[RATING: 5] Now here’s a drop that’s long overdue some monkey love and would have got some on time if everyone hadn’t decided to release everything in then last month. Christ – it’s not like people don’t have any festivals to go to is it? Anyway – we digress. What we have here is the latest drop from a label which has set the bar high with all it’s releases in the last twelve months, including this one. Say ‘hello’ or rather ‘Como vai’ (he’s Brazilian) to Beatnik City signing Dr K a.k.a “Rio’s best kept secret” and his Swing Samba Lounge album.
Not that ‘swing (Throw Away The Pills), samba (Flight To Rio), lounge (Ex-sex-ive Machine)’ even covers the half of it. The party breaks on here come in sixties library music flavour (Martini Swing), funky Quincey Jones-ish bossa nova flavour (on album highlight Pimp Ze), big band funk flavour (another highlight – Let Me See What You Got), rock n roll flavour (Dance Contest), samba and salsa flavour (Salsamba) and afrobeat flavour (Berimbkiss) for example. Not that Dr K seems to be a man for whom one flavour is enough for while both the tracks mentioned above and others on the album may have a predominant influence, K weaves others in and around them within a single track. Frankly he’s on a massive cosmopolitan retro breakbeat. Why that sounds like the sort of stuff…Skeewiff…does. No shit – in fact Dr K is practically Skeewiff’s Brazilian cousin.
(Out now on Beatnik City)