The Roots - Illadelph Halflife

DGC: 1996

Getting a few Roots records was inevitable for yours truly, but it was nice to get the full smorgasbord of their catalogue before committing dollars to disc. And while it may seem obvious getting this one to start, I'm sure few would disagree with it either. Having gotten it and enjoyed Illadelph Halflife on its own now, however, I'm strangely at a loss for words of what I want to say about it.

There isn't much else I can touch upon the band itself that everyone in North America (and beyond!) doesn't already know (live hip-hop band, etc.), and I haven't given myself ample time to digest this particular release further. It's like, sure, this was the tastiest item in that smorgasbord, but to truly appreciate it, I need more than just a couple servings of it; really let it marinate on my taste buds. Or I just feel 'ill'-equipped to talk this album up as it deserves at this point. See, there I go, already falling back on bad puns.

I guess an adequate start is why Illadelph Halflife, what makes this album the one I wanted to nab first above all others. Beyond having that irresistible mid-'90s Eastcoast hip-hop aesthetic, I mean. Okay, that's a big reason, hands down. Whether it was getting in the grime of it was the Wu or ample raiding of funk, jazz, and soul records from the likes of DJ Premier and Tribe Called Quest (among many others), it's a sound I really vibe on, and kinda' wish I'd jumped on it a lot sooner than just these past few years. Sure, I had a few obligatory records here and there (Gang Starr, Big L, that one Nas everyone must have), but was missing so many more. Just... so many more.

Still, The Roots are Philly, not New York, which may account for how much soulful their style is. Or maybe it is just that live-band approach to their craft. Which is cool and all, but if I wanted to hear strictly that, I could have nabbed their first two albums (or the live one). Naw, what properly got me hooked in was hearing more of their studio production, which I feel really came into its own with Illadelph Halflife. They'd get more polished and bolder in later records, but here everything's given ample oomph over all their funky, jazzy rhythms and, where warranted, soulful backings (What They Do, No Alibi, No Greater Protector).

Lyrical content, then. After all, this is a hip-hop group, where lyrics are paramount. And honestly, I think that's why I like this record so much, Black Thought, Malik B, and all their guests given plenty of prominence. If anything, the 'musicians' part of Roots is put on a back-burner, far less jam sessions and solos indulged than before. I imagine this was done to help sell them to a wider rap audience not so keen on musical ability beyond what a dope, looping sample provides. I'd say the trick worked.

Cypress Hill - III - Temples Of Boom

Columbia: 1995

You're one of the biggest names in hip-hop, but it's almost entirely because of a mega-hit single that's something of a novelty track. Of course, Cypress Hill never intended Insane In The Brain to reach such market penetration that even white-bread suburbia was singing it. Indeed, if anyone actually paid attention to the lyrical content, it's not a terribly positive spin on psychedelic abuse. Have it wrapped in an upbeat rhythm and irresistible earworm of a chorus, however, and no one will know. Or care.

Perhaps Cypress Hill did care though, which would explain why their follow-up to the multi-platinum Black Sunday - III: Temples Of Boom - went in such a drastic, darker turn compared to their prior work. Yeah, there always was an edge to the music DJ Muggs produced, the sort of street-level grit that came with the sampledelic nature to his tunes. Rare would it get outright Gothic and bleak. It's like he took the moody atmosphere of Cock The Hammer and thought: “Yeah, a whole album of that!”

So Temples Of Boom comes with an extra layer of grime and grit, as if south California has never seen a ray of light, everything blanketed with paranoia and... Well, not quite despair, moments for a casual blaze still releasing some of the pressure cooker of existence. Still, better watch your back, because these streets are just as savage as ever, 'hoods getting ever deeper into their primal psychosis. I mean, if the lead singles of Throw Your Set In The Air and Illusions don't portray an existence just barely hanging on by a thread, I don't know what will.

