Search - Slicker :: We All Have a Plan

Having grown up on hip-hop's collages, indie-punk's bedroom DIY-isms and the beat fantasias of electronic composers, John Hughes (a.k.a. Slicker and the artist behind Chicago's Hefty Records) has grasped something most others haven't in his knitting together of something old and something new. For Hughes, the common chord on We All Have a Plan, Slicker's fourth album and a pan-global, soul-jazz masterpiece made out of bits and pieces, is elemental and spiritual. "Honest" and "organic" are words Hughes uses repeatedly to describe his blueprint. And in the wake of similar cut-and-paste excursions by kindred spirit colleagues, Plan smuggles modern electronics away from indie-techno dilettantes back to the timeless land of song. The collaborative voices and jazz tones you hear throughout the record belong to soul, jazz, funk and world music's forgotten heroes. Legendary Motor City funk-jazz cats Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison illuminate the laid-back funk collage of "God Bless This Mess, This Test We Pass". Vocalist Khadijah Anwar, once a 14 year-old soul wunderkind for mid-'70s funkateers Sugar Hill, shines on the Zapp-like electro-funk of "Knock Me Down Girl", while Detroit MC's Phat Kat and Elzhi (of Slum Village fame) add a future urban element to the proceedings. Singer Lindsay Anderson (L?Altra, Telefon Tel Aviv) gives "A Strong Donkey" a sultry jazzed-out bliss, while guest vocalist/trumpeter James Cromwell grumbles alongside her. Also appearing on the title song, and throughout Plan, is Dan Boadi, a Ghanaian vocalist residing in Chicago, who Hughes estimates affected the album as much as anyone. Spiritual X-factors all-too rarely affect the soul and creation of computer music. Yet these are undeniably the guiding forces behind Slicker's We All Have a Plan. So natural and soul-kissed, you'd think they were part of Hughes's plan all along.