Wow! If only every artist would come back after a long hiatus with such an impressive album like Misty Oldland. It’s been nearly eight years since her last (Japan-only) album Luminous. And Misty has obviously invested a lot of time, love, effort, craftsmanship, and talent in her latest record Forest Soul. As you may guess from the album title and from Misty’s website she has really soaked up an ecological lifestyle with the objective to protect nature and its species and to conserve our natural resources.
Forest Soul can best described as a concept album with ecological issues as main thread running through most of the songs. This sounds more academic written down than the result actually is.
In fact, Forest Soul can stand the comparison to some of soul music’s finest concept albums from the 70s like Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder or What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye.

Misty’s greatest hit so far is Got Me A Feeling, but now she has a real hit record in the shape of, er, Hit Record, a groovy and funny song featuring Cleveland Watkiss and HKB Finn about the music industry and Misty’s intention to stay independent. Misty, please relase it as a single…I wanna see Hit Record as #1 hit record just for the pun of it (and of course its quality).

Orange Fox has already been available as a single (in a deluxe packing with illustrations and a very cute animated video version by Jonny Pompfrey). It’s a simple but very effective folksy tune. It could have been a great theme song for banning fox hunting in the UK, which is finally partly banned in England and Wales.

Roachford is featured on U Came, a fine modern soul song, that would’ve made US counterparts like Calvin Richardson or Anthony Hamilton proud.

Cracked Ship with its broken beats influences is another example of Misty’s versatility. This one was produced by Misty together with Joe Dworniak (of 80s British soul band I-Level fame). Joe also co-produced the afore mentioned U Came, the ultra soulful Angel and Not Afraid. The rest was produced by Misty who also wrote all songs on offer. There is no denying Misty’s talents if you really delve into this album and listen closely to it. The only song where Misty does a little too much to bring us her message is Civilized, that in itself is a beautiful ballad but for my taste is spoiled by an announcer and radio play snippets. There are still enough other very good songs like the funky Thank You Link (only disadvantage it’s too short) or Woman In Me, which reminds me a little of the way Kate Bush handles a song.

One might say that Forest Soul is one woman’s glorious attempt to save the world through music. Actually, I can’t argue with this if the result is a great album like this is. And to be honest I think Misty is right, the only question is if we really can undo the damage that has already been done to nature or are we’ve already destroyed nature up to a point where there’s no hope for improvement.
So make sure you get your piece of Forest Soul and do something good for yourself, your ears and even the environment, because this CD is produced carbon neutral and 50p for each album will be donated to Greenpeace.

Tracklisting of Forest Soul: 1. Pure Love/ 2. Sing It From The Heart/ 3. Hit Record/ 4. Orange Fox/ 5. Babinetics Link/ 6. U Came/ 7. Cracked Ship/ 8. Orang-Utan Link/ 9. Angel/ 10. Civilized/ 11. Soizic’s Prayer/ 12. Not Afraid/ 13. Grey Breasted Mountain Toucan Blues/ 14. Forest Soul Theme/ 15. Thank You Link/ 16. Woman In Me/ 17. Tunde’s Forest Link | released 2005 by Mistic Discs

For more infos visit mistyoldland.com.

[If you want to discuss Misty Oldland’s music, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]

As completion to the review of Conya Doss’ Just Because album, here’s a short interview with Miss Doss:

Q: Where are your musical roots and how do you describe your music?

Conya Doss: My musical roots come from my musical family and the variety of music that they have exposed me to, i.e. Stevie Wonder, Donnie Hathaway, Angela Winbush, The Doobie Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Natalie Cole. I learned so much from them!

Q: What was your motivation to produce and release Just Because on your own? And what was the experience like to be responsible for everything?

Conya Doss: After dealing with all of the nonsense of others guiding my career, I decided to try it on my own, I knew exactly what I wanted. It was a lot more difficulty, which minimized some of my creativity, but in the end, I had total control as to what I which route I wanted to take. I knew everything that was going on with regards to my project. The good, the bad etc…

