The most authentically, aggressively club-ready release thus far from Scott Blackwell's N•Soul label is the first where Blackwell acts only as executive producer. Rhythm Saints is the studio band of World Wide Message Tribe's Zarc Porter and the MC of Blackwell's Clubhouse radio show, Stephen Nixon. Both Nixon and Porter are native Britons, and a seemingly English penchant for combining both progressive and pop elements in club music shine all over Deep Sustained Booming Sounds.
The 'Saints score first for recasting familiar elements in fresh ways. Most obvious is the trance-toned cover version of Tramaine Hawkins' big 1985 dance and r&b hit, "Fall Down (Spirit Of Love)," but it's easy to tell their disco-spiced "Day By Day" bears some inspiration from the Godspell ditty of the same title. The husky dance/pop of "Elevation" bears a trace or two of N-Joi's '91 club smash, "Devotion," too. None of that distracts, though, because of the fresh, catchy things they do with the source material.
More "organic" with its intimation of horns and flute and 70s jazz/funk vibe is "Sweet Liberation." Or the snappy backbeat and bass breakdown work of "High Base/Base."
Don't ask who any of those sweet divas are, though, as the liner notes are more than a touch cryptic. Can tell you it's Nixon's wife, Lee-Jane, adding the awed commentary to the ambient jam "L.A. Story (Hundred Thousand Lights)," and it sounds like an uncredited Sandra Stephens adding the ethereality to The Heavyfoot's rap on the Snap/Culture Beat-like "Scenes From A Tribal Landscape."
The more albums N•Soul releases, the more it becomes evident their stuff should be found on vinyl, for those club DJ's appreciative of Blackwell's pre-Christian market legacy and the righteous fierceness his company purveys better and better all the time. Deep Sustained Booming Sounds could be what gets N•Soul heard all over.
3.5/5
