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batteaux - batteaux - be with records - vinyl

New Copy

Genre: Funk / Soul - Blue Eyed Soul

1. Tell Her She's Lovely
2. Living's Worth Loving
3. Wake Me In The Morning
4. Mirror
5. Joe Arnold
6. "Dig Up The Love
7. Katy
8. Lady Of The Lake
9. treat Me Right Treat Me Wrong
10. High Tide
11. Wishing My Father
12. Maybe I'll Run Away

A notoriously folk-funk-soul classic, long treasured by the Balearic fraternity, the self-titled LP from the brothers Batteau - now reissued!

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Like a forgotten piece of baroque folk caught in 1973, Batteaux's eponymous album somehow sounds magically timeless. A full 45 years after the fact, it remains a mystery as to why they weren't better known. The lush production and virtuoso playing conforms with the ruling aesthetic of the time - well-crafted, melodic songs performed with precision and balance - whilst the shimmering AOR atmosphere and sun-dappled vocal washes align neatly with the best Crosby, Stills & Nash records.

Throughout, the beautifully penned tracks hold traces of Jimmie Spheeris, America and Seals & Crofts. The immaculately orchestrated percussion and additional instrumentation (electric piano and fiddle to name a few) are performed by perennially celebrated West-Coast cats including Tom Scott, John Guerin and Andy Newmark.

It's no surprise that the heavenly "High Tide" is such a Balearic touchstone. A free soul aqua-space groover, its sophisticated rhythms predict the swing of CSN's canonical "Dark Star" by a full four years. An alternative measure of its enduring magnificence can be gauged by MF Doom sampling Paul Horn's wonderful version, subsequently used by Ghostface Killah.