Alan Wilkis “Pink And Purple”
MJ. Prince. Parliament/ Funkadelic. Rick James. The Gap Band. The Time. Robert Palmer. Hall & Oates. Cameo: These are just a few of the names that enter the brain when immersed in the slick, ’80′s-era White boy funk/ R&B of Pink and Purple, the newest release from Brooklyn singer/ songwriter/ producer Alan Wilkes.
Sounding as if Chromeo had been brainwashed into spending a couple weeks watching nothing but early-era BET video playlists, this continuously entertaining six-song EP fits in perfectly with music’s obsession with all things ’80′s in recent years. But rather than simply using new wave-y synths, electro-funk glitz and synthethic drum sounds as mere accents, Alan Wilkis takes things so much more further, showcasing an amazingly deft education in that era’s vibe with tunes that actually sound as if it they could’ve been on the charts way back when.
So many times throughout the collection, Wilkis fantastically seems to hone in on the same mindframe of that generation’s musicians, and the joy they must have felt in first realizing the endless musical possibilities of this “new” digital-based technology when mixed alongside the live band textures they had previously mastered, whether it’s through the dramatic slow build of closing ballad “Time Machine”, the infectious “me and all my protogees just jamming around” glee of P-funk exercise “N.I.C.E”, or the web-like keyboard intricacies of the title track that give nearly every four bars a different sonic identity.
Trust us. Cop the set, then sit back and press play. By the time you’ve hit the mid-way point of the EP, you’ll be hit with feelings of sorrow because you’re either too young to have experienced this magnificent era in real-time or you were around back then and have just been re-reminded how so much of today’s pitiful excuses for R&B, funk and pop pale in comparison.
DL: “N.I.C.E.” (alt)
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