New Music: Numero Group, Aja West & Friends

Jay Mitchell - Goombay Bump (Numero Group 2007, originally Penn 1974)

Various Artists – Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay / Numero Group

While the Eccentric Soul series has dominated the Numero Group’s much praised reissue catalog in their three-year existence, the first and only (up till now) Cult Cargo entry was my personal favorite. In the fall of 2005, I stumbled across an expansively packaged CD while digging around in the world section of a Charlotte, NC record store. Being as that I was then spending my days in bed and my nights in a dimly lit factory, whatever colorful sounds this disc may have hiding inside was essential to my well being and I promptly headed to the check-out line. The album was N-006, Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up, and it was my first introduction to the wonderful Chicago crate-destroying collective. But it has now been almost two years since we were blessed with an installment of the Cult Cargo series, and I was starting to worry that it would be a one-off deal. So just imagine my excitement when Rob Sevier dropped some knowledge on my eager ears while spinning at WLUW’s Record Fair & Other Delights a month back. I think my heart skipped a beat when he mentioned Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Boombay… yes, my over-exuberant reaction is a sad but true fact, but so is the life of a music obsessor. And don’t front, you certainly wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t in the very same mindset.

For the sophomore release of the Cult Cargo series, Sevier, Ken Shipley and Judson Picco headed south to Florida, jumped on a ferry on the state’s east side and settled in for their seven-hour trip to the shores of Freeport on the Grand Bahama Island. While Nassau is the destination of choice for most groove seeking in the Bahamas, Freeport is surprisingly a relatively untouched destination of crate-digging, which is somewhat confusing since it is the first stop on the closest major island to the United States and a city which exploded with tourism in the 60s. But while Freeport was developed specifically with tourism in mind in the late 50s and was subject to a hearty fusion of cultures in the following decades, not to mention that today it contains one of the most modern though small airports in the Bahamas, the port city has also has succumbed to numerous hurricanes including three incredibly destructive ones in the last decade alone. With music in mind, this means that not only were the funky local hits of the early 70s lost in closets and malfunctioning jukeboxes after promising young islander careers floundered with poor distribution and underexposure, but a lot of the actual product was lost to the ridiculously vast sea floor as well. Thankfully though, the Numero trio did not have to strap on scuba gear and wrestle hermit crabs out of their home inside those comfy boxes of water-soaked 45s, they were able to scrounge up at least sixteen cuts of local island tunes still playable and still funky as hell.

With the story of cultural exportation in mind that you have now heard time and again with how the soulful music of Detroit and Memphis circa the 1960s reached and influenced the music of so many geographical nooks and crannies around the world, Freeport is no different. With each Otis Redding or James Brown 45 that washed ashore the small port city, a Jay Mitchell or a Leroy “Smokey 007” McKenzie lost interest in his daily labors and dreamed of the American stage. They’d gather up their musically inclined friends already schooled in the island sounds and attempt to cover the songs they had fallen so immersed in, from “Mustang Sally” to the “Theme from Shaft.” Of course you cannot take the imbedded island instincts completely out of the session players, so “goombay” was born, a synthesis of local stylings and American soul and funk: breezy but bombastic, sun-drenched but soulful, and oh so fanatically funky.

Getting into the colorful back story of the sole Freeport studio (GBI) and it’s local hero producer Frank Penn, the imported Jamaican musicians further confusing the island sound, the deftly religious Bahamian public influence, the poolside bands and the nightly talent shows or the decline of the scene due not to disinterest but destructive weather would only ruin the charming liner notes accompanied with the disc, so I won’t divulge too much more information. As with every Numero Group release, Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay is a mental trip to a different time and place that gives your ears a momentary but heartfelt glimpse into a world you would have otherwise never had the pleasure of experiencing. Personally, I am ecstatic not only for the wonderful music involved but to know that the Cult Cargo series was not just a one-off deal. And as with every Numero number to date, N-014 is another undeniably solid and must-hear to believe effort by the great Chicago crate-saving trio.







Aja West & Friends - The Getaway (Mackrosoft 2007)

Aja West & Friends – Total Recall 2012 / Mackrosoft

Last time we met with Aja West (2.24.07), he was paying homage to the B-Funk scene: the survivors of the early 70s funk-soul explosion of bass lines, drum breaks and afro skylines that are now condemned to playing nostalgia on cruise ships. With his fellow Macrosofters on this release, West is reminding us that in all that post-‘74 populist funk mud, there were the seeds of Prince. The clouds of disco, drugs and materialism may have severely dimmed the late 70s and 80s after the sun-drenched creative outburst of the ’65-’75 era of wonderful music, but nothing brings out the best in artists like a little smoggy oppression.

Honestly, I wanted to like West’s last album, The Olympian, more than I actually did. His work with his brother Cheeba on 2006’s Exile in the Woods (under The Cheebacabra moniker) was fantastic; that neon future-funk masterpiece juked and jived itself all the way on to the Audiversity Top 60 of 06. But Aja alone wasn’t rocking the same kind of Blade Runner crip-walk as heard on Exile, he was on some Ohio Players trip… Spirit of the Boogie pre-“Celebration” Kool & the Gang silky smooth funk. As on both The Olympian and this quick-following successor, Aja West’s music is very much heading towards the land of cheese, but stops just short at the very thin line of infectiousness. The brass is real, the breaks are live and the funk is undeniable, but goddamn does he love to layer up the synths and goddamn do they paint every song a brightly glowing neon orange. It is a sound I mostly stay far away from, but when the groove is undeniable, why fight it? Besides, the afro is still standing tall within West’s brand of funk; we got a good three years to boogie down before it sogs down with the smog into a greasy Jheri curl.

Thankfully, Total Recall 2012 comes much closer to Exile than The Olympian. Like all Mackrosoft releases, the most impressive aspect of the album is the marriage of live instrumentation with so many neon keyboards and effects. I would guess that this album was composed with midi, loops and laptops, but when it came time for the recording session, West got on the phone and called up everyone from Maktub/Soulive’s Reggie Watts (who co-wrote the album) to Money Mark to old school J.B.’s musical director Fred Wesley to head down to the studio and provide live instrumentation. The result is impeccably tight, twinkling funk; it definitely doesn’t share that badass grit of the early 70s material though, but neither does it completely succumb to the overbearing synthesization of the 80s that led to urban R&B. It is very close to a great balance of groovy styles, but sadly still isn’t quite completely there just yet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good chunk of this album: the wonderful wavering Grant Green-meets-L.T.D. bounce of “Suite 2012,” the sexy baby-Prince of “The Getaway,” the J.B.’s gone Mothership of “What’s Really Going Off!” and the patient Talking Book synth cascades of “Clouds Imitate Life.” But West just loses me every so often with the wrong balance of funk and cheese. “Wanna Get Up” has a fun “bum-bum-badump bum” vocal hook, but his singing voice is just too Terence Trent D’arby for me. “Out of Control” and “My Modo” sadly continue the trend; some great ideas and music to boot, but it just repeatedly slips into late 80s pseudo-soul.

As I have now stated in like fifty different ways: there is a very thin line between infectiousness and cheesiness especially with this style of music. On Total Recall 2012, West hopscotches back and forth repeatedly. One second he has you head-nodding and lip-biting in the groove, the next cringing and looking around to see if anyone noticed you digging the questionable music so hard. Unlike The Olympian though, the former outnumbers the latter for his second 2007 release, and I still think the best is yet to come. Hopefully, we can think of this as his Prince sitting between the questionable For You and the mind-blowing Dirty Mind; considerably more accomplished and maybe, just maybe, previewing the dirty, adventurous music to come with his next release date.