Album Review: Late Night Tales presents Automatic Soul - Tom Findlay

Automatic Soul is billed as a companion piece to Late Night Tales' 2012 album Music For Pleasure, also mixed by (one half of Groove Armada) Tom Findlay. Where that album pulled together a fine collection of yacht rock this album is focused on the last great period of soul - 80s soul music that has had an injection of electricity... Drum machines, 808s, synths and keyboards prevail.

There are a few relatively well know tracks in here but there are also a slew of lesser known gems.  Mtume's Juicy Fruit opens and elsewhere we have a few other very recognisable numbers such Rene & Angela's I'll Be Good. There are also a number of tracks better known for what they have more recently inspired... Gloria Estafan backing vocalist Donna Allen's Serious is best known as the track sampled by Strike's U Sure Do, but it sounds far better here in full. Similarly Thelma Houston's You Used To Hold Me So Tight shatters another illusion from my former years - Richard X wasn't as original as I'd thought, and his collaboration with forgotten pop star Javine, You Used To, was really just a polished cover.

Speaking of polished covers... This being a Late Night Tales album Findlay has included his own cover, as Sugardaddy, his collaboration with Tim Hutton. Together they take on Dennis Edwards' Don't Look Any Further.

Much in the same way Music For Pleasure shined in the way it resurfaced and recontextualised forgotten gems, Automatic Soul does much the same. Change's Change Of Heart is an absolute classic example of exactly what made this form of electronic soul so great - snappy, inventive and catchy as hell. You Are In My System by The System does much the same, bumpy minimal electronic rhythms wedded to soulful vocals to create something utterly of the future when it first came out. Fonda Rae's Touch Me is utterly irresistible, the well known vocal hook of "Hold me baby, drive me crazy, touch me... all night long" sure to lodge itself deep into your head and heart.

Every bit as great as Music For Pleasure, Automatic Soul's only misstep is coming two months after summer ended. Get it, treasure it and remember to get it out next July.

Automatic Soul is out on 3 November through Late Night Tales, available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk on CD or LP [affiliate links].

Album Review: Late Night Tales Presents: Music For Pleasure - Tom Findlay

The Late Night Tales albums generally tend to be of a pretty high quality, as do compilations from Groove Armada. This one sees Late Night Tales team up once again after Groove Armada's lovely 2008 installment, albeit this time without half the duo... Music For Pleasure being just Tom Findlay and not Andy Cato.

If the subtitle didn't already give it away this is a little bit of a departure for the series. Music For Pleasure is more focused on laid back easy listening than the generally more twisted, tripped-out sound of Late Night Tales. Think a bit less lava lamps, passed round joints and hours spent watching the wallpaper move and a bit more pool lounging while the sun shines down on your ice cold margarita.

Each person's interpretation of 'music for pleasure' is probably a little different so we will have to see how much consistency this series has (if it even becomes a series). Findlay's take though is a mixture of laid back seventies soft rock, 80s MoR and yacht.

It's a difficult set to argue with because a listen is a pretty gorgeous trip through pastel colours, decadent good times and earnest emotion. The whole album is really soft and warm. Whilst Ambrosia's 'You're The Woman' opens things on a slow sunset falsetto heavy track it is Robert Palmer's steel drum and trumpet celebratory 'Every Kinda People' that really kicks things into touch.

Michael McDonald's 'I Keep Forgettin' upstages Warren G's 'Regulate' effortlessly (by which it was sampled), showing real gentlemen rock smooth. Similarly 'Baby Come Back' by the Player, last seen blasting out of Bumblebee in the Transformers movie, is pure soul and coke rock and roll, just perfect for a lie down with some Don Perignon and a little soft-focused fantasy about your ex.

Groove Armada have something of a flair for making mix albums of tracks with little mixing and a fairly subtle re-edit approach is employed here. It isn't quite as lovingly applied by Findlay as on the duo's Back To Mine set but it's good all the same and generally better than the fudged mixing you sometimes get on this sort of release.

We conclude with Tom Findlay's own Balearic re-edit of 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love' and to be fair, it's pretty Balearic - soft and dreamlike with an emphasised drop and a beautiful slight return. Music For Pleasure is a bit of a dream. My only concern is it is a bit too 'now' and I can't help but feel that it won't hold interest in the same way Findlay's other compilations with the full Armada have.

But who's for worrying about that? I'm going for another martini with a twist before the sun hits the Med.

Late Night Tales presents Music For Pleasure is released on 11 June, it's available for pre-order now on Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP & CD boxset [affiliate links].