Corduroy - London, England (2001)

Encompassing the band's seven-year career, London, England takes in the entirety of the first three albums, a few single sides, and a sampling of the final two albums. That's 40 tracks of acid jazz. Debut album Dead Man Cat led the way in the early '90s for a love of all things Hammond and groovy. Yes, when the James Taylor Quartet had veered toward commercial contemporary soul, Corduroy focused on the 1960s soundtrack vibe (that unfortunately everyone now associates with Austin Powers). This was 1992 though, and their love of filmic music was ahead of the trend. Dead Man Cat is magnificent and reeks of everything fascinating about late-'60s and early-'70s movie scoring: Hammond, bongos, fuzz guitar galore. And the thing is it's not ironic. Corduroy plainly loves this music and recreates the atmosphere and sound with ease. The second album, although a cheeky parody of a late-'60s swinging London movie's soundtrack (the band wrote the music around an imagined scenario) is again far beyond plagiarism and ably captures the mood and feel of the era. The opening sequence "High Havoc" is peppered with funky electric piano and the type of fuzzy lead guitar that the De Wolfe Association favored (a company that supplied the majority of the incidental music heard in late '60 British films). Mental images of an E-Type Jaguar roaring across Battersea Bridge are inescapable. From there on the soundtrack takes off, and it really does work. It's all there, and perfectly created too. By the time of the third album, Out of Here, released in 1994, the band had tired of the instrumental-only label and experimented with a vocal orientated approach. Although they sang wonderfully, other than the comical take on hard rock monstrosity, "Motorhead," the album just wasn't as fun as their earlier efforts and far closer to contemporary acid jazz-styled acts the Brand New Heavies and Jamiroqui than their previous releases. 1997's "Evolver" taken from The New You album made a move toward early-'70s prog rock, not unlike Todd Rundgren; however, by 1999, the Clik album attempted to cross over into dance music, and although bearing the fun cinematic trademark of the "Corduroy of old" doesn't successfully work. Some things are just better the traditional way. This is a brilliant collection, because what it does so well is compile the band's greatest moments chronologically, while skimming over the lesser moments. Not only is this an ideal introduction, it's all anybody needs by Corduroy. AllMusic Review by Jon "Mojo" Mills