The only comparison I can make of Temples Of Boom - at least in this era of hip-hop - are the harrowing moments as heard in Liquid Swords. Which makes sense, as RZA drops in for some beats and bars on Killa Hill Niggas. I just have to imagine Muggs taking notes down from Bobby Digital, like a young monk studiously listening to the words his master is speechifying.

“But wait,” you say, “aren't Cypress Hill megastars now? How do they get off rapping about gangsta' shit?” Ah, therein lies the secret genius of Temples Of Boom: they're not literally rapping about lived experiences here (though they had), but as more a concept, an urban horror story, focused on mood and atmosphere rather than explicit realism. In fact, the few times they do touch upon Real World things (scene posers in Strictly Hip Hop; outright dissing former friend Ice Cube in No Rest For The Wicked), you're taken out of their grim world. Well, lyrically anyway, Muggs' beats still on point throughout.

I'll just go ahead and say Temples Of Boom is easily Cypress Hill's most underappreciated record. Yes, it was a stark turn at the height of their fame, but having gone through the entirety of their discography, almost nothing comes close to how creatively atmospheric they went here – easily until Elephants On Acid.

K.O.B. - Identity Mash

Suntrip Records: 2017

For as instrumental as Filteria was in establishing Suntrip's early success, I sure haven't had much opportunity to talk about him thus far. I'm halfway through this exhaustive catalogue dive of the goa label and- Eh? You say I'm still not? Let me check that! *checks that* Sonofa... Okay, I'm almost halfway done, and barely scratched the surface of Jannis Tzitkas' output, the Filteria album Daze Of Our Lives the lone record of his I've talked up. And it looks as though I'm still putting off material from his primary alias, as the item currently slotted here is from his alternate alias, Kind Of Behaviour, aka: K.O.B.

It isn't a terribly robust alias, mostly appearing here and there on compilations where Jannis wanted to stretch a little further into the realms of proper psy, not just goa-leaning psy (or neo-goa psy-goa goa). It'd been a few years since the last Filteria album, and Suntrip seemed to be on something of a downswing in ye' olde year of 2017, so maybe the time was right to explore this other aspect of Mr. Tzitkas' muse, while the chance was there.

And what is the K.O.B. stylee? Ah, I just said, more psychedelic trance than his other stuff. Which means less emphasis on obvious melodies, more emphasis on wild sounds, and more gradual builds to whatever climax each track has going for it. So, a bunch of random wibble, then.

I kid, but its undeniable Identity Mash may take a bit more effort to get into than Jannis' usual fare. Which is fine if you're down for that – its a vibe that works at certain times, particularly later in the night, preferably surrounded by a forest. I'm sure there was only so far Filteria could go treading into headier, trippier waters before it started sounding like something completely different. Mind, it's not a huge departure in sound. The acid may sound a little squawkier, the sci-fi noises may have more prominence over synth leads, and the basslines may have a little more grit in them, but it's still mostly the same songcraft as heard in other Filteria productions. Rhythms continue being the driving force for these tracks, as they should be, clearly peak-time tunes for when the psychedelic substances start doing their fun little tricks on your brain matter.

Still, the old 'Suntrip Critique' does pop up, Identity Mash being yet another record that doesn't vary much throughout its playtime. At least, that was gonna' be my final assessment until Cousin It (2017 Mix) crops up near the end. Oh man, this is the sort of twisted, deep psy I would have liked to hear more from Jannis' supposed 'darker' alias. Just an unnerving sinewy pad, escalating rhythms, and subtly building acid. Very much at odds with Suntrip's typical neo-goa, at least until the label started dabbling more in dark trance after the turn of the decade. Shame there wasn't more like it on this album.

