His startling set of duets with Larry Young in 1977. On the first three, he plays piano, with Larry Young on organ and synthesizer. With a romantic flourish, he does justice to Trane’s After The Rain, alone at the keyboard. Then Young ‘takes over, cranking out hard-driving riffs that owe more to the hard rock of Deep Purple and Atomic Rooster than Jimmy Smith, as Chambers lays down a thundering backbeat full of high-impact tom rolls. Out of print for decades, this wild album’s reemergence is long overdue’ (The Wire).
Check your Bobby Hutcherson Blue Notes from the late-60s — records like Oblique and Spiral — for how Joe Chambers bends them round the wall and into the top corner, with his musicianship and compositions both.
Premier sampled Mind Rain for Nas’ NY State Of Mind (to put you out of your misery).
Very warmly recommended.
The CD is newly remastered, adding three out-takes and two alternate versions.
The CD is newly remastered — it sounds magnificent — adding two out-takes and two extended versions. (The ending of Slim Slow Slider is startling.) Surely a must at the price.
Rhino vinyl.
‘A 6 part cosmic hobo’s dream suite for 23 string banjo… Metzger plucks, picks, bows and spins his way through a 40 minute odyssey making for his most ambitious and adventurous musical trip to date.’
The guitarist recorded at Oliver Sain’s St Louis studio in 1969 — but the best stuff here isn’t funk, it’s a kind of shimmering, limber, spare steppers. With organ and a second, rhythm guitar, and one Paul Jackson on bass.
Dark, menacing and pained; wonderful Upsetters, always timely.
Great to have the Saxon man back, in top form on this slug of nasty NW1 digi.
The great UK MC retrieves his war chest from the potting shed.
An expert, moody Tuff Scout re-lick, with a haunting new vibes part and lethal effects.
The greatest UK MC of them all, setting fire to Tempo.
Soundboy willies. Do it Jah.
Amenably sick, synthy dub.
Extended, with dubs.
Jubilant, party-hearty deejay cut to a thumping, body-rocking Jah Life do-over of the almighty Love Without Feeling rhythm. Sister Carol smashes it out of the dancehall and into the trees. The dub is knockout, too: raw drum & bass, in your face.
‘Mi have di potential an mi have di credential… in a dance hall, concert an’ rehearsal… mi will mash it, as per usual.’
Featuring Norma Winstone.
Club versions.