Cymande!

[JSngry]

All

The first

It's not totally Reggae, Afro, or anything else. You got your mellow Santana-esque guitar, your Rasta-inspired lyrics, your War-like percussion, and tons of other stuff, including odd meters and a bass player who lays it down where (and ONLY where) it needs to be, but none of it is forced, not in the least. It's got that floating groove where time stands still and you have all the room in the world to move around inside it and resisting the dance impulse proves all but impossible.

Wish I had know about these guys a LOT sooner!

[Brandon Burke]

of course Cymande is good.

if you wouldn't have blown off that Chains & Black Exhaust comp i sent you, i'm sure you'd be talking about that too. what am i, chopped liver..?

Edited September 19, 2005 by Brandon Burke

[chuckyd4]

Welcome to the club.

No seriously, Cymande is great, glad you somehow finally got hipped to them.

[JSngry]

if you wouldn't have blown off that Chains & Black Exhaust comp i sent you, i'm sure you'd be talking about that too.  what am i, chopped liver..?

←

Oh, I in NO way blew that one off, at least not personally. It just came at a significantly more crowded time than this one did. My posting's become a lot more irrregular the last few months or so, and the excellent compilation you were kind enough to share came at a time when regular posting was not a regular thing, if you know what I mean. The numbers probably don't give that impression, but believe me, "sporadic" has been the order of the day for me here lately.

Hell, I didn't even post about Big Moe -- Live At RC's Place (Circa 1972), a somewhat similar-in-orign compilation which I think you'll fully dig, if you haven't already dug it. If you haven't, feel free to contact me for a bit of "reciprocity", ok?

[Noj]

I'm definitely a fan!

BTW, iTunes had the track list for Chains & Black Exhaust.

[Kalo]

I've been curious about these guys for a long time, but this thread finally inspired me to check them out.

I went the whole hog with this anthology, all three albums plus previously unreleased tracks:

Am I ever glad that I did! Great stuff. Totally unique afro-carribean funkitude. I love the spare grooves and the deliciously sour horns. And Steve Scipio plays some of the most infectious basslines of all time. Comparisons to War are apt, and I hear a little Meters in here too, but these guys definitely had their own thing going on.

Highly recommended.

I hear good things about Chains & Black Exhaust, too.