Flatbasset Radio's Album Of The Week for the week of September 22nd-28th, 2014:
Suzie - Born Single
01. Possession
02. Coffin In Houston
03. You Ain't Mine
04. I Am Going To Change
05. Fantasy
06. Under The Sea
07. Outro
08. The Feeling
09. Levy
No Problem Records with the hat trick!
Born Single is the third album to be released by Frankie Teardrop's No Problem Records. The first was Teardrop's own Raiders EP, which stands as their best work to date. That was followed by Dee Dee Mayo Sweats It Out, a spaced-out jungle party record from Howler guitarist Ian Nygaard. And here we have Born Single, the debut album from Mark Ritsema of Night Moves. Born Single follows Dee Dee Mayo's lead in establishing No Problem Records as a pace where musicians can let there hair down and hang their freak flag high.
Though the records sound little alike, Dee Dee Mayo Sweats It Out and Born Single are companion albums in a way. Like Nygaard & his Sweats It Out album, Suzie finds Ritsema taking a break from his very successful day job in Night Moves to craft a record that cares far more about grooves than hooks and lyrics. Technically only one song on Born Single is an instrumental. Regardless, I spent a week with the album and can't think of one lyric off the top of my head. In fact, with the exception of the album's final two tracks, lyrics are an afterthought. Where Dee Dee Mayo used vocals as an instrument to illustrate community via group singalongs, Ritsema uses his as yet another instrument in service of the groove.
In my write-up of Dee Dee Mayo Sweats It Out I wrote, "Imagine being on a beach with all your friends on a warm summer night. Then imagine somebody has this tape "you have to hear, man!" Now, imagine this friend puts the tape in the boombox. As the tape warbles to life, you take a fistful of hallucinogenics. Picture all of that, but now imagine that beach is on the moon." Well, Suzie seems to exist on that same spaced-out plane. The difference is that instead of being in a moon jungle taking hallucinogens & bonding, these songs exist in a dark, sweaty club, taking uppers & grinding the night away.
And yes, that club is also on the moon.
The good folks over at No Problem Records have released Born Single as a "Name Your Price" download. If you're looking for something sexy to put on in an effort to get that certain someone out of all those oppressive layers of fashionable autumn attire, I highly suggest you swing over & pick it up.
