Not many people can drop a cover of a Kate Bush song and get away with it. Kate Bush is in my mind under the listing of sacred text just for the sheer beauty of her songs. If you cover it you’d better cover it good. With this in mind, this is how Gizelle Smith came into my life with her cover of “King Of The Mountain”. It came with guts! It was a stomper of an arrangement, tight and with harmonies that take you to another plain.
It takes you from funk to Latin, and the vocals… Lord the vocals…
Why am I telling you this? Well. Gizelle’s back. And she’s brought 8 more gems with her, the album leads off with the percussive “Agony Road”, showing off her really soulful diva side, making me recall singers like Janelle Monae, I can imagine her killing “Tightrope” or Quantic Soul Orchestra vibe.
This whole project shows Gizelle’s funky side, her superb vocals sit perfectly over the instrumental tracks, giving them some umph, and delivered with power. The music itself comes with 70s flavour, very funky, tracks with wah pedals, synths, and great grooves. It made me pull that something’s stinky face many a time, and that is usually a good sign in the funk community. It’s the highest form of praise.
It’s hard to choose a stand out track but my favourite would be “Better Remember” and of course “King Of The Mountain.
Go get it. Let me repeat it for those in the back.
GO. GET. IT. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!
So. Who’s Gizelle Smith? Well, she’s a singer songwriter from Manchester, raised in a multicultural background full of soul music. She recorded this album in New York with producer Steffen Wagner and her fiancé Joseph Sam.
This is an incredible body of work and I can’t wait to hear more from her.
