I would say that this is the best-produced album I've heard all year. What
appeared to be mellow, quasi-new age stuff turns out to be long intros to
what's yet to come. There's so many production-wise twists and turns:
Reverbs get clevely cut off at certain points, other ingeneious use of
effects and samples, etc. There's also some very Portishead-esque quirks
here. Fans of P would definitely dig this album, especially "Arabesque".
This album is also extremely bass-heavy; I usually turn on my CD player's
bass booster, but I had to turn it off for this one!
I learned that Sweetback is really a "complilation" of recording tracks by
Andrew Hale and by Stuart Matthewman, with Paul Denman doing bass duties
on certain songs. One of them (Matthewman I think) has been releasing
12"s that have been pretty successful in the club circles under a couple
of aliases in the past couple of years.
Only occasionally are all three featured on a track.
They're also scattered around the world; one lives in London, one in New
York, one in Los Angeles (I heard Paul Denman (one of my bassist heroes)
and his wife own a clothing store caled "Goddess" on Beverly Blvd.)
I agree with the listee who gave props to Amel Larrieux sounding better
here than on Groove Theory. The Maxwell track in addition is extremely
powerful. The Bahamadia track is cool, but it does *not* do her justice.
They probably would have been better off if, say, Tricky did the rap on
that tune. (If you wanna hear Bahamadia go off, listen to her guest track
on Guru's "Jazzmatazz II" album!!!)
I don't know whether it's coincidence or not that some of the jazz-derived
pop acts of the '80s have been getting more into the progressive dance
music scene (i.e. see EBTG), but it was probably coming anyway. One can
only hope that Sade's next album will be something Really Big.
So call it soulful dub, call it trip-hop without the pretense - it's just
Sweetback.
Elson
-30-
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Elson Trinidad, Los Angeles, CA * elson@westworld.com
http://www.westworld.com/~elson
"Pobody's Nerfect."
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