Sound Synthesis - IC 4406

Nebulae Records: 2019

IC 4406 is a planetary nebula, more commonly referred to as the Retina Nebula. As its equatorial plane is about edge-on with our line of sight from Earth, it looks more flat and rectangular compared to the traditionally ring-shaped features we associate with planetary nebula. With a higher concentration of ionized gasses still surrounding the stellar nucleus, it can give the astronomic object the appearance of, well, an eyeball, though modern higher resolutions of IC 4406 tends to blur these edges. If you have good vision and low light pollution, you can spot it with the naked eye, near the constellation Lupus (the Wolf is located between Scorpius and Centaurus), though obviously as little more than a fuzzy star. Oh, and it looks nothing like the image adorning the cover art of this EP.

Don't get me wrong, it's a really neat bit of cosmic design, looking like the core of a blue giant in front of some sort of stellar nursery. Maybe this is what IC 4406 looked like at some point in its history. That's the fun thing about astronomy: for the most part, we're only granted a snapshot of what the heavens looks like, and then as they were in the past. Observed cataclysmic change is rare and infrequent. Much like this label's release schedule!

Right, I don't know that much about Nebulae Records, only happening upon them when doing a little digging into Darren Nye (I think ...memory hazy). Stumbling into their Bandcamp page, you bet your bottom dollar I was instantly attracted to all the fancy, colourful space clouds. As for why I picked out Sound Synthesis' IC 4406 for my initial dive... C'mon, you know by now.

That's right, it's because I was due to get myself some more Keith Farrugia music! Okay, that's more a coincidence, but a happy one, his Unfolding Cycles as Stimulus Timbre a fun romp through more classical styles of synth music. The significant bulk of his recent work has been as Sound Synthesis though, so its only appropriate we look in on this aspect of his sound.

And yeah, we're in spacey electro and cosmic acid with this EP. Opener Expansion 303 is about as vintage early IDM as things get, breaks brisk and crisp, acid squelchy and burbling, and backing synths... okay, they're actually a lot more opulent than the other elements, but hey, space, man.

Noisy Shouts Of Joy gets a little more melancholic in its melody (definite FireScope feels here), Octagon a little deeper while offering a quicker pace, and Breathe chilled-out and charming. Plus, some sci-fi bleeps and zaps, because why not. All solid, all worth a listen if you favour this particular niche of spaced-out electro and acid.

Where to from here, then? Strange question, but I get it: do I dig further into Sound Synthesis, or Nebulae Records. Well, one has more releases, so potentially more variety. The other, however, has prettier cover art. Decisions, decisions...

Taboo - I Dream Of You Tonight (Bab Ba Ba Bab)

Dance Pool: 1995

On the surface, this seems like any other run of the mill eurodance minor hit churned out by Sony's Dance Pool offshoot. And honestly, that's mostly what it is. Despite getting a video roll-out, ample compilation duty, and even a little market penetration on my side of the globe, this was the only thing Taboo released. Or at least, the only thing this 'group' released. Dig deeper though, and there's some surprising music associated with the players involved, but let's hear what we got first.

It's mid-'90s eurodance alright. The chorus is instantly earwormy, has a little scat-singing thrown in, and the synths punchy and buzzy as all good euro is. Then the dancehall rapper comes in to tell you how we're gonna' have fun dancing and all that. He even gets a little meta about it: “Now that me voice gwon deep in'a yo brain; The lady will sing you the chorus again.” And she does too!

Him though, he sounds familiar. Since Taboo was just a one-off project, did he do anything else? *goes Discoggin'* Wait... Barrington Levy? The Barrington Levy? Under Mi Sensi Barrington Levy? Ragga jungle mainstay Barrington Levy? What's he doing here? I mean, sure, may as well make some quick scratch for the German disco clubs, but man, never would have expected that when I grabbed this on a whim. Didn't even appear in the video, letting whoever it is in the video lipsync. In fact, I'm pretty sure everyone in the video is lipsyncing, which wouldn't be unheard of in eurodance, even this late in its age.

