Fat Freddy’s Drop Blackbird The Drop/!K7 (dist. Redeye) DRP019CD

As time goes on, the New Zealand ensemble Fat Freddy’s Drop makes music that gets smoother, heavier, and more soulful every year. On Blackbird you hear the group continuing to digest its multifarious influences into something uniquelt theirs: the vocals are supple and partcularly soully, while the instrumental grooves sway effortless between funk, reggae, and R&B flavors—there are lots of great horn charts, and there’s always this sort of indefinable uniqueness lurking at the edges of the sound that I’m happy to attribute to the band’s New Zealand heritage. Recommended.