If Albarn may have been unusually unreserved over the releasing of much contemporary material (be it for
the superb DRC Music project,
Gorillaz' stilted DoYaThing, or
Blur's understated Under The Westway) he's certainly been rather more tentative when showering us with stuff from
Rocket Juice & The Moon. Indeed Hey Shooter, a track featuring notorious R&B vocalist
Erykah Badu, is the first fully-formed insight to emerge online and can be heard for the first time below. For reasons revolving around Badu's absence or otherwise, Hey Shooter was also neglected from
Another Honest Jon's Chop Up back in October so its free-funk stylings here accrue further intrigue. Emerging amidst a flurry of slapped bass and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble's routinely jubilant brass, Badu's hypnotic vox add smooth and sultry qualities to the elaborate wig-out as she huskily drawls of wishing a nondescript voyager well on a similarly imprecise "journey to the sun". Tony Allen's skittering jazz-torched rhythms meanwhile add both a bottom layer and further instrumentation, so prominent and florid is his debatably improvisational involvement.
Rocket Juice & The Moon.