If you think that's a crazy 'Six Degrees Of...” factoid, how about the fact producers such as The Timewriter and Oliver Lieb have tangential ties to Taboo as well? One Piero Brunetti, or DJ Piero, and the main man behind this project, had quite the varied career throughout the '90s, flitting about many genres with many partners. His own Another World, an incredibly cheese-ball slice of operatic Italo-dance with sex-jazz saxophone, got an entirely undeserved deep house jam from Timewriter. And, when Daft Punk was taking off, he teamed up with Luis Rodriguez for the one-off Funky Musique as Sunday Afternoon. Which had a release on Silvereye Production Frankfurt, and who else lived in Frankfurt as a remixer-for-hire? It sure wasn't Frank Stallone, I'll tell you that much.

Okay, one more. The remixes on this aren't much to get fussed about (an extended version, a 'pan-flutes' version, a happy 'hardcore' version), except the final one, subtitled X-Rated House-Dreams. While it features some stock Visnadi euro-house tropes like farty basslines and deep organ licks (think Robin S' Show Me Love), that shuffle rhythm is straight garage. In fact, with the included ragga rap and sirens, the whole remix is basically proto speed garage. Mr. Brunetti must have realized it too, as he'd go on to make a few proper speed garage tunes during that genre's heyday. Ahead of the curve, for once!

It's Thinking - Hyperion

Prime/Frame Of Mind: 1994/2018

Whoa, did I just fly through a whole bunch of “I” albums? And who is this Hyperion? No, no, It's Thinking is the name of the group – yes, I know it looks weird, to say nothing of naming the EP something that would make more sense as an alias. Then again, Lord Discogs lists at least thirty-six (36) Hyperions within its tomes, whereas there's only one (1) It's Thinkings. Right, I doubt there were a pile of Hyperions already floating about when this was released, thirty years removed and all – plenty of time for dozens more to crop up. What would one (1) more matter? So props to this Dutch team for thinking this far outside the box in coming up with a grammatically confounding handle when applied to a typical English sentence reviewing it.

This is another Gerd project, and up to the point of me covering his collaborations with Speedy J, the only one I was even remotely familiar with. Not that I was aware of it in that time, and truthfully, there still may be some other alias of his that never realized was him floating about my music collection. Fairly sure I covered all those bases though, so It's Thinking remains it.

As for the particular track I've heard from him, Dirk-Jan Hanegraaff and Mark Ripmeester, it was Afterglow as heard on that Excursions In Ambience compilation that included such luminaries like FSOL, HIA, PWoG, Banco, The Orb (sorta') and a few others. Man, and to think It's Thinking was about the most obscure thing on that CD, perhaps only rivalled by John Selway's Psychedelic Research Lab, and now I have an EP from them. Yay artist discography Bandcamp uploads, and all the legal hurdles they cleared to do so.

Since Afterglow is the only track I have, I naturally picked up the other single in the It's Thinking catalogue, follow-up EP Hyperion. Gotta' explore d'em deep cuts, yo'. The track is a pleasant floaty affair in the vintage Detroit techno vain, though utilizing a standard breakbeat for its backbone. I also love how none of the synth leads are quite aligned to quantized perfection, giving it that real live jam vibe. Imperfections reminding you there's human souls behind the machines. Onto the other tracks, then!

Frame Of Mind is basically Jam & Spoon's Stella, though stripped down to Detroit functionality and less outright Balearic. Love Without Sound gets closer to the seaside resort feels with subtle vocals and effects invoking sunrise in Ibiza. Plus, it's just downright groovy with its rolling rhythms and cascading synths. Funky Finger goes about as deep as you'd expect of a B2 cut on a record with so many shimmering leads, but even it gets in a few bright synth stabs for its back-half.

A charming little gem of a retro EP, Hyperion is. I'd expect nothing less from Gerd's extended discography by this point. Shame it took me thirty years to 'discover' more of it.

