic 'Speak Lord' and 'Salvation Means More To Me'.
Review: Back in the mid-to-late noughties, musical polymath Bruno Hovart (Patchworks, Voilaaa, Mr President, Uptown Funk Empire etc) helmed a revivalist dub reggae band famed for delivering dusty cover versions of soul, pop and rock hits. Hovart is a dab hand at making anything he touches sound scarily authentic, and much of Version Excursions, the band's now reissued debut album, sounds like proper Jamaican rocksteady, roots and ska of the 1970s. It's a simple idea, brilliantly executed, with highlights including their covers of 'Seven Nation Army', the Rolling Stones' 'Miss You' (reimagined as a toaster-sporting disco-reggae jam), and Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love'.
Explanation Of The Funk (feat Dre King & DJ Stylus) (4:08)
Three-Season Crank (feat Raja Kassis) (6:11)
Slip 'n Slide (5:22)
Alligator Confrontation (5:09)
Off The Rails (5:57)
Pull My String (4:50)
Bleeps, Sweeps, & Creeps (2:30)
What Happened To Yesterday? (5:07)
Black Bird Dub (4:47)
Review: Glenn Echo & Daniel Meinecke won plenty of acclaim with their last outing What Happened To Yesterday?! and now they quickly back it up with a third outing on MotorCity Wine Recordings What Happened To Yesterday? Vol 2 is another blend of heady, dubby sounds with cosmic dance vibes that span serval sub-genres with ease. 'World In My Head' kicks off with lo-fi and low-key depths, and further downtempo tracks like 'Explanation of The Funk' with Dre King's trumpet and DJ Stylus's cuts, and 'Three-Season Crank' with Raja Kassis's guitar further sink you into blissed-out beats. The flip side has dancefloor-friendly jam 'Off The Rails,' then moves into dubby, meditative territory and ends with the gorgeous 'Black Bird Dub' which allows Echo's eclectic production and Meinecke's keyboard mastery to shine.
Review: Glenn Echo and Daniel Meineck are back on Detroit label MotorCity Wine with their first new music in two years following their well-received Partly Cloudy album. What Happened to Yesterday? is, we are told, the first of two albums from the pair that will arrive several months apart. It finds the pair get super hazy and dubby, with psychedelic charm swirling around their absorbing grooves next to subtle cues taken from the diverse likes of DJ Premier and King Jammy. There is a superb Moog-based cover of De La Soul's 'I Am I Be', Afro-Carribean disco in 'Dancehall of Grandeur' and epic jazz-rock on Volcano Sound' so dig in and prepare to be wowed.
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