An unreserved crabwalk.com rave to Naturally, the new disc from Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. Sure, it’s backward-looking and proudly retro, but damn is this some fine-ass soul music. Sounds like the best outtakes from an early ’70s Ike & Tina session; the Dap-Kings are tight and Sharon’s got a pleasant dominatrix vibe to her voice.
Certain songs (“My Man is a Mean Man”) really make me wish I was into recreational drugs, because I’m sure the trance-inducing qualities of the walking bassline would be quite swell under chemical influence.
Put this album on at your next party and I guarantee you people will start having red-hot monkey sex, right there on your Ikea coffee table. Anyway, you should buy it.
(This is in keeping with my recent fascination with all forms of black music circa 1972, which I’m starting to believe may be the peak of human cultural achievement. As the liner notes posit: “Somewhere between banging on logs and the invention of MIDI technology we have made a terrible wrong turn. We must have ridden right past our stop. We should have stepped down off the train at that moment when rhythm and harmony and technology all culminated to a single Otis Redding whine.” This was previously explored as part of my Madlib fixation of late.)
(Update: MP3 samples here, although “Mean Man” sadly cuts out just when it’s entering the stratosphere.)
2 thoughts on “sharon jones and the dap-kings”
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It’s good to hear that someone else like Sharon Jones…I put a song of theirs on my last mix and more than a couple of people were left scratching their heads, wondering what the appeal was. Nice to know that I’m not alone.
Hey, Josh, don’t forget to call when you arrive here in New York– e-mail me if you lost my digits.