Bachman Turner Overdrive – Best of Bachman Turner Overdrive

This album gave me flashbacks to when I was 18 and driving around town with the windows down and BTO at 11 on the 8-track.

Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul

It’s a fantastic album. I listened to side one twice and could easily have listened again. Isaac Hayes’s cover of By The Time I Get To Phoenix is brilliant on an already excellent record. I think Hot Buttered Soul belongs on my list of deserted island records.

Jigsaw – Like The Wolf

I hadn’t listened to this for ages; it has aged well. Folky indie music makes my head bob and my foot tap.

Isaac Hayes – New Horizons

After Hot Buttered Soul, this album, New Horizons, is a downer. This album should be on the Lawrence Welk show; it’s too heavy on the string section and light on R&B and soul music.

Kamasi Washington – Epic

Yes, it is epic, clocking in at just short of three hours for this three-vinyl release. Kamasi Washington uses a wall of sound that crosses between a swell of synths, a chamber of choral voicings, and a mass of indistinguishable music. There are moments when the wall isn’t there, and I feel myself letting out a sigh of release as I let go of the tension that had built up. Is this wall necessarily wrong? No, not necessarily so. I get what Kamasi Washington is doing, but I wish he had done less. The prudent use of this mass of music in the background builds tension and adds to the epic, which is the release’s name and the sound he creates. The horn section is epic. Kamasi Washington is an excellent sax player, and he uses the talents of other high-quality players for an epic sound even if there is no wall.