What a pleasant surprise, another Naked Music release that's more soul than house and even better than the Blue Six Beautiful Tomorrow album from the beginning of the year.
Aquanote is the brainchild of Gabriel Rene who wrote, produced and performed most of the songs by himself. But like the afore-mentioned Blue Six album, The Pearl features a plethora of mostly female singers like Caetlin Cornwell, Zoe Ellis, Lisa Shaw, Omega Brooks or Naomi Nsombi. J-Soul is the only male singer here who is featured on Come Around and Her Name Was Truly.
Add to some sweet vocalist and nice songs, that combine soul, house and downtempo, some decent musicians like Nelson Braxton (one of the Braxton Brothers) on bass (One Wish, The Last One), Josh Davis on trumpet (Waiting) or Richard Worth on flute (Her Name Was Truly) and we have a real winner with The Pearl.
Nowhere (that was already available on 12") and One Wish are two future soul classics that are just wonderful and really worth the purchase of the album alone. Nowhere is a great mid-tempo gem with vocals by Zoe Ellis.
Just love the lyrics to One Wish ('I wish I always felt/ like I had just been kissed/ I wish that every Monday/ was a Saturday/ I wish I had a way/ to chase my blues away') that musicwise has all the right ingredients: some guitar, a catchy bassline, a nice flute and vocals by Omega Brooks.
But there are so much more good songs here like the more uptempo Leave, the typical blueprint of a naked-music-song Waiting, Her Name Was Truly or The Last One (sung by Omega again).
Considering the last 12"es of Naked Music that tended to sound more and more the same and missing some innovations, The Pearl is a welcome proof that the label is still capable of delivering some good, soulful music that doesn't rely on one genre.
Really worthwhile!