Whilst Dego has been busy with Silhouette Brown, the other half of 4Hero, Marc Mac has been developing his own project, The Visioneers along with his studio mates Luke Parkhouse (excellent drums throughout) and Brad Somatic.

The likes of Gilles Peterson, Benji B, Nik Weston and Nigel Prankster are fans of the funk and soul and have been dropping us tantalising tracks for the last three and a half years on the Omniverse label. BBE have taken matters into their own hands for the full album release and their definitely on a roll with Exit, The Kings Of Jazz compilation series and now The Visioneers.

All the singles are included. ‘Runnin’ is just superb and is needed by all of us; with the added bonus of being an extended version (4:06). Another previous release, ‘The World Is Yours’ gets the same extension and is just heavenly vibes and bass. ‘Ike’s Mood I’ was the last single which is soundtrack beats with classical strings; touching on Focus without Jan Akkerman (one for the teenagers to dig out).

We keep coming across Capitol A, the last time on ‘The Tribute’ and ‘Like A Rocket’. ‘Funk Box’ is Sugar Hill rap-style (nice name check for Hectic). Similarly, the album kicks off with ‘Reply’ with a female MC, Voice. Great name and a track that’s in the same retro-territory as Kero One’s new album, Windmills Of The Soul.

There’s are even more highlights with ‘Dirty Old Bossa Nova’ nu-jazz-bossa-dub (if only it were longer!) and the equally Latin, downtempo funker, ‘Smoker’. The film score flava of ‘Run For Cover’ and ‘55 Dollars’ gets even jazz-funkier.

‘Rollin’ For the Ride’ touches on the Blackbyrds, ‘Paul’s Guitar Story’ and ‘Hip Know Cypher’ are easy instrumentals but it’s ‘Days Gone By’ that gets closest to the full 4 Hero treatment.

As it turns out, the bag of ‘Dirty Old Hip Hop’ is not mainly hip hop and not that dirty. Very clean production (as you’d imagine) and at the very least, three (‘Runnin’, ‘Dirty Old Bossa Nova’,’Days Gone By’) brilliant tracks. It would be good to see a live version, with Silhouette Brown? Now there’s a prospect!

The Visioneers — Dirty Old Hip Hop (BBE) Cat. No. CD/LP071 Relesase date: 6th April 2006
Tracklist.
1. Replay feat. Voice
2. Runnin’ (Extended Version)
3. Ike’s Mood I
4. The World Is Yours (Ext. Version)
5. Funk Box feat. Capitol A
6. It’s Simple
7. Kamal’s World
8. Dirty Old Bossa Nova
9. Smoker
10. Run For Cover
11. 55 Dollars
12. Paul’s Guitar Story
13. Rollin’ For The Ride
14. Days Gone By
15. Hip Know Cypher

Links:
www.bbemusic.com
www.marcmacproductions.com
www.omniverserecords.com