Now, this is the weird thing: soul music is never instrumental because people think electronic equipment doesn't have a soul, and that soul can only be broadcast by the voice, but it's running through this mixtape, sinful, sorrowful and sad. It's a soul music hollowed, with its regal delirium turning dark. What does a damned soul sound like?Ĭlams Casino's Instrumentals 2 is an astonishing combination: the longing and heartbreak of soul music staggering into a defaced, delirious kind of hip-hop. The lives of the great soul men are riots of angst, addiction and sexual turmoil (think of James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Bobby Womack). But another kind has to exist because the soul is, as any sinister Southern preacher will tell you, a troubled and wicked thing, full of sound and fury, led astray by demonic desires. Or does 'soul' conjure experiences, personal or political? A luxurious agony, tells of haunted nights and miserable mornings, shadowed by grief, heartbreak and loss.
Call and response: I say 'soul' and you think of what? A world where everything is smooth, all honey and gold, hushed lushness and midnight love? Is that your soul music: a sonorous, velvety voice expressing sexual ecstasy, unending pleasure, love-as-wonderful-addiction ('can't get enough of your love, babe').
