Pat Fulgoni is a busy man. Not only does his past CV include collaborations with Embrace, Erick Morillo's Subliminal label, Tony Benn and making live blues albums in Prague, but he's somehow found the time to shoehorn being a self-styled label boss into his rammed schedule.
Hence the immortally-monikered Chocolate Fireguard label Pat has put together from his West Yorkshire base; quite possibly a true Northern equivalent of pioneering labels like Skint and Warp. But, best of all, is the fact that he himself leads one of the label's leading lights, KAVA KAVA.
"Maui" is the Kavas ecstatically-realised debut album and the cool thing is that while it's booty-shakin' good, its' utilisation of a monster live band sound rather than just traditional machine-tooled sounds ensures they mean intoxicating business on both head and heart levels and also ensures "Maui" works every bit as well whether you're trying to deal with last night's dishes or losing it big style on the dancefloor.
Brilliantly, for a dance-based album, "Maui" holds up for the duration and mixes hard, funky beats with insistent, Curtis Mayfield -style wah wah guitars, snappy, Stax-y horns and Fulgoni's deep, gut-level vocals, which are never less than mighty fine. Indeed, instead of the traditionally faceless dance frontman, you get the feeling he's ingested many a Northern Soul compilation and Wigan all-niter to sound the way he does and I, for one, am all for it.
Actually, while it snaffles slightly different influences, "Maui" works for me in a similar way to landmark albums like the Mondays' "Bummed" or Primal Scream's "Screamadelica" in that it is a cracking crossover-fuelled party record where the grooves rarely let up, the guitars make their presence felt and you know damn well it'll work just as well in a live setting.
Standouts are numerous. "Don't Stop The Music" is an irresisitible opener, flying into view on huge bursts of drums and horns before settling into a surefire, soul review groove that you'll have difficulty washing out; "Space People" rides delirously around on a squelchy keyboard refrain that will crack your brain open it's so catchy and
the dramatic "Terrorists" features wah-wah guitar similar to The Edge's work on U2's "Mysterious Ways" and revels in an elastic groove George Clinton would be proud of.
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Eclectiism is never simmering far below the surface, though. "Maui" itself opens with an elegiac burst of strings, enormous vocals from Fulgoni and then glides along on supple basslines and simply mainlines atmosphere. "Swans", by contrast, is a fascinating little linking snippet featuring guitar Vini Reilly wouldn't deny and then we get to sample the chunky guitars and all-out grooveathon that is the Kavas corking single "Funked Up And Freaked Out": in itself pretty much a summation of the whole album.
Things get even further out there with tracks like the chiming, Eastern-style drone-groove of "Tic", with its' weird dissonance and Fulgoni's malevolent muterings ("don't give a fuck if I faze ya!" he snaps at one point) contrasting with the samples and pretty melody struggling to seep out. "Nfa", meanwhile, takes it a step further, acting like a sister track, with the sitars and oscillations eventually giving way to breakbeats and metronomic basslines and finally a soulful, but challenging song full of bizarre Eastern promise.That things should come to rest with the Orb-like otherworldly pulse of the odd "Faith" initially throws you, but after the euphoria that precedes it, the comedown must eventually kick in and this slice of ambient electronica provides it effectively.
"Maui" is very much the thinking man's anthemic party album. It rocks, it sways, it glides and by God does it funk. If you thought a mutation between Curtis Mayfield and brilliant early Lo-Fi Allstars could never be pulled off, then think again, because "Maui" could well be it. Indeed, as Fulgoni so succinctly puts it on the anthemic "Space People", "the music reaches out to me, I feel your funky symphony." Couldn't have put it better m'self, really.
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