Album Review: Funky Highlife - C.K. Mann & His Carousel 7

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Funky Highlife - C.K. Mann & His Carousel 7

C.K. Mann first rose to fame I'm the early 60s playing guitars in Ghana with Moses Kweku Oppong I'm the Kakaikus Guitar Band before moving to lead the band Ocean's Strings until 1966. Funky Highlife is the latest re-release in Mr Bongo's never ending pursuit of gems from the past, coming as part of the Classic African Recordings Series. 

Funky Highlife was originally released through the Essiebons label but according to the manager of that label, Dick Essilfe Bondzie, the album never reached the audience it could have due to an economic downturn in Ghana which subsequently lead to a lack of vinyl for vinyl factories. Bad times.

African music has often influence mainstream music, with regular growths in popularity and influence over the past few decades. Whether the post punk experimentations of the early 80s or the influence on hip-hop and soul in the late 90s or the subsequent re-influence on noughties indie via post punks revival. Funky Highlife is a fusion of African sounds, Latin American music & style and soul.

This re-release comes in two flavours - the original on vinyl, which features two extended medleys, and an extended CD with and extra 40-minutes of music across eight songs. It's hard to deny that this sounds richer, more authentic and ultimately better on LP, and since the vinyl release also includes a download code it is clearly the version to get.

The actual music is hard not to love - laid back Highlife fused to Latin-jazz elements and soul. The 'Asafo Beesuon' medley is gently strummed and hummed, an infectious and joyful patter. Melodies are plucked out in a relaxed way and the music and vocals create a laid-back mood. 'Beebi A Odo Wo' is a little less horizontal, a snappy and soulful track with sharper rhythms, jazz-influenced guitar and some well timed brass.

Highlife is a style of music originating in Ghana influenced by jazz, with horns and layered guitars commonly featuring. These days it's perhaps a little less common to hear it called out than Afrobeat, Nigeria's equivalent - and it lacks the kind of attention that Fela Kuti's success brought to the latter. It has still had periods of larger success as a genre though, rising to popularity in the in the 60s.

Funky Highlife, either in its original or extended forms, is music to embrace and cherish, to chase the blues and cloud away. It comes together to make something bigger than any individual moment - instead its a record to leave to unfurl whilst business of life goes on around you.

Funky Highlife is out now on Mr Bongo, available from Amazon.co.uk on LP or MP3 [affiliate links]. You can preview the album in Soundcloud below:

Album Review: The Incline Of Western Salivation Pt III - Alixander III

The Alixander III behind this release would actually be Alphonse Alixander Lanza III, who is almost certainly better known to you as the III in disco-house outfit Azari & III. The Incline Of Western Salivation Pt III is his first full length debut release and it kicks pretty much everything from his other outfit at the door.

Some facts about The Incline:

• It's long, although nowhere near as long as the press release suggests - 92 minutes in comparison to the claimed "almost 2 hours". Maybe it just felt that long. I'm pretty sure it did.

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The Incline Of Western Salivation Pt III - Alixander III

• The album is almost entirely vocal-free and if you come in expecting anything like the pop-dance tracks of Azari & III you'll find yourself a long way from Kansas. Toto. This is deep, dark, trippy techno and tech-house.

• At its best The Incline feels like an abandonment of inhibition, and that seems very much to be the ambition of its creator. 'Donuts' is psychedelic, intense and intimate - a tight, sweaty mess of electronic squelches and out-of-phase melodies.

• This album seems to signify a growing interest in minimal techno and electronic music. Minimal was frequently tipped for the big time (there's an oxymoron) back in the mid-noughties but it never really caught-on. I'm still not convinced it will - it just doesn't have the potential for mainstream cross-over that almost ever other genre does, by definition not much happens. That doesn't seem to deter the number of producers churning it out - in turns of output alone minimal electronic music only seems to be growing.

• Ultimately some of this is good, but a lot of it feels pointless. Dress it up as "challenging" if you want, I just don't buy it. I've listened to and covered plenty of minimal, techno and IDM over the years and it only really becomes anything more than drug music when you start to actually do something with it. Jaar skirts around jazz and soul, Stott slows it the fuck down and fills it with paranoia, Villalobos does everything he possibly can to it.

