|
One of the great things about a series like The
Trip is its ability to show another side of the
compiling artist, tunes they might listen to when not
doing the day job, so to speak.
When that artist has
as many personalities as Dave Lee, you're on to a
winner, and choosing the Joey Negro moniker for this
release would seem to indicate a leaning towards the
dancefloor rather than a sleepy bedroom. The truth is
that everyone's catered for here, as the pair of mixes
draws in music from the big screen, the club, the
coffee bar, pretty much every aspect of everyday music
making you can think of.
All very promising, then, and though it sounds
obvious the fact Lee is a DJ makes it a lot easier for
him to pull things together smoothly without being
wrenched cruelly from one style of music to another.
This means it's OK to have themes from 007 and The
Avengers running into The Divine Comedy's
exuberant National Express, those lyrics still as
sharp as ever.
It's also not a problem for a guilty
pleasure like Christopher Cross's Ride Like The
Wind and Jan Hammer's Don't You Know to be
rubbing shoulders with the ultra cool minimal New York
house of Metro Area. Add Dusty
Springfield and the B-52s and you have a
cosmopolitan first mix with something for everyone,
and, crucially, something new for everyone.
A second mix in the same vein would be hard to pull
off, so Lee opts for a lightly funky, soulful
experience. Again this can be taken loosely at times,
as Jethro Tull makes an early appearance, but
there are several magical moments of effortless class,
the pick of which occurs when Kool And The
Gang's Whisper Softly moves after a natural pause
into the warm, soulful groove of Rashann
Patterson.
After more magical soul from Erykah
Badu the DJ rightly assumes we might be ready for
bed, and curls up with Glenn Miller's
softly-softly Moonlight Serenade chosen as the hot
water bottle.
And so Joey Negro's musical background becomes
clearer, with pretty much every decade from the last
seventy years covered and little allusion to the vocal
house music in which he specialises. Sure, there may be
many compilations of this type around, but few carry
off the formula as well as this one, particularly when
that someone has such a multi-faceted personality. A
rewarding trip then, with plenty of eye-catching
scenery to enjoy.
Comments
|
 |
|
ALBUM:
more