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Listen Up Records is a label on a mission and the mission is to put Chicago back on the soul music map. Back in soul music’s halcyon days, the Windy City was of course famous for the creative output of Curtis Mayfield, Gene Chandler, Jerry Butler, Major Lance, or Billy Butler. In the mid-80s Chicago was the birthplace of house music. Unfortunately most of the soul impetus got lost over the years while house music became the new disco and simplified said, New Jersey Garage became the heir of soulful uptempo music.
In the 90s R.Kelly emerged to conquer the charts. But what started as soul soon turned into urban/R&B and leaves the question what has happened to the soul of Chi-Town?
Soul music in Chicago is still alive it just has gone underground. And thanks to Listen Up Records we can now enjoy twelve songs from six artists.
Cherisse (Scott) is featured with two songs from her wonderful album Moans, that she has released on her own in 2003. I Can’t Make You Be A Man is a flowing midtempo groove with a fine vocal performance, Hopeless is one of the killertracks here, a great downtempo groove that oozes soul thanks to Cherisse’s rich voice.
The Kevin Chandler Band contributes Gilding The Lilly and When Ya Lovin’ Me, both are classic pieces of relaxed and smooth soul.
Judging You and Brazilian Love Affair (not a cover of the George Duke tune) by the McKenzie Burns Project can best be described as perfect marriage of soul and smooth jazz, the latter song with a pleasant dose of latin jazz.
The two songs by Kaialexander (Don’t Play and Too Kold) fit nicely into the context of this compilation although they are a little too smooth-jazz-like if judged on their own.
Much better is Teddy Austin with his neo soul/hip hop influenced Eye No (anyone remembering Prince and his Lovesexy album using the same song title?) and Under Stand.
The sixth artist featured on this compilation is Chester Gregory, whose Konfuezd is a little bit too, er, konfuezd for my taste. But he really hits home with his ballad Til U Come (Back To Me).
Overall this is a great compilation of the soul underground of Chicago and since it’s labeled Volume I, there will hopefully be a Volume II, III…

Tracklisting of Chicago Soul Sessions Volume I: 1. I Can’t Make You Be A Man/ 2. Gilding The Lilly/ 3. Judging You/ 4. Don’t Play/ 5. Eye No/ 6. Kunfuezd/ 7. When Ya Lovin’ Me/ 8. Hopeless/ 9. Brazilian Love Affair/ 10. Too Kold/ 11. Til U Come (Back To Me)/ 12. Under Stand | released 2005 by Listen Up Records

For more infos visit chicagosoulsessions.com, cdbaby.com, cherissescott.com, mckenzieburns.com, chestergregory.com.

[If you want to discuss the music on this compilation, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]

The Reverend suffers for us. Like AL Green has always done. 2003 saw him back in music biz after an endless hiatus with I Can’t Stop. He even gilded Simple Beautiful on Dana Owens/Queen Latifah’s album last year, making this the one stand-out song.
And it’s good to see him back recording albums regularly.
Everything’s OK has everything we love about Al, i.e., soulful and funky grooves spiced with contributions by the Royal Horns and the New Memphis Strings that sounds like he has never stopped recording secular music since the 70s.
Produced and recorded by Al and Willie Mitchell at Royal Studios, Memphis TN, it’s hard to pick a stand-out song here. Take the beautiful ballad Real Love, which makes you remind why it’s called soul music and why Al is one the epitome of this music genre, the bluesy I Can Make Music with some solid harmonica playing by Bobby Rush or the uptempo funky Build Me Up.
Actually, this is a recommandable album, but since it will be released on a major label, there isn’t just the music to be considered when writing a review these days.
As you can see on the other reviews here, I don’t give points, but just to illustrate what I think about record labels trying to regulate the listener’s joy of music (and EMI/Blue Note is notorious for it), I’ll do it this one time: Everything’s OK would get 9 out of 10, but if the CD comes with copy protection it will get a mere 0 out of 10. So if Blue Note keeps going on releasing CDs with copy protection like they did with the latest releases by Cassandra Wilson or Dianne Reeves in Germany, don’t buy it. Copy protection kills music and is a violation of the buyer’s rights!

Tracklisting of Everything’s OK: 1. Everything’s OK/ 2. You Are So Beautiful/ 3. Build Me Up/ 4. Perfect To Me/ 5. Nobody But You/ 6. Real Love/ 7. I Can Make Music/ 8. Be My Baby/ 9. Magic Road/ 10. I Wanna Hold You/ 11. Another Day/ 12. All The Time | released 2005 by Blue Note Records

For more infos visit bluenote.com.

