Most of you will know Earth Is The Place, the über-hit from Nathan Haines' debut album, Sound Travels, for Chilli Funk from 2000. Or you may know him from various collaborations with Phil Asher (who produced and co-wrote Sound Travels and Squire For Hire by the way) for his remixes or from Nathan's moniker Sci-Clone, under which he has recorded for Goldie's Metalheadz label.
Three years after Sound Travels, Nathan's new album Squire For Hire is finally being released and like it's predecessor it offers a wide range of musical styles keeping the emphasis on quality and not getting too overambitious or artificial.
The title track, Squire For Hire, has already been released as a single, and features the wonderful Marlena Shaw, in whose UK shows Nathan has played the saxophon.
Right By Your Side was another song that has been available as a 12" before and it features Vanessa Freeman and Marcus Begg on vocals. With Mike Patto on piano, Neville Malcolm on bass, Chris Franck on electric guitar and kalimba and Nathan on tenor and soprano sax this is a perfect groovy summer soul funk song.
O Misterio features Guida de Palma on vocals and this song is a very pleasant midtempo affair with Nathan playing alto flute and fellow New Zealander Mark de Clive Lowe playing Fender Rhodes.
Springtime Rain and Let It Go features the deep and rich voice of Rich Medina and Rich does what he's best known for, narrating over a relaxed sound framework with Nathan playing sax and Arp Solina (Springtime Rain) and Fender Rhodes (Let It Go).
Shelley Nelson is another singer who's featured on Nothing New, another great soulful funky song which also features Nathan's father, Kevin Haines, on acoustic bass.
One of my favourite songs here is U See That with Vanessa Freeman and Marcus Begg as vocalists again, Nathan on flute and some fierce percussion and acoustic guitar by Chris Franck, certainly a song that - if released as a 12" - will become another monsterhit for Nathan Haines.
And as if that wasn't enough of good songs there's also Doot Dude, a fine broken beat song with Lyric L on vocals, the asian flavoured Folk Jazz (with Boo Scher on sitar), a fine cover version of Steely Dan's FM and the funk-jazz of The Last Dance (Make It Good).
Once again Nathan Haines and his producer and co-writer Phil Asher have come up with a great album that will certainly stick in your CD Player for a long time since it offers nothing put quality music with 12 great tracks. So make sure you get your copy when it's released on September, 8^th 2003...and if you've missed Sound Travels so far, then get it too.