Night Owls established themselves as a byword for musical quality on even the first of their run of funky reggae 45 covers of old soul hits – and the latest 7″ does everything to burnish that reputation. Digging slightly deeper for source material on the new run of singles (following the first lot now collected on their Versions LP), this one takes on old Johnnie Taylor Stax ballad Ain’t That Loving You with sometime King Apparatus vocalist Chris Murray on vox, while on the flip The Lions’ Malik Moore sings on the band’s cover of Al Green’s Are You Lonely For Me Baby. The first of these has buckets of soul and elevates the track to a dancefloor standard but it’s the second for the monkey that is a stone cold killer – as soulful as the original but in this new reggae guise a far more danceable affair and the sort of thing you just want to rewind and rewind and rewind! Sleep on this and you’ll never forgive yourself.
(Pre-order now on F-Spot Records)
