Review: Over the course of the last decade, dub-soaked musical fusionist Lord Echo has delivered a string of fine releases, including two top-notch albums. Given his fine track record, it's perhaps unsurprising that Soundway has snapped up the Kiwi producer's third full-length excursion, Harmonies. It features contributions from a posse of guest collaborators - Tony Laing of Fat Freddy's Drop and regular studio buddy Mara TK included - and giddily infuses reggae and rocksteady with disco, Afro-soul, Afro-funk, Afro-beat, spiritual jazz and, more surprisingly, techno. It's a hugely vibrant and entertaining set, all told, offering a good balance between dancefloor vibrations and more laidback concoctions.
Review: Second time around for Lord Echo's Mara TK hook-up, "The Sweetest Meditation", which was one of the standout cuts on the Kiwi producer's brilliant Harmonies album. This time, the "high-rolling summertime opus" is given the remix treatment, with the good Lord kicking things off via a warm, jazzy and sun-kissed "Club Mix" full of wavy deep house attitude and Roy Ayers style Vibraphone solos. Julien Dyre utilizes the original version's dub style bassline to the full on his boogie-tinged deep house interpretation, while Borrowed CS's top-notch reworks sits somewhere between the Detroit deep house of Andres and Joe Clausell's percussive Afro-house productions. Arguably best of all, though, is "The Sweetest Dub", a rolling and echo-laden, dub disco style re-make.
