I first encountered Van Hunt a year and a half ago when I saw one of his videos on VH1Soul. Since then I've caught a few more, including his latest for Dust, a simple performance video set on a tour boat floating down the Seine in Paris. The tune is nice and funky, and features some great guitar licks by Van. I decided to finally buy the record, and have been caning it for the last month now. It's some seriously quality neo-soul with all kinds of influences - Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder and Lenny Kravitz all come to mind. Van's guitar playing is ace, there are nice touches of modernism, and the songs are hooky and sweet. Out Of The Sky definitely owes a great deal to Sly and The Family Stone - it's percolating drum machine beats in particular. Feel the funk.
Over the last week I've rediscovered the joys of legendary hip hop producer Pete Rock's 2001 release Petestrumentals. Like the title says, it's largely instrumental hip hop stuff, full of head nodding goodness. A Little Soul kicks off the album in supremely snazzy style, with lots of nice jazzy piano samples and a bumping beat.
2 comments:
You're welcome! I really can't say enough about how good his LP is - it's one of those records I didn't have high expectations for and it ended up being a lot better than I thought it would. Love it!
Man. If there's one Van Hunt track I dig it's Down Here In Hell (With You). Great blog by the way, been checking it for some time.
Post a Comment