"I Could Save You I Could Hold You Tight", the Bossa-influenced lead-off exclusive from Danielsongs features silky-smooth female vocals over a mellow house beat, a bossa-nova guitar and a very catchy rhythmic male vocal that recalls Kruder & Dorfmeister-related productions.
Pascal Rioux featuring Mr Day turns in the r'n'b-inflected "Don't Outstay Outside 2 Night".
Opensouls' "In Your Hands" is the finest track on Soul Searching and another of the four exclusive tracks on the CD. Insanely funky overdriven Rhodes, an ace horn section playing wicked unison lines with a super-slick funk-jazz guitar, tasteful clavinets, very nice and a superb hip hop beat with a nice smooth flowing rap.
Break Reform have a nice track in "Neptune" with acoustic bass line, and a Latin-influenced beat. Reminds me of old Amon Tobin. The production is a little awkward and the female vocals aren't as tight as they could be.
Franck Biyong featuring Wunmi is another slick-as-shit production with disco-funky/King Sunny Adé-style guitars, a nice Rhode part, African influenced vocals, fat bass lines and a great horn section. A wicked vibes solo seals the deal. Rütten's got good taste, no question about that.
Eddy Meets Yannah take Soul Searching into a dance floor with "Can't Hide Love". A nice fast house beat with nice disco guitars, Latin percussion and superb female vocals. As if that wasn't enough, awesome flute and timbale breaks push the track over the edge. I dare you not to dance.
Rütten keeps the dance floor energy going with Basic Soul Unit's "Back Then Now". A minimal, up-tempo number with some wicked drum breaks over a house beat. Not much here to talk about, but the track does rock.
Owusu & Hannibal's "Delirium" has a broken-down feel, with cool off-kilter synths and drumbeats, blippy little video game sounds. Very odd, very cool production. The super tight r’n'b vocals start out sounding like a contrast to the fucked-up rhythm of the track until you notice that they're matching it, very nice track.
Build An Ark turn in some tasty synth lines and sounds on "You Gotta Have Freedom" The track is broken up with a crazy break featuring jazzy retro vocals punches and a crazy jazz piano part which degenerates into a crazy freaking-out-robot kind of thing before heading back into house-beat territory with more of those snazzy, deep bass synth lines. I started out thinking this track was merely great but it got pushed into fully awesome territory when they broke out the vocal refrain towards the end of the song, "Ya Gotta Have Freedom, Ya Gotta Have Peace and Love". One of those beautiful, teasingly short moments in song – perfect. The track winds to a close with a crazy little synth solo; very quirky. This sits alongside Opensouls and Eddy Meets Yannah as one of the better tracks.
"You Gotta Have Freedom" segues so naturally into Sleepwalker's "Into The Sun"" that it's hard to believe this a compilation. Devilishly delightful Coltrane-style saxophone lines fly high over an intensely good piano part and then Sleepwalker invites vocalist Bémbé Ségué into the mix for some gorgeous hyperactive jazz vocals and a smart sexy scat solo. Magical. If there were one group on this compilation that I would actively seek out more material from it would be Sleepwalker and Bémbé Ségué without question. The energy is incredible, the good vibes transformative.
The final track on Soul Searching is a serious departure - a gentle, sunny, group vocal by Benny Sings called "Make A Rainbow" that recalls The Free Design. Very pretty, very kitschy.
A solid compilation from start to finish. Compost has been putting out hot records lately – another awesome recent compilation called I Like It Volume 2 features a bevy of beautiful tracks selected by Pole, Dorfmeister and others. Soul Searching is strongly recommended for fans of Pizzicato 5, Amon Tobin, Kruder & Dorfmeister and their side projects, St. Germain and Free Design.
