“Buck” is a strange entry into Nina Simone’s oeuvre, a booming beat floors a cyclical riff that dances around Simone’s trance-like vocal and wraps things up in a hasty 1:50. The whole album is worth tracking down, a gritty affair with simple accompaniment. That’s Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, session drummer extraordinaire, with the drum credits on this one. Andy Stroud, Nina’s then husband, has the sole writing credit.
Label: Hometapes (released August 21, 2012)
Big Inner is by far one of the more intriguing debut albums to come out this year: it’s equal parts experimental Beck, cynical Randy Newman, brooding The National and Big Easy celebrating Allen Toussaint. "Big Love" grooves with a percolating bass line and a fantastic jazzy piano hook that could have found a home on a Nina Simone album. It’s an arrangement that you want to stick around for as it bounces from “Tomorrow Never Knows” territory to a loose gospel-influenced call and response. Surely one of the better cuts of the year and coming from a man who looks like he could have been a cult leader. Check out the beautiful brass/string arrangement on the epic “Brazos”, one of the more enjoyable nearly 10:00 songs perhaps ever and surely a call to inherit Harry Nilsson’s long lost throne.
RIYL: Harry Nilsson, Beck, Randy Newman, Allen Toussaint, The National
The Art of the Mixtape 