LP/DIGITAL

Memphis soul/jazz organ trio The City Champs return to Memphis Electraphonic Recording studio for the follow up to their acclaimed debut album, The Safecracker. The Set-Up finds the group stretching out, adding Latin jazz, psychedelia and 60s film score influences to their established Booker T. and the MGs meets Blue Note/Prestige Records sound.

The City Champs are comprised of three of Memphis top musicians: Guitarist Joe Restivo, organist Al Gamble and drummer George Sluppick. Their resumes include studio recordings and live dates with artists such as Rufus Thomas, Alex Chilton, JJ Grey and MOFRO, William Bell, Syl Johnson and the Memphis Horns. Augmenting the City Champs trio sound on The Set-Up is renowned Motown Funk Brother Jack Ashford on tambourine (who was featured in the award winning documentary, Standing in the Shadows of Motown), The Bo-Keys horn men (Marc Franklin, Jim Spake and Kirk Smothers), Latin percussionist Felix Hernandez and Bo-Keys bassist and The Set-Ups producer, Scott Bomar, who most recently produced Cyndi Laupers Memphis Blues.

The albums highlights include the title track, The Set-Up which features nice call and response musical interplay between guitarist Restivo, organist Gamble and the propulsive solid, funky drumming which is drummer Sluppicks trademark. The overall result encapsulates the Champs sound: Think The Meters and Booker T. playing a 60s film theme on a session at Rudy Van Gelders studio for a Blue Note or Prestige Records release.

Rickys Rant features a strong, haunting melodic theme and a razor sharp performance from the group, best demonstrating how the group has evolved in the instrumental idiom, building upon classic influences and creating music which is contemporary, modern and fresh. The tracks Crump St. and Local Jones play like classic Stax/Hi Records/American Studios sides and showcase their Memphis roots, adding a tasteful dash of horns arranged by The Bo-Keys horn section leader, Marc Franklin. The Champs take on RJD2s track A Beautiful Mine, (well known as the theme song to the popular AMC show Mad Men), bringing a 60s Latin Jazz/Boogaloo arrangement to the tune that represents its most dance floor worthy interpretation yet. Drippy, Rigamarole and Break It Up are snapshots of the groups early career, playing after hours in the Memphis nautical-themed nightclub, The Buccaneer. These tracks come from a 60s Soul/Jazz, Jack McDuff, Willis Gator Tail Jackson, Jimmy McGriff bag and will feel very familiar with fans of their first album, The Safecracker.

Vinyl comes with download code.

For the third volume in Rvng's FRKWYS (pronounced Freakways) series, ARP (aka Alexis Georgopoulos) and Anthony Moore contribute an album of modern minimalist compositions culled from sources both old and new. From the reworking of some of Moore's unreleased late 60s compositions and the incorporation of actual extant tapes from that time, to the newly minted pieces by Georgopolous along with new accompaniments to the original recordings, it's another vibrant addition to the ongoing series in which contemporary artists are paired with their progenitors by way of remix, reinterpretation, and original collaboration.

The idea to pair the two composers was born of Georgopoulos' appreciation for Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom (1971), Moore's adventurous avant-garde album described by Alan Licht as neither a "Krautrock or artrock LP but a bona fide minimal classic". Upon listening to several pieces by his symphonious accomplice-to-be, Moore was "struck by a powerful sense of familiarity, a recognition of certain musical values close to my own heart being explored by someone else".

Mutual admiration formed, Moore and Georgopoulos came together in September 2009 at Atlantic Sound's Brooklyn studio, a scene serenely inspired by the live room's forward face on the East River. Recorded to a 24 track, 2" Studer tape machine, the album begins with the stringed drone of "Today's Psalter", a piece named for the instrument at its thematic core (re-established later with "Yesterday's Psalter"). "Spinette" is a lively and cyclical measure exercise built on an original work. And, at end of the first side, "Piano Waves" reinvents a Magnetophone tape recording Moore originally realized in the 60s as a sonorous anchor on the album.

The second side begins with "Wild Grass I (for Arthur Russell)", composed by Georgopoulos for a cello, violin, and piano ensemble. As with its companion piece, "Wild Grass II (for Robert Wyatt)" takes heroic inspiration and uses the intimate instrumentation to create a movement compelling in its refined gestures. "Mirrors & Forks" returns to Moore's treasure trove of tape loops, seething into "Yesterday's Psalter" and then a lunar-lit rendition of "Slow Moon's Rose" sung by Georgopoulos, a song originally recorded by Moore in 1972 as part of Slapp Happy.

Frkwys Vol. 3 feat. Arp & Anthony Moore maintains the serial aesthetic with a limited pressing of 550 vinyl copies housed in thick jackets wrapped in a lively monochromatic adhesive (design by Kevin O'Neill at Will Work For Good).