Twelve months on from his debut album, “Songs For My Funeral”, Nostalgia 77’s Ben Lamdin takes the funk-laced format deeper into soul-jazz territory, giving form to a style of jazz that brings to mind Bob James or Eddie Harris; labels such as Atlantic and Blue Note; in short, compositions similar to that that producers like Pete Rock & Madlib will have beavered away in dusty crates for years to find and pillage. Using real musicians helps, even when married to modern a production environ. Tracks such as the sprawling, dark “The Hunger” suggest a real vision and imagination, with no regard for boundaries, and there’s everyone’s favourite bassline phenomenon “Seven Nation Army”, taken into jazz funk territory with Alice Russell’s tremendous vocal prowess. Sweet, old-fashioned sounds with a modern twist – Nostalgia 77 is a star in the making.
4 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Darren Wall
