Slinky and moist. Just how I like it. Worthy soul collective Si*Sé (pronounced see*say) release the follow up to their 2003 self-titled release on David Byrne’s wonderfully screwball Luaka Bop, home to everything Afropea, Indian, and traditional and pathfinder for all the progressive music of Central and South America. This time though they’ve upped house and relocated to Fuerte Records. And whilst there’s nothing quite as breezily hypnotic as the Funky Lowlives mix of Si*Se’s ‘The Rain’ (available on the ‘House That Luaka Built’) the hot, curly vocals of the Dominican-bred Carol C. coil like a pussycat around a dozen or so tracks of sultry and appealing loungecore that soothe if not seduce outright.
A sophisticated mélange of jazz, latin, electro, techno, trance, trip-hop, ethnic and a whole bunch of other stuff, ‘More Shines’ unpretentiously unites the spicy regional ‘otherness’ of traditional Latin styles (‘Amiga’, ‘Brazillian’, ‘A La Bahia’) with the whims and funky neon of New York City (‘Sometimes’, ‘Agua’, ‘Noche Azul’).
‘Mariposa En Havana’ provides the purring, plucking highlight but there’s an able supporting cast of Dido-esque and Bebel Gilberto-esque jiggery-pokery to keep one amused in between.
Credible foreplay, if devoid of actual carnal pleasure.