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TRUS'ME
Working Nights (Fat City)
I'm sure you're all familiar with the rich musical history of Manchester, England and all of the cutting edge rock and electronic
artists that hail from that legendary town. Well, you can add up-and-coming house producer David Wolstencroft to that ever-growing
list of talented musicians that call Manchester home. The Mancs have always championed the house and techno sounds of Chicago
and Detroit, and artists like 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald and New Order have taken the arpeggiated acid sounds of the Midwest
and spun them into mainstream gold. Trus'me, however, takes his inspiration from the deep, organic house of Moodymann, Theo
Parrish and the digital soul of J. Dilla and Carl Craig. Working Nights is a collection of Trus'me's 12-inches from last year.
Here, they're presented as a layered, seamless journey, similar in scope to Moodymann's classic debut Silent Introduction.
Samples of Marvin Gaye, GQ and others are treated with live instrumentation and warm keyboards while movie dialogue snippets
are interwoven within the tracks. The centerpiece of this album is the epic 12-minute masterpiece "W.A.R." (my pick for single
of the year in '07). Built around a sample of a vintage Marvin Gaye interview and a live performance, the track builds into
a melancholic, deep house anthem, moving into dark Burial-like territory and then out again. Hands down the best electronic
record I've heard this year so far, and any fan of the aforementioned should pick this up immediately.
BROWNOUT
Homenaje (Freestyle)
Featuring members of Austin's highly-acclaimed, Latin funk collective Grupo Fantasma (who recently backed Prince and whose
horn section moonlights with Spoon), Brownout drops this killer debut! Pulling from NuYorican funk, Afrobeat and neo-soul,
every track's a winner, from their scorching cover of Manu Dibango's "African Battle" (think Incredible Bongo Band meets Fela!!)
to the laidback, psychedelic soul of "You Already Are."
DAVID AXELROD
Seriously Deep (Dusty Groove)
David Axelrod led the type of the career that most musicians would have killed to call their own. As a composer, arranger,
and producer, he worked with the likes of Lou Rawls, helped Cannonball Adderly achieve his crossover success of the late 1960s,
and helmed two of the Electric Prunes most bizarre (and rewarding) full-lengths, among many other notable achievements. His
productions and solo records have been excavated, absorbed, and sampled by folks ranging from Madlib and DJ Shadow to Dr.
Dre, while rock folks like Richard Ashcroft have long championed his work. Though records like Song of Innocence and Songs
of Experience have long since assumed their place in the canons of beat junkies and baroque funk heads alike, 1975s Seriously
Deep has remained one relatively unturned stone in his oeuvre.
Now, however, Chicago record store Dusty Groove has seen fit to resurrect the LP as a part of the fledgling label's reissue
program, bringing a welcome spotlight on its rare grooves. A bit more pared down than some of his other work, Seriously Deep's
six cuts go straight for the funk jazz jugular, pulling up the endless breaks of "1000 Rads" and its low-slung groove alongside
the synth and fuzz-guitar kissed "One." And while one would never be able to describe this disc as even remotely "stripped
down," there's still a relatively stark simplicity to tracks like "Reverie," with its foreboding ambience and haunted sense
of space, that make this another essential entry in David Axelrod's catalogue.
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