Soft Core Mambo Pt. 2

Sly & Robbie

A musical shower of gold from Taxi Records this week. Four great records, any of which could have been Record Of The Week. But after much head scratching, it has to be Soft Core Mambo Pt. 2 featuring Cutty Ranks, simply because we've all been waiting so long for it to come out on 7". Earlier in the year, David Rodigan gave this tune a lot of airplay on his Kiss FM radio show, driving proprietors of reggae emporia all over London to distraction as they were besieged by listeners desperate to know when this was coming out. Well, here it is at last.

Sly & Robbie long ago moved to a position where musically they can do exactly what they like and throughout the last decade they've been doing just that. Back in 1992 they tore up the reggae rulebook by releasing reggae music without a bassline and nothing, absolutely nothing, comes more radical than that. Their "bhangra beat" releases, most famous of which was Chakademus & Pliers' monster hit Murder She Wrote, signalled just how open they were to musical influences of any and every kind. For many Jamaican artists, a turn away from the core audience at home has too often meant dilution, compromise, and loss of direction, but Sly & Robbie have shown the vision and integrity to trailblaze a path that is utterly distinct and yet distinctively Jamaican.

Since their foray into bhangra, Sly & Robbie have conducted an affair with all things Latin under the self-penned moniker of "La Trengae". Over the last few years single after single has come out, often reinventing the reggae back catalogue, as with Double Barrel, Elephant Walk, Bonanza, and the like, but all with that distinctive Latin tinge in the percussion and keyboard samples and above all in the light, complex rhythmic textures. As the title Soft Core Mambo suggests, Sly & Robbie have once more got the maraccas and bolero jackets out with a vengeance on this one. Characteristically, they break the rules at the outset by making Part One the instrumental and Part Two the DJ cut, "featuring Cutty Ranks" as the label puts it.

Part Two begins with a little sampled "huh huh" sound from one of Cutty Ranks' early 90s outings, a loping Latin style bassline, some syncopated piano chords. No great hurry to get on with anything. Then in comes The Cutter himself, showing no signs that age is mellowing him in the slightest, to be joined by a skidding trumpet solo straight out of the dance band era, a seductive chorus from what sounds like the prime of Latin American womanhood, plus sundry Spanish yelps and exhortations. The instrumental is great too, with the piano lick extended into a full length solo and the crazy trumpeter given yet more scope.

A killer tune from Taxi's Gang Of Four. But what about the other three? Will the next Record Of The Week be the Taxi Gang's reggae take on Kool & The Gang's Jungle Boogie? Or will it be Capleton's harder than hard Stop Your Coming And Come? Or the Latin/Hip Hop flavours of Innocent Crew's Woof Woof? Check us next week.