Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 03/11/2008
On a session-to-session basis, in slightly varying combinations, drummer
Sly Dunbar, percussionist
Uziah "Sticky" Thompson, bassist
Robbie Shakespeare, keyboardist
Wally Badarou, guitarists
Barry Reynolds and
Mikey Chung, and engineer
Alex Sadkin made up the in-house team at
Island founder
Chris Blackwell's
Compass Point, a studio located just outside Nassau in the Bahamas. As
Blackwell recalls in
David Katz's excellent liner notes to this set, titled
Funky Nassau: The Compass Point Story 1980-1986, "I wanted a new, progressive sounding band. I wanted a Jamaican rhythm section with an edgy mid range and a brilliant synth player." That's what he got, and more, and it made -- or, in the case of
Talking Heads and
Tom Tom Club, enhanced -- some of the most advanced and adventurous music of the '80s, a great deal of which went down a storm in clubs across the planet. The "Compass Point All-Stars", as they were called, were as malleable as they were distinctive -- check the range between
Grace Jones'
Warm Leatherette,
Joe Cocker's
Sheffield Steel,
Black Uhuru's
Chill Out, and
Gwen Guthrie's
Portrait, all of which sound clearly connected, plump, bright, and ringing. For the most part, the choices pulled together for this disc are representative, if somewhat arbitrary; just about any other
Compass Point track from
Jones,
Guthrie, or
Sly & Robbie would've been as functional. There are several golden truffles pulled up here that were previously known only to the most keen:
Guy Cuevas' skywalking
"Obsession" (off a France-only 12"),
Cristina's wobbling
"You Rented a Space" (produced and written by
Robert Palmer, it is the oddest thing he did,
"The Silver Gun" excepted, but it wasn't released until a reissue of
Cristina's
Sleep It Off), and a
Sly & Robbie goof-off in the best possible way -- a delirious cover of
Yarbrough & Peoples'
"Don't Stop the Music," issued under the name
Bits & Pieces. The collective's output documented throughout these seven years doesn't loom as largely as that of the teams that made
Motown or
Stax, but when it comes to unduplicated behind-the-scenes innovation of the last 35 years, you can put them up there with the
Mizell brothers,
the Chic Organization,
Martin Hannett,
Jam & Lewis,
the Bomb Squad, and
Timbaland.
~Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
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