SHARK WILSON AND THE BASEMENT HEATERS – “Make It Reggae”
“Whatever I play, it’s gonna be reggae” says Shark, so his band naturally put down a tough, springy funk groove. Or funk-reggae or funk in the process of mutating into reggae, or at any rate something which lets Wilson do his best possible James Brown moves. In his dedication to the abstract he actually out-Browns Brown, since “Make It Reggae” doesn’t even have a nominal subject: what’s getting Shark so wired when he howls “Bridge….Bridge!….BRIDGE!” and then moans in bliss when the horns do come in isn’t politics or women or ganja or God, it’s the architecture of the track itself. And who could blame him?