Roy Davis, Jr.
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It's about time. With Traxx From the Nile, Chicago house vet Roy Davis, Jr. finally gets an album of his own productions distributed in North America, through Montréal's Bombay label. Bookended by equally brilliant but radically different looks at "Watch Them Come" (the opener is a percussion feast of a remix from Jazzanova; the closer is the thumping/stomping original mix), the album makes good on Davis' self-coined term "soul electrica," which makes for an uplifting hybrid of funky soul, smooth R&B, gospel, and deep house. Soul electrica might as well be called soul eclectrica instead, because there's a pretty wide range of approaches throughout, making the album extremely versatile and anything but complacent. Inspirational and socially charged themes dominate a number of the tracks. "About Love," while a bit trite lyrically, features Davis' falsetto over a dense production that blends an ambient, cinematic touch with a dark, lurching rhythm; the relaxed "Got 2 Get 2 Heaven" and the joyous "Join His Kingdom" are two of the stronger songs that deal with his religious devotion on a non-overbearing and non-preachy level. "Sweet as You" is a lean, straight-up floor filler with vocals from Angie Love and one of the many nimble basslines provided by Mike Saxon. Apart from the opener and closer, the sweetest track has to be "Remember the Day," a sublime production based on a liquid-smooth rhythm and a battery of keyboard elements with a sunlit glow encasing it. Pound for pound, this is as good as a full-length, single-artist house record gets -- a gift of an album from a gifted musician. Andy Kellman, All Music Guide Tracks:
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Roy Davis, Jr.|
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