ABCD

Released

This 2013 Moodymann collection pulls together a few obscure KDJ productions, re-edits and remixes, including two tracks from 2012’s Picture This album, an alternative version of his remix of Pollyn’s Sometimes You Just Know and an alternative remix of Mara TK’s Run. Album opener Watcha Say is a superbly genre-fluid piece of music, part new-wave, part house music, part sampledelica, part future R’nB. Ever contrary, ABCD is another ‘album’ that’s not quite a full-length album, but is a bit longer than an EP, and the truncated length of most of the tracks and inclusion of radio samples in between songs makes the whole thing feel very much like a deep house mix tape. So brooding house/jazz hybrid 9 Nites 2, which in its original version is an 8-minute track, appears here for less than three minutes, as part of a larger whole rather than a standalone tune. ABCD also includes the superb Sly Stone-eque summertime swagger of Watchin U which would resurface on 2014’s self-titled album. 

Harold Heath