Monkeyboxing Blog

THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS – Plug & Play – 2008 – Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: Hole In The Bag – Thermal Bad – King Comforter
SOUNDBITE: "I've made many mistakes/ In my past/ I knew/ None of them/ Would ever last"
RATING: 4/5
Apparently there’s a list of ‘new funk’ commandments somewhere, the first of which states that if you’re in a ‘new funk’ band these days (quite a lot like old funk bands but mainly consisting of white people) that thou shalt demonstrate thy prowess in a range of funk sub-genres on any album you release except for those sub-genres proscribed in the second new funk commandment which expressly forbids the practice of P-funk or anything with a whiff of rock e.g. tracks in the vein of Betty Davis. At least, that’s what you would have thought given the way this LP follows in the not dissimilar trail of last year’s very similar offerings from The Bamboos, Cookin On 3 Burners, Baby Charles and Color Climax. All of which is to say it’s very good in some respects (i.e. there are some excellent tunes on it and the production doesn’t take any prisoners) – but also means it suffers from the same problems. The first of these is that they occasionally break The First Monkeyboxing Funk Commandment which is that thou shalt never ever sound even a little bit like ‘Acid Jazz’ and secondly that in trying to avoid predictability they end up being predictable. Thus, just as with those previously mentioned bands, you can essay a pretty good stab at the sort of thing you’re going to hear before you actually hear it. A bit of New Orleans funk perhaps, something a little bit more Blue Note, a smidgin of afro-beat, a dash of sister soul, some of the ‘taint’ (i.e. Acid Jazz – Genres Ed.) – you get the picture. Thus we have, for example, Meters-style grooves (the admittedly excellent opener Hole In The Bag and the not bad Altitude), a hideous acid jazz vocal track I Mean It So with Dionne Charles and the dope-as-fuck mod-funk Hammond vs. wah-wah guitar firestorm of Thermal Bad. Moving on, we have Kuna Matata - afro-beat (as if you weren’t expecting that from the name), and the Blue-Note-ish Idris which reproduces Grant Green’s guitar sound exactly and Beyond The Bleak Horizon. I’m surprised there wasn’t a bit of boogaloo or a JB’s style number on here too. The vocal tracks (all featuring Dionne Charles) largely falter on the tune stakes though the rhythm section on All We Can Do is impressive, and it has to be said that final track and current single King Comforter is a soul sister corker to rank with the divas of yore. The result is three essential tracks (see HIGHLIGHTS above – absolute classic floor fillers), quite a lot of well-produced, well-played but ultimately not timeless tunes and at least one abomination. Still, if you DJ with vinyl it’s cheaper than buying three 7” singles (and that’s if the three aforementioned classics all get a single release) and if you download you now know what to select. And if you still bother with CDs – stop it now – and download instead – you’re diverting vital plastic away from vinyl production.
Out now on One Note.
LINKS
Listen to The New Mastersounds - Plug & Play
The New Mastersounds - Myspace
newmastersounds.com
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