Strange Arrangement

DJ/producer Andrew Cohen's debut album as Mayer Hawthorne, A STRANGE ARRANGEMENT, is a wonderful, joyous delight from start to finish, managing to be both a nostalgic-sounding soul facsimile and a fresh urban retro dance listen all in one package. "Just Ain't Gonna Work Out" is here, along with other jaw-dropping gems like the Motown-like "Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'" (it's hard to believe it isn't the Temptations doing this song), the quiet storm-like "One Track Mind" (with its aching echoes of Smokey Robinson) and "The Ills" (which sounds like a haunting, wry, and simply gorgeous lost Curtis Mayfield track). Cohen wrote all but one song here, played most of the instruments, and then mixed everything with an ear to delivering a refreshingly spare sound, with even the horn arrangements stripped to the bone, giving these tracks an odd, muted sharpness. Then there are the vocals. They're extraordinary, as if Cohen were channeling Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, David Ruffin, Smokey Robinson, et al., through his own middle to high tenor.Soul, neo or not, is soul, and this guy has it.