Eru Dangerspiel - Great News For the Modern Man

Rating

: * * * *

The shrill brass squawks and jazz-lite nonsense of

Coq Au Vin

almost single-handedly spoils this album for the simple reason that it's too straight.

Elsewhere, the debut album from the former TrinityRoots drummer Riki Gooch is bewildering, sometimes wild, and beautifully challenging soul music of the kind we haven't heard much of, if at all, out of New Zealand.

It's been nearly four years since TrinityRoots called it quits and since then Gooch has worked with the likes of Ladi6, Neil Finn and Bic Runga, to name a few from the top shelf, but

Great News For the Modern Man

finds him in his true element.

Songs like

Sambaskool Dropout

and

Star Child

shows Gooch takes as much from Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway as he does from nuttier experimentalists like

Can

and

Sun Ra

. Then there's the bobbing and slinky pulse of

Sun Again

; the skittery beats and hand claps of

Kevin

; and the 13-track album is stitched together by four short interludes that lope, drone, and simmer.

Gooch is a master beatmaker on machines, live drums, and even when he and his mates are clapping their hands. At times the grooves might be odd but this is sweet future soul music.

Scott Kara