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Lewis II

Lewis II

a review by simon hopkins of
release format Lewis II by Lewis Taylor (CD Album)

text

So the year kicked off with one long-awaited follow up to a groundbreaking debut soul album - D'Angelo's dark masterpiece Voodoo, and draws to a close with another, an album I personally hadn't dared hope to hear: Lewis Taylor's Lewis II. North London soul boy-cum-prog rock guitarist Taylor's mid 90s eponymous debut appeared around the same time as D'Angelo's Brown Sugar, Tony! Toni! Toné!'s House of Music and Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, as well as a plethora of lesser offerings from artists banded together under the ludicrous tag 'Nu Classic Soul'. For my money, Taylor's record was the best of the bunch (and I love D'Angelo), and easily the most musically audacious. Taylor recalled the Beach Boys and Miles Davis and even Yes as much as he did Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. Hell, the album even opened with an extended Joe Meek sample. Yet the album seemed to pretty much disappear.

If Lewis II does the same, it will be a crime all over again. For Taylor has returned with yet another rich gumbo of deep grooves, soaring lead vocals, flawless - and often pretty damn bombastic - guitar solos, rich harmonizing... yet a mix which constantly wrong-foots the listener. You think you get where a songs going and it'll take off in another direction altogether. Bottom line: Taylor is an extremely sophisticated musician and writer. And I don't mean glossy (though he can be that too), I mean knowing and knowledgable. A man who knows just when a song needs an Albert King guitar break or some Van Dyke Parks- vocal harmonies or even a harpsichord solo. And those chords! Taylor's songs have the most arresting and unique harmonic progressions of any soul songwriter's since Prince first emerged.

That all of this is almost entirely Taylor's own work (drum parts on three tracks are the only occasions when Taylor isn't playing - or singing) puts him in a direct line of soul auteurs that includes Stevie Wonder and the aforementioned Prince and D'Angelo. But for all that, he's defiantly his own man. The eyes-starward and generally Apollonian tone of Taylor's music sets him apart from the darker strains of, say, D'Angelo's warped explorations of the soul's more chthonic side. And the ease with which he reaches beyond soul and R&B for inspiration demonstrates a musical mind unfettered by such concerns as genre and fashion - and an artist whose work will stand up for a long long time.

Let's hope someone takes some notice this time. Posted by simon hopkins at 00:00, 03 Nov 2000