Jeannine Schulz - Humble

Polar Seas Recordings: 2022

Now there's a word that's kept me down all my life. Why couldn't I have been born with total narcissistic tendencies, throwing myself out there without a care in the world of how others think of me, deluding myself into believing everyone needs me in their lives? No, I had to be born a humble person, appreciating the positive reinforcement I receive for my creative efforts, but never actively seeking them. Humbleness may sound good for the soul, but is damn near disastrous for marketing. Unless... you can parlay that into its own form of marketing! Certainly worked for a couple famous philosophical folk, but could it in this day and age, where sociopathic influencers rule the world? Heck, I'd accept that challenge, but y'know, humble to a fault and all.

Anyhow, Jeannine Schulz. Can't find much info surrounding this German artist, but she managed herself a fairly steady musical output this past half-decade, a Bandcamp catalogue consisting of some fifty items to date. Granted, many of them are two-to-four track releases of minimalist, abstract ambient music seldom breaching twenty-minute lengths, but there are a few scattered albums about her discography too. Three of those have appeared on Polar Seas Recordings, this here Humble being her second effort for the Toronto label. That's... about all the background I have on this release. Talk about your humbleness.

As said, this is some very minimalist music from Ms. Schulz, though not without its intuitive charms. Opener Home mostly offers what you'll hear from her quite succinctly. Lots of analog churning and fuzz, a gentle tone echoing and flowing through the layers of dubby static. Eventually soft acoustic guitar strums take the lead while resonate pad drone wraps everything together. It'd almost make for the perfect closer on most albums, but we're only seven minutes deep into this forty-five minute long album.

Variety, then. Does Jeannine toy with this formula some? Ichi, The Wind Blows Over The Earth, Resting Place, and the titular track let the more melodic side of this sound carry forward. A Certain Mood And Moment and Presence go more for abstract drone. gm and I toy around with analog effects. Everything's spaced out enough so it doesn't feel like we're spinning wheels with any particular approach to her songcraft. We're still dealing with very subtle sounds though, so differences between pieces will boil down to just how much attention you're paying to it. Which sometimes defeats the purpose of the 'abstract sonic wallpaper' music ambient music of this sort intends to be.

That Home could have closed Humble wasn't just a one-time thing either - every piece was like that. Like, upon my initial playthrough, I kept thinking the album was already wrapping up after each track. Some of that may have to do with how disarming they are, putting you in a sense of ease such that you're content with your listening session. Great for sleepy-time, then.

20 Years: An EMC Reflection

Yep, it's been two decades since I started doing this, the soft launch of TranceCritic going down in December 2004. Sure, there were a couple fallow periods between then and now, including a sixteen month 'indefinite hiatus' while I got my personal shit together. If you carry on after though, we're forgiving of such discrepancies when it comes time to celebrate any anniversary milestones. If you want to call this such a milestone. I know, I know, humble to a fault. Still, it doesn't hurt to recap how we got here.

Back then, I knew I wanted to do some sort of music writing, especially after seeing so many music journalism websites pop up in the wake of Pitchfork's success. I didn't have the technical expertise or marketing prowess to go at it on my own, thus piggy-backed off another website looking to establish itself. A good start, for sure, though felt rather limited in what I wanted to cover. And I knew this would be the case should I apply to any other prominent website like Resident Advisor and the like. No, I wanted the freedom to write what I wanted to, strictly staying in the 'hobby-zone'. Sure, it would have been nice to get paid for my writing, but I already had a well-paying job, didn't need the extra cash. Ultimately, I believed retaining complete creative control of my content was more important and personally rewarding then applying my talent towards someone else's bottom line.

Once 'plug-and-play' blogging options became more common, it seemed like a good idea to set one up for myself should I decide to strike out on my own. Took me a while to figure out what I should do with it, but eventually did, and here we are now. That, and 1,000,000 views later!

