Welcome to Doc City Needs to be Heard
By Deuce
The best of the work on Doc City’s LP, Welcome to Doc City, which drops on January 27th, is a mighty, mighty collage of sonic mastery to behold. The instrumentation is tough to duplicate, if it’s at all even possible to do so. And the vocals more than hold their own, spinning spells of captivating series of songs that evoke images, motion, and even poesy.
The deluxe edition contains 12 cuts, including three mixes of songs that are also featured in their original versions: “Sweetest Taboo” (which any true Sade lover will recognize), “No Goodbyes”, and “I’ll Still Be There For You”. Nonetheless, the sheer range covered on this collection is impressive, and varies from some of the smoother styles of jazz to Cameo-esque funk.
There’s simply no topping the wah wah guitars on “What Love Is”, the opening number, and on “Did You Choose”. Although comparisons between artists tend to border on the trite, those that know will have difficulty listening to the piano bass line (meaning the low notes on the piano are played like those of a bass) without reminiscing on Ahmad Jamal’s title piece from Saturday Morning.
Extraordinary compliment as that is, Doc City’s tune has the nerve to feature a male vocalist actually adding to this cauldron of glowing wah wah’s and pianos dripping with effects. You can envision dancing, in broad daylight, in whatever attire you or anyone else happens to have, not a care of a solitary thing on anyone’s mind.
“Love Is” is super slow, with a clean ass rim shot glinting in the background, and an immensely talented female vocalist (who, alas, appears to be uncredited on this effort) singing in a way that’s so right. You’ve got the horns coming in for a glance or two every now and again, just to make sure everything’s moving right, which it assuredly is.
Things get outright vivacious on “Your Ego Too”, in which a male vocalist (again, whose name is not easily found in the press materials for this release) helps to turn things into a down home affair. Granted, there’s an organ screeching up to heaven in bright, bold dashes, and an upper mid-tempo groove to keep things progressing as well. But money on the mic shines incandescently on this one, showcasing some of the best this album has to offer.
