For some reason, The All's Eye the new trio featuring guitarist/composer Ari Joshua, drummer Ben Atkind, and keyboardist Kris Yunker is just magnetic. Their latest single, "Carriage House," released June 26, is a hot, analog-slick ride down the backroads of organ soul-funk, driven by instinct, skill, and a communal spirit that feels fated.
Recorded live at the legendary Carriage House Studios in Connecticut, the single throbs with vintage grit and warmth, captured in real time, you know, the stuff you can't re-duplicate with plug-ins or punch-ins. These are musicians who live in the moment, making music in the moment. Already from the first few bars, you're welcomed into a groove that rolls bottom deep and slows down an avenue of molasses at midnight. Kris Yunker's Hammond and clavinet lines swirl and stab with purpose, adding the song's defining texture, thick, earthy, and abuzz with analog warmth. The guitarist Ari Joshua's guitar tones crackle with both patience and precision, a player who knows when to lay into the guitar and when to let silence say the words. The connective tissue is akin to Atkind's drumming, fluid, responsive, deeply locked in.
There's a hint of the vocals, a dense vocal harmony buried deep in the mix, suggesting that a full vocal version is still to come. It's a delicious forerunner here, but the instrumental storytelling can completely stand on its own. This is a group that gets space. They're not showing off, they're simply listening to one another, stretching out time and welcoming the listener to sink into it all. "Carriage House" is also a mission statement, soulful, spacious, and electrified. It salutes the golden age of organ funk. The Meters, early Soulive, Booker T. & the MGs, but never gets stuck there. There's a modernist impulse, a jazz-head inquisitiveness, and also a jam-band heart pumping within.