Ooberfuse “Call My Name”

Shades of post-punk surrealism are met with hypnotic, somewhat ambient textures as the bassline in “The Noise” remix of “Call My Name” thrusts back and forth, pulverizing the distant percussion with its unimaginable weight. Regardless of where the volume knob sits on your stereo, you aren’t going to stop the physicality of the bass that draws up a foundation for this mix of ooberfuse’s latest composition. Singer Cherrie Anderson’s voice is the only light in this dark, gloomy environment where tonality plays a villainous role in creating as much tension as would be possible within a three minute club song. As intimidating a listen as it can be, it’s got a magnetizing quality that seems to be a bit of a theme among all of the Call My Name remixes that I’ve heard, from the chiming “Hal St John Radio Edit” to the rather muted “Paul Kennedy Radio Edit” and its fiercely indie music video. Ooberfuse have made one heck of a summer melody here, and in these different versions of it we get to see just how talented the British twosome of Anderson and St John really are.

There’s more of an alternative/punk influence in the construction of the “Hal St John Radio Edit,” “Patrik Kambo Radio Edit” and “Push The Frequency Festival Mix” than there is in “The Noise” and “Paul Kennedy Radio Edit,” which lean more exclusively on the electronic tones in ooberfuse’s sound. The mashup of styles doesn’t create any sort of disfluency in the harmonies as we go from one track to the next, but instead makes the entire record feel like a picture window into the band’s history, and more explicitly, the roots of their music.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/06s7QZxwWcKnJZtFLbTTZi

There’s a little bit of The Cure in the St John remix, perhaps a touch of Kraftwerk in “The Noise,” a dash of strange, Massive Attack-like eccentrics in the “Push The Frequency Festival Mix,” and even a brutish, Ministry-esque industrialism to Kambo’s radio edit (spare the vocal track, that is). I listen to Call My Name and I can’t help but hear bits and pieces of the European underground spanning well over the last four decades, and that’s not something that I see very often as a critic, if ever at all.

Aside from a few minor speedbumps on the soundboard side of the glass, Call My Name is an excellent collection of masterfully made remixes from ooberfuse and their collaborators, Paul Kennedy and Patrik Kambo. These tracks are more than experimental enough to keep the eclectic electropop and ambient fans happy over the summer season while still boasting a streamlined production quality that, I believe, will get a few of them some time on the radio in both the UK and the United States this year. Call My Name is full of richly evocative, heterogeneous harmonies that are anything but easy to come by in 2019, and even if it doesn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know about ooberfuse, it essentially confirms everything that their biggest fans in the media were already well aware of.

Heather Savage

Ronnue’s Introduction 2 Retro-Funk is wrecking ball

The American underground has been producing hit after hit this summer, and one of its most profound stars comes to us out of the Northwest R&B circuit in the form of Ronnue’s Introduction 2 Retro-Funk, a wrecking ball of an LP that can get anyone grooving inside of its twelve deeply melodic funk tracks. Ronnue is no stranger to the spotlight up in Seattle, where he’s been building a cult reputation for his one of a kind flow and adherence to classic funk rhythms, but in Introduction 2 Retro-Funk, he brings a caliber of content to the studio that tops anything he’s issued in the past by a mile.

Both “17 Days (The Hood Mix)” and “Do It (The Remix) [feat. Roc Phizzle, Soultry]” show this skillful songwriter giving up a huge share of the spotlight to the instrumental swagger that drives the music behind him in what I would call a rare act of selflessness in modern R&B. Ronnue is really good about balancing out every batch of lyrics that he lays out here with a powerful harmony in the backing track, and while he’s always the most commanding presence in any given composition, he never sounds like just another talented artist with an ego the size of Alaska.

