Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 22/5/06
Label: Fine

Dominic Salole, it seems, has always kept pretty cool company. As Mocky, the Toronto native - now based in Berlin - has played bass for Talvin Singh, worked with fellow relocated countrymen Peaches and Gonzales (both separately and together in cultish rap outfit The Sh*t), Taylor Savvy and Feist, UK neo-soul émigré Jamie Lidell and, most recently, has contributed to Jane Birkin's "Fictions" album. Along the way, he's also found the time to release two albums of his own.

"Navy Brown Blues" is his third, the title referring not to some weird, chromatic dyslexia, but to one of Mocky's previous aliases and the fact that it's soulfully reflective in lyrical nature. Introspection may not be what you'd expect from a man wont to perform live in a pair of Mickey Mouse ears fashioned from old tights and coat hanger wire, or who once worked with a furry puppet MC, but hell, we all know what it means to be blue.

Mocky's musings on life, the universe and everything are presumably what's prompted him to describe his current style as "existential R&B" and led to a shift away from rap / poetry with beats. His previous album, "Are + Be" (geddit?) was a blend of cartoon-ish glitch, '80s electro, funk and clubby pop, but now, he's firmly in funk / R&B territory, with The O'Jays, "Paisley Park"-era Prince, Oran "Juice" Jones and Bootsy Collins his spiritual guides. With old pals Feist, Jamie Lidell and Taylor Savvy stepping up for vocal guest spots, it all looks pretty tasty on paper.

Alas, Mocky's own voice lacks the strength and sexy lustre of say, Har Mar Superstar's, so physical thrills are absent and a third of the way in, it feels rather like Mocky's retracing his own steps. Top marks, however, for the following: a reworking of The Sh*t's "Animal", via a rinky-dink keyboard breakdown and acid squelches; the twisted calypso vibe of "Fightin' Away The Tears"; the insinuation of Fran Landesman's "Nothing Like You" into "One Of A Kind"; and the blending of a blunt rap (Mocky) with funky falsetto (Lidell) and radically broken beats on "In The Meantime".

On the down side, "I'm Yours" is a feeble and rudimentary take on Latino funk and "Elementary" a schmoove move far too far - despite the wise-ass reference to Oliver Sachs - while the rest passes in a shrug of indifferent, funk signifiers. Essentially, "Navy Brown Blues" isn't a bad album, but it does feel like Mocky is marking time. Maybe his circle of friends has become too safe and self-reinforcing, in which case, fingers crossed for a riskier fourth outing.

    by Sharon O'Connell