If you’ve ever tried to catch a seagull mid-flight with a butterfly net, you’ll understand the elusive joy that Funky Blackman’s “The Beach” EP serves up. Not that there are any feathered friends involved, directly. But the feeling? Yeah, it’s there, a fleeting, beautiful awkwardness.
This isn’t some synthesized shoreline; forget the stock wave sounds. This is a memory, maybe yours, maybe his, re-assembled. He’s a sonic globetrotter, they say, and it shows. The soulful house rhythms pulse like the tide, the funk chords hit you like unexpected sun on skin, and the disco undercurrent… well, that’s the distant ice cream truck melody, a sweet reminder of simpler times. This is beach nostalgia without being sentimental.
I mean, did Cleopatra chill on a beach, maybe ponder some proto-disco? Probably not, but she would have felt this EP, the effortless groove, the reflections on… well, everything. It’s like peering into a shell, and instead of ocean sounds, you find little pieces of your own past. A half-remembered summer romance, that time your car broke down, the really good burger you had. You know, all of that.
Funky Blackman isn’t preaching from a sandy pulpit. He’s just sharing the vibe, the way it feels to be alive, connected to rhythm and memory, like a random text message from a long-lost friend. It makes you want to dance barefoot, and that’s about the best thing any music can do. Maybe the seagulls were there all along? Anyway… it makes you think.
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