You wait ages for a compilation from this man and then three come all at once
Unlike the other two releases in the same week, Sundays Afternoon At Dingwalls and his Pure Fire: a Gilles Peterson Impulse! Collection, this one has more of what he’s into today as it is on his own Brownswood Recordings label.
Listeners to his Radio 1 Worldwide show will easily spot some “big tune” favourites, most notably Simbad’s ‘Soul Fever’. Unlike the jazzy stuff he’s been concentrating on recently, it’s about time we had some soulful fever and this album fits perfectly in the new direction in soul and jazz of Futuristica Music (Simbad was an early guest at Radio Saturn!)
Brummie Colonel Red is most associated with the West London broken beat crew but ‘Blue Eye Blak’ was a bit of an underground hit last year. Much bigger was the (true) northern soul of ‘Feeling Free’ by Nicole Willis and The Soul Investigators (where’s that Aaron Jerome mix?)
His top protégé Ben ‘So Good Today‘ Westbeech features with a track called ‘Nothing Else’ that is going to be released with ‘A Conta Do Samba’ by Tita Lima on a double A 12″. ‘A Conta Do Samba’ is the only obvious Latin dance track included here. In fact, instead of building to the usual crescendo of a compilation set, from here on it all gets a bit chilled.
That’s not so say there’s any drop in quality. Iman’s contribution is another ‘new direction’ track as is the stuttering ‘iiiii’ which features Steve Spacek (who did the Dilla-produced ‘Dollar’); the monster dope of ‘Heavy’ and Rahel and Eric Lau are really fine too.
This is yet another compilation without any duff ‘uns on it. You’ll be listening to it again and again as it’ll not be easy to get over this. Watch out for further limited edition 12″ that will be released between now and Christmas.
Reviewed: Various — Brownswood Bubblers Compiled by Gilles Peterson (Brownswood Recordings) Cat. No: BW 005CD Release date: 16 Oct 2006
Tracklisting:
1. Shawn J Period — Places Everyone
2. Colonel Red — Blue Eye Blak
3. Simbad — Soul Fever feat. Steelo
4. Benny Sings & Rednose Distrikt — Miss Moral
5. Tita Lima — A Conta Do Samba
6. Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators — Feeling Free
7. Ben Westbeech — Nothing Else
8. Iman — Who Was I Trying To Fool
9. Morgan — iiii feat. Steve Spacek
10. Ayak & First Man — Can We Go Back
11. Choklate — Heavy
12. Jose James — The Dreamer
13. Eric Lau — I’m Fine feat. Rahel
14. Yellowtail — Over It feat. Jeni Fujita
Links:
www.brownswoodrecordings.com
www.myspace.com/brownswoodrecordings
www.impulserecords.com
