GOODGOODNOTBAD

We’re barely into February and already the superfly Canadian instrumentalists/producers BADBADNOTGOOD have an eye on the warmer weather. Being Canadian ‘n all, I’d imagine this time of year is particularly grim up north, but one spin of this hot-off-the-pressing-plant new release will warm even the chilliest of North American hearts and have you – yeah you! – looking ahead to the first buds of spring with eager anticipation. Take What’s Given ticks all sorts of groovy boxes.

BADBADNOTGOOD – Take What’s Given feat. reggie

Swaggering like a refreshed, sun-drenched drifter going toe to toe with Sly Stone at his most insouciant, it’s a real beauty. I mean, it’s cowboy chords welded to You’re The One That I Want. It’s We Love To Boogie. It’s Bontempi basslines at the cabaret down the Legion. It’s nuthin’ you aint ever heard before and it’s maybe the best thing you’ll hear this year. It’s certainly the most unpretentious and downright goddam joyful thing that’ll fill your ears in the coming months, that’s a fact.

It rolls sweetly on a bed of crisply played snare, gently caressed shimmering Hammond and a brass section that might’ve blown their way straight from a Muscle Shoals session. With the ghosts of Al Green and Anne Peebles stuck fast to the horns and eager to escape, it’s left to BBNG’s guest vocalist reggie to bring it home as one.

What he lacks in basic punctuation, he more than makes up for in a vocal delivery that apes good ol’ Sylvester Stewart like the best of ’em. He’s got Sly’s yawny drawl schtick going on perfectly, stretched and vocalised vowels in place of actual words in places – “Aaaaeeeeiiiiooouuuh” – a vintage, cracked baritone in others, a lovely understated harmony with himself on occasional lines, a happy choir coming in to join him halfway through. There are subtle 7th chords when they think no-one’s looking, free-flowing trumpets, getting away with it at the tail end of lines when you’re distracted by the warm hug of the singers, and enough hooks to have you playing it on repeat until the winter thaws and the daffodils come back around.

Not bad for a track made up on the spot while the principal players set up for the actual session. If this is the throwaway stuff, I can’t wait to hear the stuff they spent the real time on.