GALACTIC - From The Corner To The Block - 2007 - Album review

GALACTIC – From The Corner To The Block – 2007 – Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: Er…pretty much all of it, but especially - And I’m Out (feat. Mr Lif) – Think Back (feat. Chali 2Na) – Hustle Up (feat. Boots Riley)
SOUNDBITE: “Walking down the street I met this young cat, he asked me for one rap/ I told him I could do that, he knew that, I had the skill to build and paint a picture or a portrait/ So I told it, manifested a mural, he said ‘I’m thorough’” (Mr Lif. Who else?)
RATING: 5/5
Finally! A decent US hip-hop album in a year of disappointments. I should point out that Galactic are in fact a funk band who saw fit to invite a dreamlist ‘who’s who’ of underground MCs to flip the script over their instrumental efforts. It’s been done before – generally to wicked effect - Ohmega Watts and The Bamboos, J5, People Under The Stairs and Breakestra and Lyrics Born and The Poets of Rhythm – to name but a few – and now here’s a whole LP of it! If you’re expecting the warmth of something that sounds an analogue recording of something produced by Allen Toussaint in 1969…don’t. They might be based in New Orleans but Galactic aren’t averse to using a range of effects, nor are they afraid to rock out and indulge in a little feedback. Consequently you have tracks like opener I Got It feat. Lyrics Born - actually one of the less gratifying tracks on here if only because it’s basically a rockier retread of the Latyrx MC’s I Changed My Mind effort with The Poets Of Rhythm. It’s still running though, for all that. On the Mr Lif vehicle And I’m Out the band knock up something that sounds exactly like one of those Edan-produced funky cuts that usually appear on a Lif release – only (unlike with Edan) you can actually hear Stanton Moore’s snare. As always the funk brings out his cutting wit – in this case how a peaceful gathering of ‘young black men’ talking about their ‘visions and dreams’ is misinterpreted by cops as a ‘gang threat’ - “next one of y’all to move is gonna win a free hearse”. Then there’s Gift Of Gab who fell off a bit with his solo LP but climbs back on again here to ride the appropriately chunky The Corner featuring a virtuoso multi-bar sequence of double speed lyrics of fury recalling a time when Blackalicious were good. Second and Dryades’s swampy, voodoo-bayou beat is filtered to buggery though effects but still manages to sound like Dr John. If he were an android. And that’s in a good way too. Chali 2Na relates a slew of ghetto memories over the phattest groove on the LP (largely due to Robert Mercurio’s bass and ably assisted by some harmonica riffage from the band’s Ben Ellman), while The Coup’s Boots Riley gets vocal over Hustle Up’s funk-rock monster as guitarist Rob Gowen releases his inner Hendrix. I could go on but that would deny you the pleasure of discovering a couple of instrumental tracks, a couple of mellower tracks or the contributions of Ladybug Mecca, Ohmega Watts, or other Quannum affiliates Lateef and Vursatyl among others. While you have to hand it to Galactic for not slavishly attempting to be The Meters, it does have to be said that the band’s use of feedback and effects could possibly become a little strained were this a purely instrumental LP (it’s ironic that, for example, Stanton Moore’s percussion sounds best on the Lif track where it seems to be least filtered) and it is the addition of the MCs that lifts it. Likewise – there’s more than one MC on here who (after some piss-poor solo efforts on their parts) would do well to make a mental note of the fact that sometimes things can be greater than the sum of their parts…and the sum of the parts on From The Corner To The Block is pretty damn great.
Out now. Allegedly. juno.co.uk had it in at time of writing - click on 'listen' link below to get to them.
RELATED LINKS
Listen to Galactic - From The Corner To The Block
Galactic - Myspace
www.galacticfunk.com
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