not often i do the myspace/download thing, but last week an email pointing me in the direction of the aforementioned resources from alan wilkis dropped at just the right moment.
subsequently, i ended up checking out his 6 track debut ep and quickly found myself grinning from ear to ear.
quite simply, alan has, alongside a whole bunch of pretty well connected extras that help out in bands that are all over a blog near you, crafted a lovely set of 80s referencing pop music.
yes, there is a definite cheese pop factor during the opening chord sequence of gonna get you back during which you can mentally picture the nerdiest boyband doing squirm some moves, however, the song is just sooo damn catchy, you’ll have it your heard as an earworm for hours afterwards.
thankfully, as well as cheese, there is also a lot of plastic funk, which given the reference to the colour purple indicates a particular love of one major 80s artist in particular. a fact that is confirmed with the dropping of a mad, over the top electric guitar solo during the smooth closer track, time machine.
george clinton styled keyboards (and during n.i.c.e there is even a female backing vocal/vocoder rap that is so close to the funk of parliament and p-funk i was checking the details for songwriting credits), slab bass, and old analogue synths are given a very authentic make over throughout the 30 or so minutes (think the sort of 80s electro that provided the backing for a lot of sleeping bag records hits).
the question is : could alan be crowned the natural successor to jaques le conts groove ?
quite possibly if the chance were to arise.
all in all, very enjoyable.