Not only has label F-Spot Records been doing its bit to ensure the organ trio is thriving as a concept in having The White Blinds on its roster but now also the guitar trio as well in the form of funky soul-jazz outfit Fat Produce whose Sticky Beets/ SON! 45 made waves back in February of this year. And now here they are with a full LP – entitled Fresh Squeeze. This features both sides of the aforementioned single and another thirteen tracks (if you count three 20-40 second-ish interludes and an outro) – all recorded live with no overdubs to half inch tape in a single two-day period with War bass player Rene Camacho joining The Soul Vaccinators’ Addison Rifkind on guitar and The White Blinds’ Michael Duffy on drums to make three the magic number!
An all-instrumental affair, this LP is also an all-soul-jazz affair though that’s a broad enough term here to encompass a host of things. The title track is a soundtrack/cinematic soul groove as are Grease On The Range and the ‘does-what-it-says-on-the-tin’ Lo-Fi Beats To Study To while Slick is frantically-paced 70s-style jazz-funk. Afrenetic joins the dots between jazz and afro-funk while other shades of funk are well-represented via the Blue Note-ish Sticky Beets, Cadillac Converter and 818 Don’t Hate though neither is as funky as Son! nor the interludes which display a positively swamp-funky stankiness. Fat produce indeed!