Out of the Los Angeles underground was Chill, another one of those bands that Nelson George might have said was trying a little too hard to be both Prince and Morris Day at the same time, if only in their overall sound. However Chill had a rather interesting couple of aces up its sleeve that set them aside from the rest of the pack: lead singer Devrik Williams, whose clear, ready-for-prime-time vocals may not have grabbed your ears at first listen, but in hindsight, sound a whole lot better than those who tried too hard to sound like the Purple Midget and his friends, and a certain keyboard player named Chuckii Booker, whose stamp is all over this album. Chill first burst on the scene in 1985 with a series of releases on L.A. imprints Jam Power, Street, and (the humorously named) KMA Records, including songs like “Lady Seduction”, “Think About It”, and finally “911″ (which even had a video, strangely enough — look for it on Youtube!). By 1986, Chill had finally built an album largely of stomping Time-style funk numbers around their initial offerings; Chill Out was pressed and distributed by Macola, a local outfit who would put out the records, so as long as you had master tapes and a fee to spare. The result is a largely enjoyable, high quality collection of songs from a band that had a lot to prove. Of particular note is “Never Walk Another Day Without You”, which has aged pretty well since its release. “Lady Seduction” sounds a lot like what Chuckii would do as a solo artist (even though he doesn’t have a writing credit), if not what he would do around the same time with Tease (see earlier entries). “Do It With Control” sounds a whole lot like Jesse Johnson’s material in this era, to the point one almost wonders if Chuckii snuck his keyboards out of Jesse Johnson’s Revue himself. “Hanging On”, the album’s mellow closer, balances a fat bass synthesizer with Devrik’s even-toned voice, and ends the set on a pleasant note.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 08:27:50 +0000
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