This Is Book's Music

The new Foreign Exchange album is not a “Foreign Exchange” proper album, although it could very well be an extension of what Foreign Exchange have established over the years. While they’re calling it a remix album, +FE Music: The Reworks features not only FE songs but also tracks that various members of the +FE family have done, plus a few cameos from Phonte, a number of remixes from Nicolay, and more. I feel more artists should make a “resume album” this good and this deep.

On one hand, it’s a great way to hear new mixes of familiar material, so if you’re a fan of Foreign Exchange or Phonte’s solo album, you can hear new interpretations of what you like. If Phonte had a special guest spot in something, you may hear it here. While FE has been about the soul with touches of pop, he has a few rap verses on this, for those who still demand what he had offered with Little Brother. All of this makes the album quite good, but then it gets better.

If some feel that soul music in the United States went down the tubes in the last 15 years, one can argue that it has been European artists who have helped to keep it strong, if not alive, at a time when it could have laid itself to rest. I look at Nicolay’s remix of Deborah Bond’s “Say It” and it reminds me of something I would expect to hear on a 4Hero or Jazzanova album. As for 4Hero, he handles the remix to Zo!’s “Flight Of The Blackbyrd” and with Phonte’s sweet vocals helping out in the background, it feels like a project that was… I was going to say “made elsewhere” but perhaps a better phrase would be that it sounds like worldwide music, as if I might catch it in a hot club in Japan as I would somewhere in Germany or France. Nicolay’s remix of Vikter Duplaix’s “Electric Love” sounds like it has a few purple shades to it, with slight musical hints to Prince’s “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” or Vanity 6′s “Drive Me Wild”. Hear Duplaix’s vocals made me think “the only thing that would make this song better would be background vocals from Clara Hill.” Phonte’s tracks are all standouts, and hearing these new music will make you ponder on which is the better (or preferred) mix. He has one of the best voices out there, and it doesn’t matter if he keeps things mild mannered or breaks out, I like hearing what he does.

+FE Music: The Reworks is soul, it’s a club album, it’s electronic soul, it’s disco, it has the slow jams, and there’s more than enough tracks on here deserving of maximum exposure and airplay. This is a double album with close to two hours of music, and it has some grit to it, in that there’s substance to what I’m listening to. A part of it reminds me of the music I grew up listening to, but it also sounds like the music I found a liking to while exploring magazines that looked elsewhere for inspiration. What I could not find domestically, I had to hunt for and this sounds like a great accumulation of the many things one would love to hear in an album. It may very well be an assortment of songs but it’s put together as if it was a concert performance, a set list for a concert you would feel foolish in missing. Whatever Phonte and Nicolay plan on doing with the Exchange they have organized so far, it has been a very healthy union and one that I hope will continue for many years to come.

The two people on the cover of Sugarglider (Mint) are faceless, but Renny Wilson’s music is not, or at least should not be. His style of music is reminiscent of what was popular 30 to 35 years ago, handling a nice balanced mixture of soul, disco, and pop with much success. The entire album is mixed in a way where songs segue into the next, and when you’re in a nice dance groove, you (or at least I) tend to want to feel a bit more of that feeling. Then it turns into something else that might sound like good ol’ soft pop or yacht rock with the kind of charming verses and haunting choruses that make you want to remember every word in it and around it. The title track sounds like early 80′s synth pop, where it could be Thomas Dolby or Gary Numan but without some of the weirdness that their songs may have created the first time out. Then again, maybe their sounds aren’t so weird because it’s now part of the norm, and it has taken a few decades for people to catch up on the innovative techniques these two musicians provided. If so, Renny Wilson is someone who enjoys taking listeners (and himself) for a ride.

(Sugarglider is scheduled for release on January 22, 2013.)

Worldly sounds get into a dance motif courtesy of DJ Captain Planet, who honors this final day with “Quetzalcoatl Offering”. Get into and back with the Earth, so we can become one through sound.

