The World Soul Project is a collective of musicians and singers who have a welcome organic sound and who bring us their own blend of soul and jazz with a major Brazilian influence.
The core of this band are five muscians: Gerard Harris (guitar), Ben Flint (piano, keyboards), Barry Campbell (bass), James Sexton (drums) and Ekpe (percussion). On five songs they are joined by six singers: Will Graves (a Memphis soul singer), Patricia Reis, Adriano Faquini (both native Brazilians), Kimko Joy and Vicki Newsum, a Stax session singer.
All songs are original compositions recorded at Gerard Harris’s studio in Memphis,TN.
With 13 songs on offer there’s enough to keep any fan of independent quality music happy.
The album’s opener, which is also the closer in a live version, is a nice brazilian influenced sunny tune summing up the main message of the World Soul Project (Someday We Will All See Freedom/ From Hunger, from Sorrow, from War and Sickness/ Someday We Will All See Freedom, Peace on Earth).
Kinshasa is an instrumental with a slight South African touch while Your Eyes is one of the highlights for soul music fans. Here we have Will Graves singing on a jazzy soulful tune. Watch out for the solo album Love Stories from Will coming soon in 2006!
Other highlights include Love Divine, a fine soul song sung by Kimko Joy somewhere between 70s Doug Carn and today’s Fertile Ground. Also worth mentioning is Esperando with Patricia Reis, Adriano Faquini and Vicki Newsum on vocals, that carries on with the Brazilian vibe of Someday.
All in all this is a very strong debut release by the World Soul Project. The only objection may be the sound on a few tracks which have a raw demo feeling. But then you know this album isn’t produced to death and the muscians really came together for the joy of making music.
Tracklisting: 1. Someday/ 2. Kinsasha/ 3. Whisper Now/ 4. Your Eyes/ 5. Intrigue/ 6. Love Divine/ 7. Night Moods/ 8. Hard Left/ 9. Crank Up the Dog/ 10. Esperando/ 11. Don’t Give Up On Me/ 12. Almost There/ 13. Someday (live) | released 2005 Ben Flint/Gerard Harris
For more infos visit cdbaby.com, willgraves.com and Ben Flint’s site on IUMA [if you’re getting an 403 or time out error like me try the web archive.]
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