Soul Seduction review:
After his first album “the groove collage” the time has finally come for Ed Royal to present us with his second masterpiece “live your dreams”. The title reflects the luck and ambition he has had in once again turning his hobby into a job. Ed has been crisscrossing his way through Europe and in 2008 he went so far as to manage a mind boggling 147 gigs. Through his tour of America he was invited to the Thievery Corporation “18th Street Lounge”. His mix of Nufunk, Disco, HipHop-Beats, Latin, Breakbeat and Electro brought the dance floors repeatedly to boiling point. His aim was to bring this colourful palate of beats together into his next album. Freestyle is the name of the game and at the latest after the first few tracks it becomes clear to the listener that Ed Royal is pushing the boundaries!! The first track “suck it to ya” is a somewhat lay back and enjoy track but the second “mission” with its fat beats, bass and rapping shakes us right back to reality. For the tracks “mission” and “hiphop to funk” he managed to win over the USA born rapper Badkat a.k.a Kathryn Roberts with her ingenious lyrics and raps that always manage to fascinate the listener. “coisa boa” arouses that holiday feeling. Micheline Cardosa (Brasil) sings about “that nice sweet thing” and the holiday just cannot come quickly enough. Now there is no escaping, Ed tears us onto the dance floor with his collaboration of drums, wah-wah guitars and rich brass instrumentals taking us from disco to funk, broken beat to electro. We loose control of our own feet but then in the next minute are beamed back onto the couch listening to the jazzy groove track “tweak da jazz”. The final track of the album and the one in which Ed Royal shows us the direction he is planning to go in is “right now”.
