TONITE: ALFRED SOTO AND THE SOUL PRETENSIONS – TUESDAY: BINGO – WEDNESDAY: MIRROR SIGNAL MANOEUVRE: A TRIBUTE TO EARTH WIND & FIRE…
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Jonathan Bogart: Is Robin Thicke really something to aspire to?
[5]
Alfred Soto: Finally, after all the Arthur Russell homages, here’s one, however oblique, to the Bee Gees. If it doesn’t sound that way to you, credit (blame?) the soul pretensions.
[5]
Mark Sinker: Halfway through the first listen I realised I was wishing he’d sung it in a made-up language. There’s nothing especially wrong with the words, except that people paying them any attention are being distracted from the fingerclicks, say.
[9]
Martin Skidmore: The song is kind of simple and not hugely stimulating, so it depends how much you like his vocal. His voice is kind of thin, but there is more than a hint of genuine soulfulness in it, even if his phrasing remains pretty uninteresting.
[6]
Iain Mew: The combination of stuttering, not entirely human sounding vocals and a nervous twitch of a beat makes for an uneasy listening experience, but a really enthralling one too. Jamie’s performance is great, constantly on the egde of losing control but never quite falling even as the ground beneath him is constantly shifting.
[8]
Anthony Easton: The doos and the smooth hustle of his voice make up for a lot of the cliched bullshit of the rest of the track.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Come for the ’00s R&B touches — the vocal stabs, the embellishments on Woon’s voice, the frequent breaks for sympathetic listeners to insert their own; stay for the night fog of plinking reverb beneath it all. It’s not quite a river, but it’ll do.
[8]