Soul Train was about the celebration of the dance, of music, of the family vibe, of self, and of people. If you had to show off a new move or yourself, you’d do it on the dancefloor. This new remix of Rhye’s “The Fall” takes classic scenes from Soul Train and sequences it into a beaut.

Fuse TV’s series on Crate Diggers continues with one of the greats showing off his very healthy collection. If you’ve read the stories and interview, you know DJ Jazzy Jay goes deep but how deep? Real deep. Take a look.

What I like about this is that it sounds like the kind of adventurous music you could hear on a college radio station (that is, stations where the DJ actually chooses what (s)he plays) combine with elements of disco. I hear influences of Chic and the Andrea True Connection in here, not sure if that was the intention but it works for me. “The Fall” is the title track from Rhye’s forthcoming EP due out on October 6th via Innovative Leisure/Seven Four, so dance, groove, or fingerbob.

They’re hard at work creating a wealth of music, the best of which will become their debut album in 2013. Tune stayed.

Chrome Canyon is the man, but is Chrome Canyon the stan? It is uncertain at this point and juncture, but I will say that his remix of the Universal Robot Band’s “barely Breaking Even” is (add clever description here) of the highest order, but you don’t have to believe in me (in fact, you probably have no idea what I’m trying to say). The music is here for you to (figure out something yourself, I’m not going to come up with a description in between parentheses) and it’s a banger/danger/wanger/hanger/manger of a classic track that celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

As for Chrome Canyon himself, his Elemental Themes album is still set for release on October 9th by Stones Throw (the vinyl and CD pressings can be pre-ordered now via Amazon below). He has two shows in his immediate future:
October 5 Los Angeles, CA – Mount Analog (DJ set)
October 6 Los Angeles, CA – Eagle Rock Music Fest

Do you like to dance? Do you like to make romance? Do you “like chance”? Do you like ants? Do you enjoy Buddhist chants? Do you consider yourself fance? If you said yes to at least one of these, you may like this brand new remix by E-603 of Passion Pit’s “Seaweed Song”. You may very well go into the ocean, get some seaweed, dry it out and want to roll up a sushi when everything is ready to go. Then again, maybe not.

E-603? That’s the guy you see with cans of PBR being thrown to his head, but fortunately he can recycle them for change. Or go to emergency if they were unopened cans, but most likely not.

What was I saying? Oh yeah: do you like to wear pants?

Anyway, check out what E-603 did by streaming his Passion Pit remix.

The Los Angeles duo Kisses have a new album coming out very soon called Funny Heartbeat, and to get fans pumped up and ready for a brand new full-length effort, they’re passing this track out for all to hear. The song was produced by Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienna and Tim Larcombe.

As I was looking at the Kisses cover art by David Kitz, I realized it looked a lot like an ode to the 1975 album by the J. Geils Band, Ladies Invited, as drawn by Antonio. Have a look:

If you are a Kisses fan, they have two California shows coming up, including a to-be-announced Los Angeles show:
September 27… Los Angeles, CA (TBA)
October 5… Oakland, California (The Night Light [Oakland Art Murmur]

While AGFA have the word “funk” in their name, what they do isn’t just funk. The All Good Funk Alliance do play music that would be good (the term “all good” sucks so let’s stop using it as a means to try to sound hipper than you are), but it’s a bit more dance oriented than just all-out funk, but within their style of dance music is soul, electronic sounds, and a knack to simply create irresistible dancers.

Jacks Of All Trades (Fort Knox) sometimes off off like Chemical Brothers‘ less hectic cousins, caught up between what they were like between Dig Your Own Hole and Surrender. Nothing is as acid-tinged as the Chemicals, it’s more a natural high for fans of soul with the scent of hashish and burlap. This is music that edits the fat out and keeps it to what fans want to hear: the good parts of songs that keep you moving and strutting, and making that the core of what they’re about, playing “all” the “good” things that make you want to scratch your crotch and wipe it on the face of your potential buck fuddy. If this was 1977, this is what you would deem as future disco. Become the Felipe Rose you always wanted to be, slap those bells on your ankles, and stomp until the sun rises.