[rating: 5]
Back in the 1950s there was none of that ‘throw a couple of singles and twelve slices of filler together and call it an LP business.’ The single was king. Now, thanks to the internet and downloading, the star of the single is waxing again. Of course, if you’re just going to put singles out they can’t be any old shit that got crapped out to fill ‘album obligation contracts’ – no – you’re going to have to work hard. Presumably not feeling challenged enough by these circumstances, Texan funk band T Bird & The Breaks are now in the fourth month of their ‘release a single a month’ campaign and nothing they’ve dropped has even the remotest sniff of ‘filler’ about it. Frankly, it’s starting to look like showing off. “I wanna climb all over your loving baby/ Just like a monkey, in the trees,” sings gravel-voiced frontman Tim Crane on the low-slung funky blues of A-side Monkey In The Trees. You can’t get away with lyrics like that any more. Except they can and do. Plus there’s there’s frantic B-side Shackles & Chains which accelerates the bpms and goes a bit more Dyke & The Blazers on the horns. Chek!