As the year starts with the snow swirling, I can't get enough of a 2013 disk that came to me via WSJ critic Jim Fusilli's year end column (he's a very reliable guide, but that's a subject for another post).
The album is Feeling Good by the West Yorkshire trip-hop team, Nightmares on Wax. Built around DJ George Evelyn, NoW is now in most ways a performing band but with the roots of its mixmaster boss. Evelyn has a deep feel for the soul sounds he was raised on: Mayfield, Marley and Motown all show through. His pedigree as a producer includes work with De La Soul in the early aughts.
Can I find superlatives enough? No, I cannot. Feeling Good is the equal of the best work of Massive Attack and Groove Armada, steeped in dub and reggae, classic soul and ambient sounds. The other night at my house, it had the whole room quietly pulsing -- twenty-somethings to fifty-somethings --and no one said, "Can you turn this down?"
CHECK THIS OUT: NoW kicking "Be, I Do" and then think, "Gee, if every track is as good as this this, shouldn't Feeling Good be playing in my ears/car/party right now?"
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