Oh yeah, I passed that particular milestone this past month as well. Right, in this day and age of AI bots running rampant everywhere, that sort of engagement number isn't as impressive anymore. And believe me, I'm not so naive as to believe the ridiculous amount of 'engagement' this blog's been getting these past couple of years has nothing to do with the timing of Google launching is AI scraping programs across all its services, including Blogger. Its fine though, I've never let my efforts be predicated upon how many human eyeballs are here at any given time.

If anything, that whole 'industry' is what's given me the most pause when I reflect upon the past two decades. When I started, the best way to get your work out there was to go on web forums, become part of those communities, perhaps go viral among them. Social media outlets were very new concepts, places like Friendster and MySpace in their infancy. Even when sites like Facebook and Twitter expanded upon what social media could be, it still all felt rather insular, hardly more evolved than what a BBS board could generate in promotion.

Then that all changed in the 2010s, promoting your stuff on social media basically a must if you wanted any traction on your pet projects. Like, look at all these EYES congregated in this ONE spot! Don't you want THAT kind of attention? Dang, dawg, when you put it like that, how can I refuse? I bit the bullet, using them as advertised, and yeah, it got me a little more attention, but not substantially so. For a time, I wondered why, though deep down, I knew.

As became clear to everyone eventually, the way you get real attention on social media was through click-bait, preferably of the rage-inducing kind. And I... just wasn't willing to play that game. Oh, there's been plenty of times I was tempted to troll trancecrackers or techno snobs or dubstep dorks, but every time it came to hit 'Post', I stepped back, concluding it wasn't really worth my time and effort to engage with people online in such a manner. If I had anything contentious to say, I had my blog to say it, and that was enough. Let others find me rather than me impose myself upon their worlds.

I know, I know, what a Web 1.0 way of thinking, which is probably why I've enjoyed Mastodon as a social media site more than anything else now. Far as I'm concerned, Xitter is irrelevant to me, and now that Meta's also blocking outside links, Facebook's functionality is about at an end too - contact with non-local friends as about all that's left (plus random clips of cute animals/classic cartoons/nostalgia bait/rasslin' stories). BlueSky's interesting as a Xitter-Killer, but appears to be nothing more than what Twitter once was, which I never really liked much in the first place. Why would I want to go through that song and dance again? No, I'll stick with the Fediverse for now, where close-knit communities around specific interests form, rather than being lost among an over-crowded mess of humanity chasing influence and clout.

I guess that's it, then. Some of this reminiscence is undoubtedly repeated from previous 'milestone' posts, but I'm sure I've added a few more unique eyeballs since them. Again, it's remarkable I've kept at this for two decades now, a feat I honestly never thought possible. Come to think of it though, I had no idea what my life would look like twenty years hence. *glances about* Not that much different, come to think of it. Though I sure do have a shit-tonne more CDs surrounding me now!

Triquetra - Human Control

Suntrip Records: 2020

Can't go through another letter block without also stumbling into another Suntrip CD. And hoo, because this seems to be the lone one among my 'H' albums, it had to make up the lack of representation by dishing out a double-LP! Far as I know, this is the only two-disc album in the label's catalogue. Yeah, there's a couple multi-CD compilations scattered about, but I'm talking original musical material from a singular artist (or duo, in this case).

Come to think of it, double-LPs are generally rare in the psy trance scene, and for good reason: it's just too singular a style of music to warrant it. Whenever they're done, it's usually with a second CD of downtempo or experimental-leaning sounds. Eat Static's Dead Planet or 00.db's Heaven & Hell, as examples within my own collection, though Infected Mushroom's Converting Vegetarians is probably the most well-known one. In more recent years, we've seen a near-glut of multi-disc re-issues of older albums, overstuffed with rarities and b-sides. So which version do we get with Triquetra's Human Control: a chill CD2, or a 'b-side' session?

Kinda' the latter, apparently, disc two a collection of live recordings. They're original tracks, true, but that's not saying much, Misters Elric and Jurian having only released one (1) album and one (1) EP to that point. Besides, as an act that was making their rep on live analog shows, its natural they'd have a stockpile of unreleased material sometimes created in the moment, on the fly, as the party happens. Real free tekno vibes, yo'!

