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Turbulence, "Do Good"
The ridiculously prolific singjay's fourth (by my count) full-length CD in the last twelve months doesn't match his higher profile releases for VP and Tads nor does it contain any of his charting singles.
You'd be hard pressed to actually call yourself a reggae fan these days without having at least heard something from Turbulence. A handful of tracks from X-Girlfriend, released just this past October, are burning up the Jamaican charts thanks to his special blend of roots and lover's rock. His fame spread far beyond the island in 2006 when the gritty "Notorious," nearly as anthemic as Damian Marley's scorching "Welcome To Jamrock," grew so massive that even geeky hipster zines and bandwagon-jumping labels had little choice but to take notice. Although easily mixed up with such trend jockeying, Germany's Minor 7 Flat 5, however, hardly counts as a latecomer, having released Different Thing in 2003, years before the folks at XL Recordings had so much as a whiff of the then-rising star.
Despite all that promise, the unspectacular Do Good simply doesn't hold up against the mounting successes. As with Turbulence's first release for this label, producer Andreas "Brotherman" Christophersen bears the primary responsibility here, and, to be fair, Turbulence at least deserves credit for trying to overcome this bad situation. Although recorded at least in part at Tuff Gong in Jamaica with some recognizable session players, the album plays blandly like so many from countless contemporary Rastas, never giving up a single standout hook. Tracks like "Pursue" and "Bright Eyes" might sound at least decent live at some European reggae festival, but in studio they backfire into a comfortable safeness absent from his aforementioned hits. Unsurprisingly, the inclusion of Luciano on "Freedom Train" only marginally improves on this tiresome and formulaic approach.
The biggest blunders come when Brotherman, arguably with lofty intentions, veers away from the rootsy vibes and tries to fit Turbulence into boxy, lifeless interpretations of other musical subgenres. Unlike when, say, René Löwe or Rhythm & Sound enlist Paul St. Hilaire or Tony Tuff for their minimal digi-dub excursions, Brotherman's attempts at recreating styles he seems to know little about just don't work. The most egregious example, "Good Time" pitifully fumbles over its dated 2-step garage beat with the most generic piano stabs I've heard on record in years. Turbulence tries his best here but there's just no stomping out this burning bag of dogshit. Even more dancehall oriented cuts here like "Move On" either lack any "ruff" edge or the instrumentation sounds too canned to be considered authentic.
I am unable to completely exonerate Turbulence for taking part in this bland project, as I cannot shake the feeling that his prolificity is profit-motivated. His demonstrable willingness to sacrifice artistic integrity for a paycheck puts him squarely in line with so many reggae voices of the last decade or two, the oft-compared Sizzla among them, slating Do Good as yet another album to avoid in the singjay's growing discography. With any luck, its release wont even register as a blip on the collective screens of his core fanbase.
