BLUE EYED SOUL
You Ain't No Weight
Numero Group US
Rel: 13 Jul 26
Soul
| Side 1 - Track 1. Ain't No Weight |
| Side 1 - Track 2. Burn |
| Side 1 - Track 3. Are You Listening |
| Side 1 - Track 4. Look Out For Shaft |
| Side 2 - Track 1. One Hundred Years (vocal duet) |
| Side 2 - Track 2. Calling You |
| Side 2 - Track 3. Happy Day |
Brooklyn's Private Mind Garden never made much impact beyond a small circle of collectors, though it's easy to hear why Numero have dragged this strange little 1980 artefact back into circulation. The record sits somewhere between homemade gospel music, damaged soul and early drum-machine experimentation, with Lynn Marshall's thin, wavering falsetto constantly threatening to float clean out of the arrangements. 'Ain't No Weight' moves at the pace of someone walking home alone at sunrise, all skeletal rhythm boxes and foggy organ chords, while 'Burn' pushes the distortion harder until the whole mix starts crackling at the edges. 'Look Out For Shaft' is wonderfully odd, built from brittle percussion and woozy lounge-funk touches, before 'Happy Day' closes things in a haze of exhausted uplift.