Down To The Bone - Future Boogie (2009)

Down to the Bone have been, since the late '90s, a wildly inventive funk, groove, and jazz outfit led by composer, producer, and arranger Stuart Wade. He's had an ever evolving cast of musicians and creative characters and has stuck very closely to his idea of music that feels good. Future Boogie, released in 2009 on Swanky in the U.K. and Shanachie in the U.S., is in many ways an extension of the sound on Supercharged. There is a gorgeous late-`70s funk sheen on the production that makes the band on this set really shine instrumentally. The grooves are accessible, but tough and street simultaneously. Take the spacy intro to the title track that opens the set: just a cowbell, some synths, a guitar, and then the popping bassline funking it up, setting the listener -- and the dancefloor -- up for a horn section that's right up in your face with the way-up-high-in-the-mix bassline. Handclaps -- а la Chic -- and percussion complete the ensemble sound, but the charts feel more like melodic fragments written from the groove rather than as the primary lyric motif. When solos by a Rhodes piano with choppy guitar comps filling in the backdrop occur, it's "surrender Dorothy" time. This is followed by "It Should've Been You," a track that in many ways is a mirror image of the sound. It's one of two cuts here recorded in collaboration with Hill St. Soul, with the vocals of Hilary Mwelwa (who also wrote the lyrics); it's a soul-ish funk ballad with a pronounced melody stretched by the horns. "Good to Me" features the vibes and vocals of Roy Ayers and it's a floor monster with the spacy sound of those vibes creating a separate riff countered by the horns. While there isn't a weak track on the set, other notables include the cinematic "Smash and Grab" (which can and should be used in action flicks), featuring a killer alto saxophone solo by James Knight, as well as "Spiderlegs," which is as raw and crash-and-burn funky as anything on Supercharged. Wade's conceptual ideas for Down to the Bone become ever more canny and nasty as the years go on, and Future Boogie may be the best of the mess yet. ~ Thom Jurek