Thursday, August 09, 2012

NEW RELEASES - BAMALOVESOUL, LES MCCANN, SYL JOHNSON

BAMALOVESOUL - ON DECK (VARIOUS ARTISTS)

A wonderful compilation put together by BamaLoveSoul – who are among the greatest champions of the best, deepest soul in the contemporary landscape! This diverse set is 10 strong with excellent underground soul, laidback instrumentals and otherwise solid sounds – all of which we're hearing for the first time – and we'd like to thank our friends down in 'Bama for that! On Deck has a global reach and a great ear for timeless, genuinely soulful music – whether it's done with subtle electronics, acoustic instrumentation or a bit of both. It's all good – which seems to be real impetus for inclusion here – that, and everyone on it deserves to bust out to a wider audience. Let's help make that happen! Includes "Lost In Memory" by Soia, "Fourteen" by Ta-Ku, "Underestimated" by Diggs Duke and ProbCause, "When The Time Is Right" by Byron The Aquarius, "Get On Through" by Mr Bird feat Greg Blackman, "Better" by Nicholas Ryan Gant, "BrookLon (BK Meets UK)" by Ahmed Sirour, "Be Felt" by Xolisa, "Run The Fantastic Race" by Tall Black Guy and "End Of The Universe" by Freddie Joachim. ~ Dusty Groove

LES MCCANN - COMMENT

A very hip record of vocal tracks – done in the same sort of spiritual soul style that Les introduced on Roberta Flack's first album, and which was also showing up on some of Donny Hathaway's work for Atlantic. While the record is not on of McCann's funkiest, it more than makes up for that with the well-conceived vocal performances – especially on the tracks that feature arrangements by William S Fischer. Titles include "What I Call Soul", "How Many Broken Wings", "Can't We Be Strangers Again", "Comment", and "Baby Baby". ~ Dusty Groove



SYL JOHNSON – TOTAL EXPLOSION

A wicked explosion from the legendary Syl Johnson – one of his smoking sets for Hi Records – done with solid soulful help from Willie Mitchell! Mitchell's familiar Memphis groove is firmly in place here – tightly compressed rhythms and horns, vamping perfectly for Syl's raw vocals – and the set also seems to feature Johnson smoking some grooves on harmonica too – but in a way that's still a lot more soul than blues! There's a few great funky moments on the set – a nice reminder of the Twinight years – and tracks include "I Only Have Love", "Take Me To The River", "Bustin Up Or Busin Out", "'Bout To Make Me Leave Home", "That's Just My Luck", "It Ain't Easy", "Steppin Out", and "Watch What You Do To Me". ~ Dusty Groove

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