“Be Your Freak,” “If We Stayed 2gether,” “Something About U (The Retro-Funk Mix)” and “I’m a Lesbian” use a lot of callous bass tones to get our attention, but it’s the vibrant dispatch of verses that keeps our focus trained on the vocalist in these tracks. As a lyricist, Ronnue has only grown more capable with every release he’s stamped his name on, and if this game really is all about creative development, then I would name him as one of the only Seattle players near the forefront of the “New West Coast” sound at the moment.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/5pQtFqzcH7qj6e43XGfWcZ?autoplay=true&v=L

Some songs here, like “Why,” “Be Your Freak” and “You Tried Me (The Man’s Anthem)” sound more structured than others, like “In Love,” “I’m a Lesbian” and “Do It (The Remix),” which all feature a more freeform, improvisational feel. Everything on Introduction 2 Retro-Funk is rooted in professional-quality precision, but it’s important to draw a distinction between the loose, easygoing vocal style of Ronnue and some of the duller mainstream poets that he’s challenging for dominance in 2019. This guy doesn’t want to fit in – he’s a rebel, and honestly, this genre needs his kind of attitude now more than ever.

Ronnue’s talent isn’t any news to those of us who have heard his music before, but to the listeners who are finding out about his abstruse but always accessible brand of funk for the first time, Introduction 2 Retro-Funk is the best means of getting into his head. The harmonies are off the chain, the beats never tiresome nor timid, and the lyrical content is consistently more positive than the garbage that major labels have been tasking us with sorting through across FM stations around the country this year. He’s got the Emerald City in the palm of his hands right now, and if this record catches fire on the opposite coast, soon he’ll have the rest of the country as well.

Scottie Carlito

The music of RONNUE has been heard all over the world due to the radio plugging services offered by Musik and Film Records. Learn more - https://musikandfilm.com

Robert Miller’s Project Grand Slam release new album PGS7

Marching to the charged beat of an unmatched percussive section, Robert Miller’s Project Grand Slam dive into “Get Out!,” one of the staple songs of their new album PGS7, intent on getting everyone listening stomping to the rhythm of this electrified protest anthem by the time we hit the ten-second mark in the track. Much like the jazzier “Take Me,” “Get Out!” is structured as to place its captivating grooves at the center of our attentions from beginning to end. There’s no holding Project Grand Slam back on this record – from the absolutely erotic fashion in which they adapt “The ‘In’ Crowd” into their own stylish brand of fusion to the dazzling display of jazz-influenced virtuosities that they unleash in songs like the soulful “Yeah Yeah,” they operate with an efficient (though constantly relentless) intensity that is unparalleled in the American underground today. PGS7 feels like a supersized Band of Gypsys; there’s an improvisational feel to all of its material, and yet the organic passion that the players contribute to every song ensures that they’re never out of sync with each other.

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URL: https://www.projectgrandslam.com/

In “Tree of Life,” Project Grand Slam - and specifically singer Ziarra Washington - produce one of the most emotional performances that they’ve ever included on an LP. The breathtakingly melodic vocal from Washington aside, the lyrical content is utterly haunting (especially in the wake of recent events in the news). On the flipside of this song’s brutally honest pleas, we find the band in much higher spirits in tracks like the groove-driven funk jam “Python,” punky “I Don’t Know Why” and retro rock n’ roller “No One’s Fool,” but no matter the tempo or topic covered by our singer’s artful poeticisms, there’s never an instance where the music lacks the sort of raw power synonymous with legends. “At Midnight” sees Project Grand Slam manipulating a relaxed beat into a straight-up jazz juggernaut, while the calculatedly progressive “Torpedo of Love” incorporates a higher caliber of conceptualism than I had previously realized this band capable of experimenting with. Even simpler songs like “With You” and the swaggering “Funk Latino” command a lot of attention, and though PGS7’s hit single “Redemption Road” has been garnering the most praise out of any track on this LP, it’s no more a spellbinder than any of the songs that it sits beside in this flawless tracklist are.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/4ftaEAv76cOhIsKxA5tiCy

Project Grand Slam were already creating a lot of AOTY buzz with the release of Greetings from Serbia earlier on in 2019, but after dropping this most recent treat, it should be obvious to anyone who follows independent music that they are collectively the undisputed royal family of alternative fusion this year. Robert Miller’s work has never left me feeling dissatisfied, but what he and his players have done with PGS7 is beyond a slam dunk. Whether you’re a diehard jazz enthusiast, a fan of eclectic music or just interested in something that goes against the sonic grain, this is an album that deserves all of the attention it has received and more this August.

Gavin Shaughnessy

The music of PROJECT GRAND SLAM has been heard all over the world due to the promotional services offered by Danie Cortese Entertainment & Publicity. Learn more here - http://www.daniecorteseent.com/