The Incline Of Western Salivation Pt III cares about me about as much as a three-year-old on Ribena and the old-style, artificially-coloured blue smarties. Stop beating me round the head and let me learn to give a shit. For every five minutes of interesting production work, texture and melody here there are another fifteen that just might make you view the pains of tinnitus in a whole new light. 

In conclusion:

• 90-minutes is too much.

• Ending on a 23-minute track is too much.

• 90-minutes is too much.

• Maybe I'm getting too old for this.

The Incline Of Western Salivation Pt III out on 7 December, available to pre-order on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].

Album Review: They Shall Inherit - Menagerie

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They Shall Inherit - Menagerie

Tru Thoughts' latest album release comes from the prolific Australian producer and songwriter Lance Ferguson. He's best known for his work as Lanu and within the Bamboos but here he turns his hand to spiritual jazz. 

And it's the best thing he's ever done.

I used to be pretty into the nu-soul movement ten years ago whilst I was still at university - The Roots and the artists in ?uestlove's Okayplayer collective... Jill Scott and Erykah Badu all spent a lot of time in my minidisc player and D'Angelo's Voodoo remains the pinnacle of that sound in my eyes.

Ferguson takes us right back there, but not in a retrograde fashion. This sounds timeless and more real than much caught with the nu-soul label, D'Angelo aside - this sounds more modern and achingly old at once. As the appropriately monikored Menagerie, Ferguson plots an exploration of music and mood on They Shall Inherit. Just the opening title track feels big enough to be an album in itself, with it's looping, gradually evolving structure and dramatic spoken-word bridge. It's essentially jazz, with the Coltrane-inspired sax work to prove it, but this is warm and soulful enough to feel approachable despite its 12-minute duration.

The generosity demonstrated in the track-lengths on They Shall Inherit is thankfully balanced with remarkable restraint in their number - the album clocks in at 45-minutes over six tracks. Following that epic opening is the funkadelic bass of 'The Chosen', with vocals that form the music instead of dominate or direct it. This was a key aim of the project - to encompass the various parts (the Menagerie) equally as opposed to under the constraint of a more traditional band structure, with the exception of Fallon Williams' forthright and righteous vocals on 'The Quietening' the approach holds true

It's all glorious. 'Jamahlia' rides on speedy but gently brushed drums and loose, playful if again fast Thelonious Monk-esque piano playing. Roy Ayers himself provides a star-turn delivering his trademark vibes on 'Leroy And The Lion', which even plays with some jazz-guitar to great effect.

The only possible problem with this album is that all of Fergusson's other work pales in comparison. This is the real, starry-eyed deal - turn up the music and turn down the lights.

They Shall Inherit is released on 10 December through Tru Thoughts, available to pre-order on CD and CD & Vinyl box set on Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links]. Preview 'Leroy And The Lion' below:

Album Review: Frankie Said - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

In a spot of suspiciously useful timing Frankie Goes To Hollywood have just released a new greatest hits compilation in the form of this, Frankie Said. Vintage Christmas number one 'The Power Of Love' takes its position front and centre, just as John Lewis base their latest (predictably massive) Christmas TV ad campaign on a cover version of the same song by singer Gabrielle Aplin.

Frankie Said features a lot of the usual suspects - their first three singles, all of which were UK number ones, actually all feature twice in different guises. And those three singles feel just as fresh now as they ever did. Released as they were through Trevor Horn's ZTT label the focus on production, heavy bass sound and plenty of high-end survives remarkably well, a postcard from a time when hi-fi was something to really aspire to.

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Frankie Said - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

It is difficult to over-state just how significant those three singles were. 'Relax' is notorious for sending the BBC into a tizzy after Mike Read twigged what the song was about and ripped the record off the turn table live on air, also disgusted at the overtly sexual artwork - both notoriety and sales by the bucketload followed. 'Two Tribes' was then released while 'Relax' was still in the charts and rather than cannibalising sales it went to number one and seemingly dragged 'Relax' back up to the number two spot. Basically the kind of chart impact that bands dream of these days.

