Lack Of Afro - This Time

Lack of Afro, AKA British multi instrumentalist /producer/remixer/DJ Adam Gibbons one of our favourite funkateers here at Springline, has just released his third album ‘This Time’.

The album, as with the previous two, blends funk, jazz, hip hop, soul and 60s pop to create diverse and contemporary breakbeats and cinematic back drops. There are also shows signs of a growing maturity as this has to be his most wide and ranging collection of eclectic sounds. In the past listening to Lack Of Afro was a bit like facing a military big gun bombardment at times as the beats shook right through you, but here there are softer, silky, shimmering soulful sides as well.

These softer sides are primarily shown in two vocal cuts. the first is the exquisite single ‘A Time For..’ featuring the smokey Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye hybrid Wayne Giddens followed by the 60s pop-soul of ‘Fool’, with plucked orchestral strings a la Dusty Springfield and featuring Angeline Morrison who has worked recently with Frootful whose album ‘Colours’ was produced by Adam. These two vocalists also appear again on the album with Wayne on ‘What The Hell’ a more funky stax soul groove a kin to the sort of thing Raphael Saddiq has done on his latest album Stone Rollin’and Angeline on ‘The Importance Of Elsewhere’ which again rides a more funky beat, but this one leans more to a hip hop style while retaining her light soulful vocal.

The other two vocal cuts are the album opener and single in the making ‘Holding My Breath’ which features fellow Brighton dweller Jake Morley on a bounding Madchester beat and previous Afro cohorts rap duo Wax and Herbal T on ‘P.A.R.T.Y.’

the instrumentals is where the cinematic feel comes through with ‘Contusions’ having an afro-beat feel that could be the 21st century son or grandson even of ‘Shaft In Africa’ while ‘Little Fugue’ and ‘One For Bielski’ stray into beefed up Lalo Schifrinesque territory, the latter showing oriental influences, of say Enter The Dragon and Bielski is more Dirty Harry. Album closer ‘Lazy Lazarus’ sounds like a lost funked up, 60s garage band with slightly Latin leanings, you know the sort of thing you find in a Tarrentino movie.

‘This Time’ is an album of solid and diverse grooves that hints that it must surely now be only a matter of time before that big hit beckons.

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