I’ve been meaning to sink my teeth into this one for a while. The first few mixes are hard and dark, and that’s going to turn a few people away, but you should know better than to give just a cursory listen to anything with Sunshine Jones’ name on it. Sunshine is one of my favorite people on the scene today, and I’ve said that before but I don’t think I’ve ever said why. Every day I hear promos and pitches from people who all seem to dress alike and do their damned best to sound alike, too. It’s enough to make you wonder if there’s anything authentic left – in the ruins of the music industry, just something that isn’t trying to separate you from your credit card in a series of $1.99 transactions for music created with all of the soul of a model airplane kit. Do you know anyone that has to do something, whether it’s painting, writing, making music – even if there’s no one to see, write or listen to it?
Those people are sadly in short supply these days, but Sunshine Jones is one of them. What he does here (and with a song titled “Peak Time,” no less) is throttle those harder and darker originals back into a chill funk-tinged anthem. This isn’t for every room in the House, for sure, but I’m concerned that the Deep House folks that should be picking this one up won’t hear it. There’s a serpentine, utterly dancable groove which separates this from a lot of the AM radio fare that characterizes the “lounge” style today. Use this to navigate your way into Afro sounds, or in a transition to just about anything at all – It’ll work.
- Terry Matthew

“Dietro l’ironia c’è il tragitto di un artista tra i più luminosi degli ultimi tempi, lo sappiamo. Sappiate invece che sempre sul sito c’è un modo indiretto di supportare Mr. Jones, che è quello di acquistare una serie di nuovi e vecchi splendori da lui prodotti in digitale, produzioni al solito incredibili come Higher e Dirty Love, poi rx e re-edit privati di pezzi di Herp Albert, Fleetwood Mac, Rolling Stones, Yazoo, Thompson Twins, Shriekback, Foreigner, Exile, Teena Marie, Jefferson Starship, Hot Chocolate, DSS rx mai pubblicati su Brenda Fasse e Block 16, un DSS album inedito in versionedemo, “Versions”, e tanto, tanto altro, tutta roba quasi sempre al di sopra dell’eccellenza, come il nostro caro angelo ci ha abituato. Dover dire che dovete andare ora su quel sito significa che siete già in ritardo…”

We speak French, English, Spanish, a tiny bit of Arabic and African, but we don’t speak Italian, so no one here has any idea what this article says, but it’s it cool to appear in an Italian magazine?

Download a copy of the Ritmi & Black article here