Right off the bat I’m rating this with five summer sunset Venus planets in the western sky. Hating to use the overused adjective “eclectic”, it is nonetheless applicable because there is a musical selection here for many tastes. “A New Groove” [Putmayo PUT260-2] is worldly in that each track represents one of nine countries and portrays positivity to boot. At once this CD is appealing due to the luxuriously animated and cartoon-like cover art. It even includes an instruction booklet which has a description of each artist and song in English, French, and Spanish!
I have taken pains not to duplicate that inside guide as I now offer my own impressions which are in most cases validated by Putmayo’s own 411. This is what I call a “World” album. From the first dub-soca rhythms of Denmark’s Emo on “In the Back of the Car” you will bounce so smooth and expeditiously. Next, “Dirty Laundry” approaches like a spy movie theme, big band horns, strings and all, until and inspite of the sultry Shana Halligan who paints it a jazzy world of intrigue. This band is known as Bittersweet, and I love the lyric-hook, “what’s the fun in playing it safe/Ooh, I think I’d rather misbehave...” Obviously our double-oh agent is hitting on a femme fatale at the Laundromat!
This CD moves quickly from cut-to-cut, song after song; as in when time flies when you are having fun. The first time I played Gabriel Rios’ “Unrock”, I felt the creepin’ Latin beat, accented by a horny hook reminiscent of the NewYorican part of salsa jams. Sure enough, it turns out to be a Willie Colon trombone band sample! After all, Gabriel Rio is from “P.R.”
I’ve renamed the next and fourth track “the trumpet song”. The group is Australia’s Cat Empire, and its leader, Harry James Angus does justice to his namesake on this soon to be widely trumpeted afro-Cuban-with-reggae-highlights hairdo-style sureshot.
Next with a voice almost the texture of Phoebe Snow, is the UK’s Alice Russell, “High Up on the Hook”; a cute mid-point for this compilation. Stay with me, we are half-way home, and you won’t be disappointed!
Born of life-experience, we surely relate to track six, “Crabbuckit” from my man Knowledge of Self or “K-Os”, whose “Atlantis – Hymns For Disco” I recently commented on in this space. If you’ve ever worked at a place, and were great at the assigned task, only to have jealous co-workers try and drag you back down to their crabs-in-a-barrel mentality level, you know what K-Os means here. Creativity kudos from pop, hip-hop to reggae feel here, bro! He is all about it as is your reviewer – “free thought over conformity”.
Now tracks seven and eight are almost interchangeable, and I don’t mean to diminish them by saying that. You hear Swedish soulmate Linn & Freddie (Cruger/Red Astaire who I have also commented on recently in this space) on “L.I.N.N”, a tune complimented by lively vibe work that is at one point reminiscent of my friend Roy Ayers! She and the next Badu-biter on “The Hop”, the well-traveled Bajka with Radio Citizen’s Niko Schabel – the third of my former subjects here - typify what must be a fad of those across the pond that is born of the purest ‘nuff respect. Next, a deep bass pulse punctuated and solidifies “Everything” or as he sings the word, “everythinnn”. I dig the soft intentions, peaceful interlude, and his speaking accent on this Caribbean smugglers riff. It relaxes us, and is indicative of the composer, Jehro’s naming Marley as one of his heroes as expressed through the picky, picky Rasta guitar accents that mark his words.
Clearly the producers and conceptualizers of this effort achieved their laid-back goal as yet another Brit, Emiliana Torrini, gets off like a smooth operator, trip-hop/acid-style in collaboration with Washington, D.C’s Thievery Corporation to close the show “Until the Morning”.