But of course if you don't already have all three of those tracks you will already know them. Part of FGTH's success stemmed from their ability to keep churning out fresh mixes of releases - a fact played with here through the inclusion of multiple mixes. The different version mean that you never quite know what to expect.

There is enough here for those less familiar with the back catalogue to discover - covers of 'War', 'Ferry Across The Mersey' (a tribute to the band's home town of Liverpool) and a live take on Springsteen's 'Born To Run'. Whilst both of the former bring a unique Frankie take to well known records 'Born To Run' is a rather conservative and faithful cover, making it feel like an oddly unnecessary inclusion.

Much of the material included here that is not taken from the band's first album still fails to live up to the band's first four singles (‘Relax', 'Two Tribes', 'The Power Of Love' and 'Welcome To The Pleasuredome'). It's an uncomfortable fact that makes a best of, particularly after a number of earlier compilations, a little hard to swallow. The last greatest hits was released just three years ago, a fact that makes it hard to view this release as little more than a chance to capitalise on potentially renewed interest in the light of that John Lewis ad. The big singles are so good that it's just about forgivable but it would be hard not to view the original Welcome To The Pleasuredome album as superior Christmas gift, particularly if you get the 25th Anniversary edition with some of the bonus mixes.

The instrumental string only version of 'The Power Of Love (Best Listened To By Lovers)' is a bit of a revelation though, showing the sheer strength of the song-writing. It's passionate, stirring and cinematic stuff - fresh from seeing Skyfall I can't help but feel it would have been a far more striking Bond theme than Adele could ever muster.

Frankie Said is out now through Salvo, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [links to Amazon.co.uk in this post are affiliate links].

Album Review: Journey - Mario Basanov

Lithuania's Mario Basanov has released a number of spot on singles over the past couple of years and here he turns his hands to a full album for Needwant, Journey. It's that classic tricky territory - the house long-player, all 16-songs and 68-minutes worth.

His 'Lonely Days' track from last year regularly crops up when I'm picking favourite tracks for lazy sunny afternoons and so Journey has a lot of potential... Only it sadly never really manages to deliver.

Basanov takes the generous step of replacing the big singles 'We Are Child Of Love' and 'Lonely Days' with alternate, album versions. On a shorter album such as Merveille & Crosson's (who didn't take this step, presenting only 30% new material on their album) it might be a wise move. Here it feels stingy if anything - where are the big moments and why is the album being denied it's tent poles? 'We Are Child Of Love' loses its thundering bass and tech-heavy percussion, resulting in a more cautious, subtle take that lacks a little of the gravity of the original.

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Journey - Mario Basanov

In comparison to what he has done to 'Lonely Days' however, the version of 'We Are Child Of Love' seems pretty acceptable. Originally a beach-bound Balearic gem, here 'Lonely Days' closes out the album in the form of a slow, Prince-inspired ballad. As a b-side or a bonus track this might be fine but here, as the only version on the album, it feels like a con. It simply lacks all of the subtle disco of the original.

These changes do Basanov no favours as there aren't any natural replacements for these down-played high-points. Mario's willingness to drop the BPM and play things slow should be commended but it feels like at times he goes too far - the result plodding rather than laid back, and lacking the charm of his earlier, sunnier work. Guest spots are wheeled out to provide vocals but a lot of these feel like standard album-filling fodder, not providing extra dimension that a decent collaboration can.

There are a few moments that survive however. The gentle percussion of 'Slip Away' gives the track a delicate, emotional feel reminiscent of the use of steel drums on the latest xx album. 'High School' leaves out the guest vocals and instead delivers a tight piece of electronic funk, complete with thick, chunk bass, handclaps and vocal shouts.

Basanov is at his best when a bit more left-field, pushing into funky, relaxed  sunshine territory. Aside from the slightly jazzy 'Mes Souvenirs' and two frustratingly good interludes there just isn't enough of that here, and yet there is too much of everything else. There is talent in Journey, it's just buried beneath 45-minutes' worth of desire to create an album.

Journey is released through Needwant tomorrow, available to pre-order on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].