Review

The Boogie Volume 3: Various Artists (Tokyo Dawn Records)

Tokyo Dawn Records continue their Boogie series with this latest third volume long player. Featuring work from artists such as Opolopo, Yam Who and Yellowtail, I immediately got a bit excited when receiving this to review.

The Boogie Volume 3 is championed on a heady mixture of 80’s Electro, P Funk and generally well thought out and produced music.

From the outset, I am greeted with an intro track that runs at a short 1 minute 12 seconds, as it sets the tone for the whole album with a really early American hip hop number. I’m thinking Roxanne Shanté…that kind of vibe and immediately I know I’m going to listen to this album in its entirety, not just flick through the tracks.

Next up is the delicious ‘Children of the Sun’ featuring Heidi Vogel. This track is beautiful, I have instantly fallen in love with it and although very original, I can still draw comparisons to Minnie Riperton’s timeless piece ‘Black Gold of the Sun’ which is a huge compliment.

Colonel Red’s P Funk number ‘The Riddle’ is another track oozing with originality and a killer hook. I absolutely LOVE this and the album is just getting better and better.

There are so many eighties influences on here, the compilation is awash with Roland 808 and 909 which is all good in my book as I was an eighties kid into the Electro sound. A hip hop direction is taken midway through, before I stumble upon the superb Blaktronics neo soul track ‘It’s All Right Now’ which is yet another winner. I’m not avoiding commenting on the hip hop tracks as they are all really good, but I want to focus on the other genres.

Fearless featuring Opolopo’s ‘Al Velilla’ makes its debut with searing synth leads, and an eighties feel that could see it wearing a leotard...or is that just my warped reviewer’s mind?

Next to grab my attention is Wagon Cooking with ‘All the Night’ another very electro’esque sounding piece of music. When I say Electro, I mean Morgan Khan and the Street Sounds era, not the house sound.

I’m typing this review on the fly whilst listening to the album and have now stumbled upon Stan Smith’s ‘Disco Technic’ which is a killer hip hop/soul/funk/disco hybrid. What a track, this is another one that flows faster than Niagra Falls and is really, really different. I can’t explain this track in terms of what to compare it to. You need to listen for yourself to understand the range of influences it draws upon.

The penultimate number is the lovely Juno led soul piece by Martino called ‘Reasons.’ This is more on a chilled tip, but still retains a Ready Brek kid kind of warmth, sounding fresh and bright and commanding your ears to listen to it. I don’t know if you’ll get a red glow around your body afterwards though.

The final number on this whopping 17 track album is a lovely instrumental piece that is dictated by a strong Korg DW-8000 & Prophet-5 sound. If I were to compare this to a film, the soundtrack would definitely have come from the Beverly Hills Cop era! (In case you don’t know, Juno’s were a very popular Roland keyboard in the eighties and responsible for the majority of sounds you know from that era.)

I’d get the lino out to do a windmill if I was still able to and I love the nostalgic feeling this album induces on me. Yet again, Tokyo Dawn are leading the way and are rapidly becoming one of my favourite record labels to review. This album has diversity, musical prowess and a strong feel good factor. If you’re a fan of music, not just one specific genre, you need to check this out.

Excellent work and a huge thumbs up.

The Boogie Volume 3 is released on September 24th on Tokyo Dawn Records.

You can listen to the tracks here: http://www.tokyodawn.net/the_boogie3/
Words GARETH MORGAN