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After Bilal’s 2001 debut album 1st Born Second, he had some ‘industry’ issues with the follow up Love For Sale a subject he never really got to the bottom of in his interview with Gilles Peterson on this show back in July. So since then he’s been popping up irregularly a guest (like on ‘Sweet Sour You’ with Sa-Ra’s Hollywood Recordings, Exit Music: Songs With Radio Heads and with Robert Glasper on occasion) adding to his and fans frustration alike. And then it came as a bit of a shock that there’s actually is a new proper authentic album coming out, it was being released on Plug Research (they of all things good on the West Coast).

Like others that are in the alt-male soul underground/overground like Ce-Lo Green, Lee Fields, Dwele et al, Bilal has a winner with all the track on this 11-track album but particularly the single ‘Restart’ and ‘All Matter’ stand out to start with and then what a great line “I wanna make love ‘til it rains” is on ‘Cake & Eat It Too’ and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want cake in their mouth?

And just when you think everything in the garden is sweat and soulful, ‘Flying’ is an old tale that would grace the Philly-psych-soul of back street urban deprivation updated for internet porn circa 2010 - clean up the ghetto brothers and sisters! (nice snyths on this one).

Back to the 70s and synths, ‘Levels’ is big (so big you could even here it at Jazz Chronicles Xmas Party - see below) piano, synth, beat soul opera with strings supplied by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (definitely on the ‘Man of the Year’ list for 2010 -and beyond).

But it’s ‘Little One’ and ‘Move On’ that on the blogs and if either of these fantastic tracks don’t make you want all the other, you ain’t got soul baby.

‘Robots’ and ‘The Dollar’ are a little bit different and then ‘Who Are You’ is very downtempo Bilal standard with a nice dub reggae break at the end.

Not so keen on the last track but it’s a hell of an album as “Airtight” gets his/her/its revenge - very recommended.

A fantastic album that we all knew that Bilal was capable of and thank goodness he got this “Music Industry” act together so Plug Research could release it in all its glory.

He’s been performing live in the US on his West Coast Tour so until he arrives back in Europe, here’s a bit of VT…

FULL SCREEN
The Sounds of VTech / Bilal “Robots”   

Reviewed: Bilal - Airtight’s Revenge (Plug Research) Cat. No. PLG105 Release date: 14th September 2010
Tracklisting:
1. Cake & Eat It Too (4:00)
2. Restart (4:52)
3. All Matter (5:20)
4. Flying (4:21)
5. Levels (5:27)
6. Little One (3:59)
7. Move On (3:27)
8. Robots (3:15)
9. The Dollar (3:27)
10. Who Are You (6:01)
11. Think It Over (3:50)

Links:
bilal-the-man.com
www.myspace.com/bilaloliver
Gilles Peterson 21 July 2010 02:00-04:00 BBC Radio 1 with Bilal conversation & album preview
Joining the musical dots - soul, hip-hop, house, Afro, Latin, dubstep, jazz and beyond. www.bbc.co.uk
www.plugresearch.com
Jazz Chronicles with Simon S, Martin Gordon and Gerry Hectic every first Saturday of the month - next up: 4th December at 3:00pm @ Sixty Million Postcards, Bournemouth
www.myspace.com/60millionpostcards
Bilal tour dates:
Oct 14 Portland, OR. - Someday Lounge
Oct 16 Seattle, WA. - KEXP Live Seattle
Oct 16 Seattle, WA. - Nectar Lounge
Oct 21 San Jose, CA. -Pagoda Resturaunt/Bamboo Lounge @ The Fairmount Hotel
Oct 22 Oakland, CA. - Yoshis
Oct 23 San Francisco, CA Amoeba live performance
Oct 23 Oakland, CA. - Yoshis
Oct 24 Sacramento, CA. - Dream Ultra Lounge - 908 15th St
Oct 25 Los Angeles, CA. - Amoeba live performance LA
Oct 27 Fullerton, CA. - Commonwealth Lounge
Oct 28 Los Angeles, CA. - Echo Plex
Oct 30 Phoenix, AZ. - Wyndam Hotel - 50 E Adam St.