[If you want to discuss Al Green’s music, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]

What a real pleasant surprise. A few days ago while browsing on the internet I’ve stumbled across a band named Greenlaw Ave. who has already released three albums, their latest Time And Energy was just released these days.
Greenlaw Ave. is a duo which evokes memories of Groove Theory or Sample This! (although only few may recall this band from their 1993 release on Elektra). But Skyla J and Michael Anthony Osbourne (aka MC Ozzie) have their own sound, which is an earthy, raw mixture of groovy beats, street soul and jazz. Time And Energy was recorded in London, which may explain why their music is done in a way you’d expect more to come out of the UK than Greenlaw Ave.’s home-country Canada.
The title track Time And Energy is straight out of the nu soul department but it has that special something that seperates it from the masses of nu soul songs and that is Skyla J’s magic flute.
Colour Blue (note the British spelling of colour) is a mellow, relaxed song with warm keys, guitar chords, a fine vocal performance by Skyla and again her flute playing. A great, timeless song.
Things get even better with All Around Me, a soul song that oozes class with cello and trumpet adding further variation to Greenlaw Ave.’s sound.

These Streets is a beautiful downtempo song with extra-added flugelhorn, while Just Haven’t has a slight hip-hop feeling (remember James Brown’s The Funky Drummer as blueprint of most early 90s street hip-hop/soul records?). Another reminiscence of the early 90s is Strength that sees MC Ozzie delivering a short rap over what sounds like an early Soul II Soul influenced groove. I’m surprised how good and not at all dated this sounds.
The album’s closer Do You Feel The Same Way has an interesting improvised feeling, as if Skyla, Michael and their guitarist John Landau would do an impromptu performance in a street near you.

Touring in the UK and Europe at the moment, they may be coming to a street near you soon.

So don’t miss Greenlaw Ave. if you like your music original, with heartfelt and honest energy.

Tracklisting of Time And Energy: 1. Intro/ 2. Time and Energy/ 3. Colour Blue/ 4. All Around Me/ 5. Interlude/ 6. Powers That Be/ 7. These Streets/ 8. Just Haven’t/ 9. Strength/ 10. Do You Feel The Same Way ? | released 2005 by Greenlaw Avenue Entertainment

For more infos visit greenlawave.com and cdbaby.com.

[If you want to discuss Greenlaw Ave.’s music, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]

To complete my review of Ola Onabule’s fabulous new album In Emergency, Brake Silence here’s an in-depth interview with Ola about his music. Many thanks to Ola for going into details.

Q: Your album In Emergency, Brake Silence is available for a few months now. How are the reactions from critics and fans so far?

Ola Onabule: Firstly may I say thank you to Dirk for asking me to do this interview. It’s good to have you back on the scene. [thanks, Ola :-)]
In answer to your first question, I think it would be fair to say that reactions to ‘IN EMERGENCY…’ are the best they have been since my first album MORE SOUL THAN SENSE, almost ten years ago! The ‘old’ fans seem to be discovering new favourites and the new ones are attracted to older albums because of this one. The critics have been very kind to us in confirming almost unanimously that this is our finest work to date. It’s a good time to be.

Q: Your new album will be released in continental Europe by ZYX, a label that on the one hand issues records by jazz labels like Fantasy and on the other hand throw-away dance trash. Please tell us how and why you’ve hooked up with them.

Ola Onabule: The album is actually licensed to Blue Cat for Germany, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg and will be distributed via ZYX. They have such expansive ‘know how’ and expertise regarding the European market in all aspects and genres of the biz. We are very excited about their involvement.

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In 2002 I was really impressed by a record from a then-unknown singer named Conya Doss. A Poem About Miss Doss was a welcome breath of fresh air. While Conya’s input then was somehow limited to singing, vocal arrangements and co-writing some songs, she has really evolved with the release of her new album Just Because. This time she took her fate in her own hands and wrote or co-wrote all songs, produced everything (together with Rodney Jones, Myron, Tony Pulizzi or Chris McNeal, was executive producer, supervised the whole album project and released it on her own imprint ConyaDossSongs Inc. Quite impressive and congratulations to Conya’s new found state of independence!
The result, Just Because, is one hundred percent Conya Doss and a fine selection of modern soul music.
Listening to the album it’s obvious that Conya has studied her musical influences attentively and her sophomore album can compete with all the Jills, Erykahs, Vivian or Angies out there.
Day By Day for example is stunning with its simplicity of sparse keys and guitar chords, fully emphasizing Conya’s vocal arrangement and voice.
Sweet Love (I Don’t Know Why) is another reason that makes this album so good, drenching of classic soul harmonies this could’ve easily been released on a rare 70s soul album.
Equally appealing is Ain’t Given Up, which is shows Conya’s talent with vocal arrangements. A great piece of simple soul music with interwoven vocals/background vocals that reminds me of the things Marvin Gaye used to do.
Damn That is interesting for the fact that it tries to marry nu soul with urban/R&B influences. Songs like Missing You, Just Because or What Should I Do? are obviously influenced by the nu soul genre, while The Wind, a duet with Chris McNeal, adds further variety to an overall fine and complex album.

