Darondo – “Let Me People Go ” – [Ubiquity Records]

Maybe Daron’s going to get that Dough after all? One love nugget
of a soul strike delivered here, and nicely rough around the
edges. This is physical therapy that applies some deep tissue
work to your hips. Darondo’s a man who knows the sexual/sacred
strength of the falsetto. “Legs” has got a flirty kick, and
his voice screeches with a *need* to pleased. And those bass
boop backups give it a nice Sly fly feel. For a relative
unknown, it’s great how easily this album slides in with
James Brown, Al Green and such. His voices oozes confidence,
and clearly he’s having fun slipping and sliding with it.
This album feels a lot sexier than it is lyrically, Darondo
seems more focused on the hearts and minds with his words,
but for me his voice takes the short cut past all that, and
stirs things up. I wish there more sections where they’d just
drop the music down to a drum, a minimal bass line and let
the voice work things out. The backing music comes and goes,
well on “How I Got Over” it attains a solid Al Green gospel
groove. And again noodly gritty bits generally here make this
thing feel more real typically…like its happening out on
the back porch of some mom and pop diner from the late 70′s.
The only thing that didn’t click with me wa “I Want Your Love
So Bad” which has a sort of Sproul Plaza sunshine lazy jam,
but the rest of this could raise a People’s Party in Berkeley
any time, any decade. Sweetback snack! -Thurston Hunger