Commentary and Analysis by Mitch Santell At Big Reggae Mix we really love the Easy Star All-Stars and we play them on a regular basis. We especially love their album Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band. If you are not familiar with Easy Star All-Star's they are simply so much fun. Here is what others have said about them: After their full coverage of classic albums from both Radiohead and Pink Floyd, the collective known as the Easy Star All-Stars go way back to the band and the album that pretty much changed everything. The accent, as always, is on the Easy part of the band's name, meaning this easy-skanking tribute to Sgt. Pepper's flows effortlessly, never getting caught up in overly ambitious detours or ridiculously huge arrangements. Tracks like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" with guest vocalistFrankie Paul and "Within You Without You" with natural mystic Matisyahu have slick studio touches, but the heavy lifting is left up to the performances, and both guest vocalists are perfect choices who simply nail it. Having been on the road frequently the previous two years pays off, as the players are suitably loose, creating grooves that feel natural and alive. The ever growing importance of the horn section comes to fruition as they shrink some of the original album's elaborate arrangements into smaller packages, ones that could be imagined in a live setting or -- in the case of Ranking Roger's "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" -- at some wicked ska-fueled pool party. The warm voice of Michael Rose closes the set on a dubby "A Day in the Life," a cover version drenched in reverb with a clever imitation of the locked groove gibberish found at the end of the original Pepper's LP.
0 Comments
|
You found us! Archives
October 2019
Categories
All
|