Tracklisting 1. Just Because/ 2. Stay/ 3. What Should I Do?/ 4. Day By Day/ 5. Sweet Love (I Don’t Know Why)/ 6. Missing You/ 7. The Wind/ 8. Damn That/ 9. Sixth Of June (Miracle)/ 10. Here We Go Again/ 11. Ain’t Givin Up | released 2004 on ConyaDossSongs Inc./ Uniquebeatentertainment

For more infos visit conyadoss.com, cdbaby.com and domerecords.co.uk.

[If you want to discuss Conya Doss’ music, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]

Olatunji Olugbenga Omotayo Olanrewaju Adetokunbo Abdul Majeed Onabule, better known as Onabule did it again and that is, surpassing himself. Just like it’s predecessor Ambitions For Deeper Breadth In Emergency, Brake Silence is another great soul album that has everything we love about Ola’s music, original, self-written songs, a warm, organic musical background, meaningful lyrics and of course Ola’s great voice.
The opener Soul Town is a great piece of midtempo soul that finds Ola lamenting over the fact that the dreams and hopes we had in the past are unfulfilled today (”Somebody tell me what happened to all those dreams of peace/ And understanding and harmony and brotherhood and love/ Being together for ever and ever/ Don’t it seem like Soul Town, Soul Town is gone“).
Heart Of Lead is story telling soul about an former lover, who wants to re-activate the bonds of love but to Ola this just doesn’t make sense.
A priceless, excellent ballad comes with Love Affair, thanks to spare instrumentation this is the perfect vehicle to show Ola’s vocal capability. Of equal class is the album’s closing ballad Forgiven. I think it would be very interesting and musical satisfying to hear Ola with a classical jazz trio (piano, bass, drums).
Funky midtempo songs like Savoir Faire or Need To Know round things nicely while Going Away might surprise you with its rock-influenced guitars. But after all this is all pure Ola and the music he wants to make or like he said in an interview with Echoes “But I won’t be doing this with a major label. Those days have gone. I’ve seen people who have built something special the independent route and then fell for the big cash offer, and all their uniqueness goes. I won’t trade that.”
To sum it up this is the perfect album for those who are into pure, unaltered soul music that comes from the very heart of a man. Ola gives us the very essence of soul.

For more infos visit ola-onabule.co.uk.
[edit: In Emergency, Break Silence will be released in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg on April 18th 2005 ZYX Music. (I hope you will have more luck opening the zyx site, neither my Firefox, nor my Opera could load this site…it just keeps loading and loading without showing anything. And if you disable JavaScript you get a site telling you that you should acctivate it :-/ ]
[second edit: you can also read an interwiew with Ola here.]

Nobody tells me a thing out there…lol…but it looks like I’ve missed Siji’s album God-Given from last year…judging from the tracklisting and the logo of Ivy Records this must be the man behind Shiji’s My Lover’s Embrace…oh how I loved that song in 1997!

Of course there were some great albums released during jazz-not-jazz’ hiatus. One of them is Fertile Ground’s Black Is… album released on Blackout Studios/Counterpoint Records.

Who owns Fertile Ground’s Spiritual War or Sesaons Change album will know that they are one of the best bands out there that offer a great melange of soul, jazz, poetry, reagge and dub. In their music you find echos of soul’s music icons like Stevie, Marvin, Donny, or Roberta.

All songs are lovingly sung by vocalist extraordinaire Navasha Daya adding even more depth and spirituality to the music. Listen for Spiritual World with its Yoruban prayer for example (”Cause down here is something different/ Adding experiences to my soul/ It may be viewed just like a prison/ But it’s necessary for my growth/ In this schoolplace world we’re living/ Our personality we must control/ We must keep a higher vision/ Remembering our purpose and our role“)

Live In The Light, the first single, offers what we all loved about 70s soul music. A funky upbeat groove and lyrics that dare to voice an opinion (”So let’s stop the war, stop poor, stop for peace/ Stop the bomb, stop the bush, stop the beast/ Stop for love, stop the lies, stop the fights/ Stop the deaths, stop the hate, live the light“).

And the good things continue with songs like Another Day, the spoken words entry An Artist Prayer or one of my favourites Yellow Daisies, although I could virtually name every song on Black Is… as favourite song. They are all great and if you’ve missed this album on its release in autumn 2004 make sure to get it now.

For more infos visit blackoutstudios.com and counterpointrecords.co.uk.