It has been a long time since I scribbled about my listening habits but that is from a lack of time and motivation. Even with the recent pricing changes at eMusic I am still swimming about in countless albums thanks my discovering Amie Street and their liberal use of credit sales to part my hard earned money from my person. That said, I am in a Funk/Soul period at the moment and am diving headlong into album that are either vintage or neo in their arrangements and execution. Below are four that are burning my ears off at the moment.

The Lee Fields album, My World, reminded me of Darondo’s Let My People Go, smoke laden and gritty in its emotionally raw masculinity. Love Comes And Goes is by far my favorite cut with shivering strings and shimmering guitar chords backed by brassy horn stabs, a jumpy bass line and a rock solid back beat. The chorus pulls me in and often I’m belting it out unabashedly regardless the company or place.

Let Me Be Your Man by Tyrone Ashley’s Funky Music Machine blew me flat with the opening chords of Come On Home. the album is deep, raw, sweet with a splash of skank to keep things in line. The cover of I Can’t Help Myself has this fantastic unpolished feel to the production that, while probably indicates the age and stress on the master copy, imparts a real sense of immediacy to the recording. The album has a taunt story behind it of loss, fire, and eventual rescue that makes it all more precious of a listen.

I have been riding Sounding Out The City for the better part of this year, savoring every bass jump, horn stab, and snap of the snare. Tracks like Behind The Blue Curtains become a private soundtrack for the minutia of my life, adding a little swing and soul to the most mundane of tasks. Slide Show sees the group taking the simplest of interplays between a jumpy bassline and an arpeggiated chord on the guitar and twists it into irresistible head-nodding hook. I just picked up their new release today and am really looking forward to spinning it up, especially after the countless listenings this album has offered.

The spin down of horns on Menahan Street Band’s Home Again! is sweetly offset by the acoustic guitar and offers a fantastic take on a upbeat Soul instrumental. Brass features prominently on Make The Road By Walking and the arrangements weave nasally saxophones and brittle trumpets into a surprisingly thick stew of sound. The group also very refreshingly draws from a variety of inspirations, in particularly a kinetic kind of Reggae anchors Montego Sunset but it still maintains a gritty industrial feel too it.