Alchemy Of Soul

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2009-10-20

Label: Backline Records

With equal amounts of sass, brass, jazz, soul, funk, gospel, rock, and N'awleans attitude, Jacob Merlin rolls out an 11-spot of soul sides that garnered the honored Mic Gillette in for a large seal of approval. Merlin styles himself from Les McCann to Earth, Wind, and Fire, playing keyboards a la Billy Paul while singing admonitions, observations, and laments:

It's clear I'm not needed here,
I'm talking to a face made of stone,
Rap all you want, there's no one home.

Don't fight it, your head is sided
I can ease all your troubles, I can ease your load,
But there's no one home.

Gillette co-arranged the horn section with Rick Tippetts atop Merlin's comps, giving more than a little of that ol' Tower of Power taste. A smooth mellow atmosphere takes up a good deal of the space here, but the songs swing more than few times in cuts like Madness, with its emphatic grooves contrasted by a lazy rambling horn middle eight which tightens into a set of riffs on the melody. And don't forget the George Duke / Billy Preston clav in "Deja Vu" followed by a Wurlitzer solo.

This is definitely old school stuff that'll be attracting lots of new ears, as the template for a sound so drenched was almost lost not long ago. Hammerhead has Isley Brothers airs and rocks like early Mother's Finest cut with Chicago, Donut is a definite dance floor bop track, and Muddy Right Foot almost catches the Allman Bros. unawares with Michael Suffin's slide and blues peripheries. Lots to like here.

There are many hidden gems in the production of this album... I'll give you one... In the song "Monster" a growl will come in and out in a very low frequency a few times during the tune. Can you hear it? It was created with a device/instrument called a theremin!