They Might Be Giants – S-E-X-X-Y [1996; Elektra]

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Packing five remixes of the title track, this maxi-single opens up with the “Tee’s Freeze Mix”, which drops vocal slices from the original mix into a 4/4 house beat with some glimmering synth touch-up.  “Tee’s In House Dub” follows, playing with the percussion a bit and layering in a new funky synth loop, but otherwise following the pattern of the first mix.  Then “Tee’s Capella” wraps up the A-side by stripping away everything but the sampled vocals, without cutting out the stretches of silence between them.

On the B-side, “The Warren Rigg Microwave Mix” also follows the simple house route, but includes some bongo-sounding beats and techno-ish synth stabs and piano loops, with a few beat-ramps livening things up considerably more than Todd Terry’s mixes.  “The Warren Rigg Instrumental” serves up the same song again, with the inconsequential vocal samples dropped.  All around, it’s fairly boring, with little connection or inspiration from the base song apparent, and ends up feeling more like a contractual obligation pushed by Elektra executives than something anyone involved had actual interest in doing.

Les McCann – Talk to the People [1972; Atlantic]

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Merging funky jazz with heart-felt soul, the songs of this album split their time between letting Les McCann lead with his powerfully emotive vocals, and letting the band take over for some high-style (and higher energy) instrumental pieces.  In the vocal tracks, the band provides a gentle atmosphere, showing its members’ strengths through soft inflections, tonal control, and atmospheric richness, while those same qualities are brought out in higher levels, and with more playfulness, for the instrumental works.  The album ends up feeling more like a collection of studio cuts than something put together around a few core ideas, but it’s still some strong work and beautiful playing, and the soft flow of the music blurs the separation of the songs to help it hold together more than firmer direction would have.