Summer’s
coming in New Zealand, and I have found the perfect summer album. It is five
years old, released in 2009, but as a music blogger things often come to my
attention late, especially when you consider the vast amount of music there is floating
around. But in the case of this seriously funky album by New Zealand collective
Sola Rosa, the late coming has definitely been worth it.
Sola
Rosa, led by Andrew Spraggon, as a collective has been around the music scene
in New Zealand for over ten years exploring and creating a vast array of
melodic and groove based sounds. Their music tends to follow a fusion pattern,
mixing together more styles than you can count on two hands, including hip hop,
jazz, reggae, soul and funk, something that features strongly on this album Get It Together. New Zealand seems to be
a melting pot for these types of musical collectives, especially in the past
ten years with bands such as Sola Rosa, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Trinity Roots and
the Black Seeds pioneering an experimental fusion style of music, but also a no
fear approach to composing music where anything is possible and any style can
be mixed together. I guess this is also why many of these acts have had great
success outside of New Zealand and why their music can often relate to many
different types of music fan.
As for
the songs on Get it Together, well
the album kicks off with the very funky “The Ace Of Space”, a song which has an
infectious bass groove, some pretty cool scratch work, as well as splattering’s
of strings and horns. This is followed by “Turn Around” which features Iva
Lamkum on vocals who does a nice job on this up-tempo R&B track. “Del Ray”
is a sort of middle-eastern sounding track, especially in the horn riff which
dominates the song, as well as the guitar part which has a slight Spanish
flamenco feel to it also. “Humanised” which features Bajka on vocals is a
soul-jazz track, with jazz-inspired horns and a raunchy vocal, while “Love
Alone” featuring Spikey Tee is a fusion of dub, reggae and hip hop, although
the results I find on this track are mixed. Thankfully, things get back on
track with the brilliant six minute epic title track “Get It Together”. This instrumental
has a Curtis Mayfield vibe to it, especially in the horns and percussion and
represents an album highpoint with all the ingredients that make up a good
fusion track in the form of jazz, funk, electronic and plenty of groove. I also
love how out of nowhere the song transitions into a sort of samba for the last
minute, showing that the band can also throw up plenty of surprises when you
least expect it. “I’ve Tried Way’s” features Serocee and is a hip
hop/electronic track which I thought failed to measure up to some of the other
tracks, feeling a bit like a come down, especially after the previous epic.
This mini-lul in proceedings unfortunately continues on next track “Lady Love”.
However, things get back up and running on “All You Need”, which is another six
minute track that has an experimental jazz funk vibe to it, while again
showcasing the talent on display here when it comes to composition. I find that
on listening to this album the instrumentals really stand out and the band do a
great job in experimenting with different rhythms, textures, as well as
moulding together different sounds, with this track being a prime example. Finally,
the album closes with “Bond is Back”, the hint into what this one sounds like
is in the title, and album closer “These Words, These Sounds, These Powers”
which is probably the most reggae sounding track on the album.
All in
all I found this a great album to listen to, and a perfect album to be played
outdoors in the sun with a beer in hand and good food. The instrumentals on
here really shine through and showcase just what you can do when you mix
different styles of music together across one track. The results are quite
simply stunning and in some cases quite mind blowing especially for musical
nerds like myself. The rhythms of this album really stand out especially in the
bass and percussion, rhythms which do a great job in driving the album along
from track to track, just like the great experimental funk and R&B records
of the early-70s. In conclusion, I may be five years late to the party but the
wait was certainly worth, especially when the results are this good.
A-
- Sam
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