Soul Spotlight: Kutiman

Here’s what you hopefully knew about Kutiman:
His YouTube music collage project, Thru-You, hadn’t released a new song until yesterday. And if you aren’t hip to what all those words just said, well, here:
He constructed the track, “My Favorite Color,” through sampling, editing, tweaking, and looping a bunch’a unrelated YouTube clips. The nucleus of the song is the slithering voice of a young girl, username Tenesa, who wrote a song about her favorite color, green. (Cough-hence the song title-cough.) The lady apparently had no idea she was about to be featured in the viral music master’s latest piece—her YouTube comment on the video sums up to a bunch of repeated vowels, emoticons, and exclamation points. There’s also a shimmering sax solo by username kpikemusic. Check it:



Incredible, right? It’s not his funkiest Thru-You work. For that, check out “The Mother of All Funk Chords” or maybe “I’m New.” There’s nothing nor nobody more innovative in funk’s evolution today. And I mean no disrespect. (But if you want to have that damn chat about copyright issues, take another look at that girl’s comment and then meet me in the playground, by the slide, after the bell rings.)

But here’s what you didn’t know about Kutiman:
The Israeli producer released an album, Kutiman, a week ago—not of the Thru-You stuff. And a lot of it flat out gets down with twangin’ guitars, slappy percussion, and that sort of clav that cracks your clavicle from making you just jerk about every which damn way. The production is played up pretty high—there’s no real organic sound; you don’t feel like you’re coughing up smoke in a late night café as you listen, like you might listening to a Mayfield live album. But in these modern times—the hip-hop and mash-up era, which require high production values to make the samples jive—that’s the now and the future of this music’s sound. Embrace it. If you don’t want to, I’ll meet you in the playground, because you need to evolve—you’re being too elementary.



(Photo: Wired)

Soul Spotlight: Adele

Sometimes I worry. Yeah. I do. About the future—all those Disney kids teeny bopping around, giggling toward adulthood with their goddamn pristine teeth. Don’t laugh.

But then an angel descends. A 22-year-old angel, with a voice so warm, so encompassing that you can nuzzle right up in its welcome embrace; she sings with such power, but her right arm only daintily speaks pinches and clasps, as if holding a wand with which she tears down the ugly outside world and resurrects in you a faith you forgot you had.

The angel with the wand, as you already knew, is Adele. She produces a quality of soul singing not found in most human figures today. Sometimes its sprinkled and others glazed with that Southern gospel choiring wholesomeness (despite her London origin). Suckle it up. Songs like the single “Rolling in the Deep,” revive your deadened mind, your eyes, and your ass; throw your nodding head down with some slant or shake it wistfully; put on your stomping boots, then curl your toes. Though you’ll have to strip those boots off for your finest church getup for when she sits you down in a pew on “Take it All” and “One and Only.”

Yeah, you do have to prefix her new album, 21, with “pop-.” And you can skip about a quarter ‘cause the songs just don’t beg her to pull you in tighter. But the rest is pure soul, as she constructs with her angelic powers a realm bound not to notes, but to feeling—not to cleanliness, but rawness. Sometimes a melodic gale scratches up her throat. At other times, she just juts her jaw, locks, and lets soul drizzle over the last syllables of a phrase. You see, she’s an angel not because of her aura or her power, but because she can corral imperfection and make it beautiful; her front-left tooth is chipped.



(Photo: Freshurbanent.com)

Soul Spotlight: Kings Go Forth

If a dude named Black Wolf is a lead singer, your sound better be some real ish. And if, on top of that, the band hails from the soul music capital of the world… Milwaukee, Wisconsin — alright, alright, but seriously: Black Wolf.

And it is some ish. Damn your feet if they don’t start shuffling and your hips if they don’t start shaking to Kings Go Forth’s sound. The 10-piece band (two lead singers, a backup, bass, guitar, drums, congas, trumpet, trombone) can downright get down and ’ll tug you along with them until you follow for yourself, running. So you might as well damn your feet if they can’t move quick, too.

The drums on the band’s April album from Luaka Bop, The Outsiders are Back, often edge the music to nearly breathless — like the break-beats might break down and trip you at anytime. The horns are tight, some spike for your behind. The congas’ tickling make you realize how much you miss them. And the bass bumps its thumping ass right up next to the drums in the rhythm section’s forefront — hello, hip-hop era.

The rhythm section pushes you forward, but it’s the singers’ melodies grasping your hand. When Wolf’s spine arcs to hit the high ones, his African garb creases, his dreadlocks rattle and his paintbrush mustache’s bristles shiver in that sort of way that shows he just felt something. (Your own spine might mimic.) Apparently, they’ve got some occasional pitch problems—so if you’ve got some sensitive ears, well, damn. But really singing cracks your voice; it’s that passion breaking through.

“One Day” and “Don’t Take My Shadow” have been the showcased cuts. But to give your feet and hips a head’s up, you could also check out “I Don’t Love You Know More.” And when taking a breath on “Paradise Lost,” listen for the Wolf’s “hey hey hey-e-yeah-yeah” to learn why he deserves his dope name.

[Quick post script: Milwaukee apparently produced some truly soulful records in the days; they just didn’t have the reach of the tracks from the soul capitals.]

Bonus: Download a free Kings Go Forth performance, courtesy of NPR Music.



(Photo: Kings Go Forth's Facebook)

Soul Spotlight: Lee Fields

Lee Fields never grew up after 1971. His slicked hair may have thinned and the bags beneath his eyes may have puckered, but that southern soul sound still rattles up from the toes in his well-shined shoes out through the vocal chords that haven’t stopped crooning since they started.

On a parallel planet, James Brown was called “Little L.F.” as a kid and is carrying the native North Carolinian’s legacy around on his suit shoulders. But in this world, the reverse is reality. And while the gods may not have blessed Fields with the Godfather’s life of fame and fortune, they’ve given many of us who didn’t grow up in the web of southern soul radio that excited jolt of finding something that has been unfairly hidden for too many years.

On Fields’ 2009 release from Truth and Soul Records, My World—his fifteenth album since his 1979 debut—he cries and croaks, purrs and pleads, mostly over love, including a cover of The Supremes’ “My World is Empty Without You.” His band, the Expressions, groove in a smooth melancholy, often channeling the gang who backed Curtis Mayfield on Superfly.

The record “Love Comes and Goes” off the album has been the song most of those who know of Fields play first for their friends. But try the cut “Ladies” instead. By the end of the track’s chorus, Fields is left almost breathless as he professes the powers of a sultry summertime woman. His rasp seems to strain into his stomach, like it won’t survive another word. But, luckily for us, it does and he has.



(Photos: Truth And Soul Records)