So I was surprised that the 'live' disc is rather... mellow? Like, I don't want to say 'under-produced', but there's no denying it lacks the same amount of beef behind the beats as the studio album. The acid doesn't have quite as much bite, and everything just sounds comparably flat. Not to mention its unmixed, which makes sense since these tracks are from disparate gigs, but doesn't really help sell the notion of this being 'live' and all. On the other hand, there's more didgeridoo, so that's a plus. I dunno', guess it's a nice bonus, but lacking the kinetic energy that comes with live recordings, so that's all it is.

The main disc, then, is that any good? It's more dynamic, that's for sure, though like Triquetra's first album Ecstatic Planet, highly reverential to '90s goa and acid trance. They even go so far as to include that one (1) track (Rotary Reality) with the really goofy drum kick that every psy album had back in the day. The heavier into the acid they dip (Forget About The Earth, Eternal Crusader, Future.exe), the better the track develops, but I'm glad they didn't rely on it as their only crutch. Human Control is just diverse enough for at least one play-through. Whether you'll come back to it often though will boil down to just how much you dig on way-retro goa and psy. The typical Suntrip refrain, amirite?

Res - How I Do

MCA Records: 2001

Another 'out of my element' donation. I've a few of these in the pipeline but that's alright. Some of these artists, I sense they deserve whatever extra shine my little backwater blog can offer. Res wasn't an utter unknown, mind you, something of a staple in the Philly scene since the late '90s, even if she never quite got the same attention as oh-so many others from the region. She actually got her first break providing the chorus on the titular track on GZA's Beneath The Surface, which was enough to at least get the attention of another up-and-comer, producer Martin McKinney.

You've definitely heard his stuff, working with the likes of Drake, John Legend, and The Weeknd, including Starboy, in case you care. Yes, that track, with Daft Punk. Oh, the 'electronic music' connection goes even deeper. Well, maybe not that deep, but I do find it interesting that the lead single for Res' album featured a bunch of clubby remixes from Robbie Rivera, Guiseppe D, Bastone & Burnz, and DJ Encore. Ah, hm, Hed Kandi house and proggy anthems, for a Philly soul singer? Methinks something got twisted in the marketing of this album, which may explain why it did only marginal business for itself.

Honestly though, it could just be the dumb luck of timing, How I Do released when the urban scene was stacked for options. Hell, she was basically going against Destiny's Child's Survivor, Missy Elliot's Miss E... and Alicia Keys' Songs In A Minor. Good luck with that, yo'. No, this album was practically per-ordained to be a slow burner, one rediscovered after the fact, unearthed by connoisseurs of neo-soul a decade or two down the line. Maybe even get enough ground support for a vinyl reissue within our current year. Again, dumb luck of timing.

To my ears, Ms. Ballard has a similar street-soul swagger to her sound reminiscent of Lauren Hill, though as usual, I'm more interested in the musical side of these releases than the actual singing. Opener Golden Boys features grand string sections with a brisk breaks rhythm, while They Say Vision (the original!) goes more loopy with its backing instrumentation, which I guess makes sense why it got all those house remixes. 700 Mile Situation, The Hustler, and I've Known The Garden get real deep in the funky vibes. Ice King gets forlorn. Sittin' Back wouldn't sound out of place cranked from the subs of a lowrider. Let Love almost treads near trip-hop's domain with out-of-tune backing synths – must be that Cure influence. And secret song Say It Anyway (yes, it has one of those) 'rawks' out.

A decent amount of variety, then, though never really pushing any boundaries either. If anything, How I Do sounds like an offshoot of that really famous conglomerate out of Philly, The Roots. Mostly traditionalist, but has enough spunk to stick out for the time it plays. Jeez, Roots and Hill as my obligatory namedrops? What more do you need?