{"id":20920,"date":"2021-04-29T05:30:48","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20920"},"modified":"2022-11-09T08:45:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T13:45:53","slug":"album-review-keb-darge-presents-the-new-mastersounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/29\/album-review-keb-darge-presents-the-new-mastersounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Keb Darge Presents The New Mastersounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As the leaders of the funk-soul boogaloo revival, The New Mastersounds have churned out along and impressive string of deep funk\/groove albums, exploring the part of the musical Venn diagram in which jam-band and dance music intersect. With impeccable taste and even better chops, the foursome originally from Leeds UK (but now based in Colorado) has been an ardently loyal fan base. Its studio albums and live shows are different from each other but all of a piece: they\u2019re fiery on record but staggeringly impressive onstage.<\/p>\n

The New Mastersounds\u2019 long-playing debut was released in 2001, during a period when the CD still reigned supreme as the format of choice. Digital releases hadn\u2019t yet gained a significant foothold in the marketplace. And in fact there was a vinyl release, too. Which makes sense, because the sort of music that the quartet makes seems ideally suited to the vinyl format.<\/p>\n

But good luck finding \u2013 much less being able to afford \u2013 one of those rare vinyl pressings of Keb Darge Presents The New Mastersounds<\/i>. Happily, though, Color Red\u2019s Rare Sounds series \u2013 curated by none other than New Mastersounds guitarist Eddie Roberts \u2013 has reissued the band\u2019s debut on vinyl for current-day listeners.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the good news, and it is very good. But the not quite as good news is that while Keb Darge Presents<\/i> is a good album, it\u2019s not quite a great one. Considered on its own merits, the 13-track LP is stuffed full of the same kind of head-nodding, noodle-dancing goodness that characterizes the band\u2019s body of work. But somehow the group seems to be trying just a little too hard, playing and arranging in a somewhat manic fashion. The quite confidence that\u2019s a hallmark of later releases like 2005\u2019s Live at La Cova<\/i>, 2011\u2019s Breaks from the Border<\/i> or the 2015 recording Made for Pleasure<\/i> is slightly lacking here.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not altogether fair to measure a band\u2019s first album by the standards of what they\u2019re doing some two decades later. And Keb Darge Presents<\/i> is indeed a tasty treat, one that benefits from the guest vocals of Clive Freckleton and (even more so) Sulene Fleming on \u201cTurn This Thing Around.\u201d The horn section is perhaps a bit more prominent than fans of the band\u2019s later work might enjoy; sometimes the core four sound as if they\u2019re supporting the, er, supporting players. And orignal keyboardist Bob Birch has a sound and technique that\u2019s different \u2013not necessarily better or inferior, just different \u2013 from that of his successor, longtime New Mastersounds keys man Joe Tatton.<\/p>\n

Still, for fans of absolutely any of the New Mastersounds\u2019 music, their debut album \u2013one unlikely to already be in their collection \u2013 is a necessary addition. It does demonstrate that most \u2013 if not quite all \u2013 of the band\u2019s musical assets were in place from the start. It\u2019s just that Keb Darge Presents<\/i> also makes a compelling case for the later stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the leaders of the funk-soul boogaloo revival, The New Mastersounds have churned out along and impressive string of deep funk\/groove albums, exploring the part of the musical Venn diagram […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,64,65,69,73],"tags":[1574,2171],"class_list":["post-20920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funk","category-reissue","category-review","category-soul","category-vinyl","tag-new-mastersounds","tag-the-new-mastersounds","cat-31-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24198,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20920\/revisions\/24198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}