soul II soul "club classics volume 1"

UK Blak holds up nicely beside other albums by divas-gone-solo like Shara Nelson's What Silence Knows.

and Lindy Layton's Pressure. Okay maybe not that one quite as much.

xps i'm so glad you mentioned loose ends because i spent the longest time earlier trying to think what the amazing late career sleeper tune was that soul ii soul had when they turned into more of a solo project, and then you made me realise i was thinking of carl mckintosh and not jazzy b. dohhh!

anyhow, absolutely godlike song, wish it was 10 times longer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKzV7BuqLaI

nick that's been on my personal "radio station" for months. big co-sign. the whole album is good. i also really like "hold tight"-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ig849SloXc

(sry didn't mean to derail but aren't loose ends wonderful?)

good LORD where has this Loose Ends album been all my life?

YES

https://i.gifer.com/origin/e8/e837cc50ab8c6b75acdba485ba1b4b98_w200.gif

YOU ALL LIKE LOOSE ENDS VERY MUCH

https://i.gifer.com/origin/e8/e837cc50ab8c6b75acdba485ba1b4b98_w200.gif

LOOSE ENDS ARE VERY CLASSIC

https://i.gifer.com/origin/e8/e837cc50ab8c6b75acdba485ba1b4b98_w200.gif

YOU CAN'T STOP THE RAIN

always dug “hanging on a string”, it’s sort of like sos band playing underwater

YOU ALL LIKE LOOSE ENDS VERY MUCH

otm!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgLQmWDolS4

i need a club where this is the soundtrack

sigh. so much better than the album version.

oh yeah, not quite 10 mins but getting there-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAzFItppJt4
loose ends - 'love controversy' (td ext remix)

anyway, yeah. acapella 'back to life.' more like back to LIE, am i right?

always dug “hanging on a string”, it’s sort of like sos band playing underwater

― brimstead, Friday, 26 January 2024 20:25 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

the full 6 min version is my fav r&b record ever. if i can have just one. holy writ that is.

as i say i find their trajectory appealing for making explicit how britfunk became street soul when many acts are associated with either one or the other. Another might be 52nd Street. Even as late as 87 Phil Fearon was still putting stuff out but no later I don't think. then in 87 the Wild Bunch and Tongue n Cheek make their debut. But through the five Loose Ends album you can hear what begins as that late period patient, synthesised (boogie?) britfunk sound (cf. i-level) slowly turn into what became essentially the main uk pop sound of 1990.

Tongue n Cheek do sorta stretch back to that earlier era though - the core of that band, Delroy and Robin aka Bootsie & Snudge were known as Total Contrast earlier in the decade, who obviously had a hit with Takes A Little Time (monster tune, mostly forgotten now but it's up there with Alexander O Neal's 'Criticize' in terms of sheer power imo), but they also did some more chill Loose Endsy things like this one... (I can't even tell you how great this is)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usQiRMYrlwM

oh nuts, that was the instrumental, vocal version here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7-tKKb8ovg