There are plenty of horn-driven funk bands out there. Too many, if you ask me. You know the bands I mean: They dress in gaudy outfits, have a goofy name like The Funkfurters and aggressively, exhaustively crank out high-spirited, high-velocity jams for drunken university students while jumping around and acting stupid. By all rights, Busty and the Bass could easily have been one of those bands. Thankfully, despite their questionable name, the Montreal octet have some qualities the rest of those other chumps lack: Namely, subtlety, style and taste. As a result, their sophomore album Eddie eschews over-the-top antics and attention-seeking shenanigans for deep grooves, laid-back vibes and mellow melodies that draw equally from soul and R&B — and draw VIPs like Macy Gray and George Clinton to drop in for some vocal spotlights. If their endorsements — not to mention the seductive and soulful properties of this album — don’t help them stand out from the brat pack, well, they can always buy some Hawaiian shirts and hit the frat house.
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Busty and the Bass have spent a decade building toward the release of Eddie, their sophomore full length. Transforming from an instrumental campus party band to playing at international festivals and selling out theatres across North America, the band rallied around friendship, a love for performing music, and a focus to uplift listeners to make a true statement album. Eddie pulls from a 50-year history of soul, funk, and jazz that distills it into a singular record which feels both timeless and of-the-moment: Old school legends of the form like George Clinton (Parliament-Funkadelic) and Macy Gray lend their talents, along with Grammy Award-winning producer Neal Pogue (Earth, Wind & Fire, Outkast, Tyler the Creator), creating an album full of new school sounds that shares a lane with contemporaries Anderson .Paak and Free Nationals.”
