By GRAHAM REID
The gloss has gone off summer holidays and that period between pre-Christmas drinks and Waitangi Day is a receding memory. It's back to work - even for record companies.
New releases are rare over summer but things are kicking in again. So this column is part mopping-up operation and part new or recent releases, most from trip-hop ambient territory. A terrific new one first up:
The Blue States' Nothing Changes Under the Sun (ESL/Border) * * * * *
This will effortlessly seduce anyone wanting to join the dots between Massive Attack, Groove Armada and Air's Moon Safari. With lush and woozy cinematic soundscapes, flickers of smooth soul grooves, a touch of Ennio Morricone spaghetti-western in Zorba-land (Elios Therepia) and some energetic wah-wah guitar toward the end, this debut outing for British/Greek studio maestro Andy Dragazis (aka Blue States) is a gem.
Your Girl sounds like a late-night hit, all coiling and seductively whispered vocals, so if ambience-into-insidiousness is your thing then this is the year's first essential album. It suggests rather than states, but a sunsoaked, downbeat mood prevails.
East West Connection * * *
This band comprises of British DJ/radiojock Bob Jones, former Brand New Heavy Neil Cowley, and someone named Lofty, who call on musicians who have done the job with Galliano, Terry Callier, Down to the Bone and other heavy hitters in the urban jazz-funk underworld.
Their The More I Get ... (Creative Vibes/Border) references 70s disco-soul in a reworking of Sergio Mendez' Love Music. The bellbottom handclap of the Teddy Pedergrass title track heads down the percussion and flute direction (East West), and has suggestions of Afro-funk lite and lounge. Uneven and aimless around the saggy middle but pleasant enough, it's probably best enjoyed by those who weren't there for 70s jazz-fusion funk the first time. Best tracks: Cowley's keyboard jazzisms on Son and Two Worlds, the soft shuffle-funk of Rollin', and Surgical Spirit.
Down to the Bone * * * *
Another British groove collective (Chris Morgan and Stuart Wade) who call up live musicians when the mood takes them. Last year this column extolled the NYC funk'n'bump approach on their The Urban Groove which included keyboard player Cowley from East West Connection.
Their new Spread the Word (Internal Bass/Border) mines an equally pleasurable and similar vein of bass-conscious acid jazz and 70s funk-lite. Saxophonist Schiltz Weimar (Brand New Heavies) and keyboardist Neil Angilley elevate most of these urban soul-jazz grooves.
Without wishing to appear repetitive, as we said about that previous release, "a repeat play item, no question."
Stereo Deluxe * * *
This label got a favourable column here recently for its nu-lounge and chill-out ambient stuff, notably the Coming Home and Bassic Instinct II compilations.
Stereo Deluxe's Ascension-Dimension: Second Edition is a diverse collection which includes deliciously lovely lightweight drum'n'bass ambience (Lacarno and Burn's Rivers) alongside Sepia's minimalist percussion and piano jazz groove (Eau de Vie), the string-soaked Woody Green by Marc Brown, and some natty dub styles from the Funky Lowlifes (notably on Dub Pan Sounds).
Locally, Mark de Clive Lowe's Better Days Dub and Dubhead's especially excellent Dub Racer fit in seamlessly on a double disc which a little too often is long on slow danceability but a bit short-changed in the "memorable" category.
Big Youth * * * * *
A classic reissue. Big Youth was referred to as "the Human Gleaner" in the 70s, a reference to the Kingston newspaper and Youth's DJ trumpeting of ghetto life and the political shenanigans in Jamaica.
While U-Roy and his disciples advanced a style of toasting (verbalising over reggae riddums) which rode the rhythms, Youth arrived with punctuating shouts and soulful screams, hefty grunts and joyous whoops.
By the mid-70s he was a star, had engaged in vinyl showdowns with U-Roy (admittedly fairly polite ones), and then signed to Virgin which all but finished his career when they wouldn't release his stuff.
Youth is still active but the 70s was his decade and a beautifully packaged three-CD set Natty Universal Dread (Blood and Fire/Chant) lovingly collects over 50 of his seminal tracks with a comprehensive biography (a lovely photo of Youth with a fresh-faced fan by name of Johnny Rotten) and good explanatory notes. Tracks include his U-Roy showdowns, Love and Happiness with Leroy Smart, Every Nigger is a Star with Marley's I-Threes and much more.
Big Youth sang of ghetto life with a lack of self-pity, preached fire and punishment for those possessed of wickedness, and pointed to Rastafari as the path to redemption. But he wasn't above reconfiguring the Archies' Sugar Sugar. Proof that music was without frontiers, aside from those prescribed by reggae rhythms, for Big Youth.
<i>Elsewhere: </i> Meanwhile, back in the office
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