Mark Ronson is a peculiarly modern musician, whose talents in twiddling knobs and selecting the perfect collaborators are just as important as his magpie-like ability to pick out half-buried musical jewels from the past, or his prowess with a guitar or synthesiser.
He's a producer, who's become a star in his own right in this digital age where the expertise required to hunt down the right combo of people to create a hit, and conduct them the same way a conductor brings a symphony orchestra to greatness, is extremely valuable.
And yet this thoroughly modern musical gentleman is clearly a lover of all things retro, because with Uptown Special he takes his big band-soul-funk-disco know-how and blends it with the likes of Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, Michael Jackson reincarnation Bruno Mars, New Orleans James Brown-esque rapper Mystikal, promising newcomer Keyone Starr, and electro-pop producer/vocalist Andrew Wyatt.
The result is a surprisingly effervescent record, which revives disco as a genre to be lauded rather than laughed at, and spins it in a wacky, woozy, fun, direction.
Ronson's brilliant assemblage of horn players, bassists, drummers, and guitarists are key to making it fly. Whether they're taking you back to the 80s (Summer Breaking's cop-show theme tune style, or the easy-nodding funk-rock of In Case Of Fire), or to the future (the righteous fruity-throaty sing-speak of Mystikal on Feel Right, the cosmic groove of Daffodils, the UMO-ish Leaving Los Feliz) the performances are impeccable.
