ESG – Dance To The Best Of ESG
That I’d never heard of ESG (Emerald Sapphire Gold) before is nothing short of criminal and I’m guessing I’m far from being the only one going to jail. Every Single Glorious track is designed to twitch your ass, you follow the beat for 3 minutes and want no more than to stretch out and jam on them for another 10 minutes, something they do a little more themselves on disc 2.
On the opening “You’re No Good” ‘Every Silky Groove’ is as loose as the Devil, a cooing put down to an irresistible charmer.
‘Tiny Sticks’ wood block syncopation could well be the first track plundered by sample hungry hip hop. It doesn’t do a lot but by gosh it does it well.
Many of the Funkiest tracks sound like The Pop Group relocated to Studio 51,
Extra-Terrestrial Staccato Guitar permeates the off beat (literally) U.F.O.
“Dance” is an easy command to follow as the bass walks all around the neighbourhood with the yelping girls leading the way. ‘Parking Lot Blues’ is the soundtrack to an unmade 70s detective series, ‘Christelle’ is Surf Go Go for fucks sake. This is an astonishing collection!
They sound sultry like Eartha Kitt on ‘Talk It’ and ‘Hold Me Right’. The breadth of material here within the pigeon-hole “Funk” is astounding, these Sisters are doing it and you really don’t want to fuck with them. They’ve got you every which-way, stone cold and super hot. They span Studio 51 to Factory funk (appropriately Hannett produced early tracks), Afro Beat, Jive, Go-Go (60s style and 80s D.C. groove movers), Hip Hop – Even Swing Grooves – and yet it doesn’t sound like they were ever searching for a sound – more like the sound found them and possessed them completely for a while. The tracks span 25 years in real time but they have the spirit of many more years of black music. The later stuff seems to be in the style of more recent converts to the dancefloor like New Young Pony Club (but precedes them). I can’t think of any act other than Prince that has been this successful at wrangling The Groove over this sort of timespan (before – yes, but 80s on?). This has to be tempered by the relatively slight output, it seems a lot to find in one go but I think this compiles the lot. If there is another negative on disc one it is that they seem to boil down the beats to an essence and leave you wanting more – disc two sees the original 12”s get a look in but there is still not a lot all things considered – the remixers need to steam in here…see you on Soundcloud.
If the 32 tracks I got on the review copy are what’s available on the commercial release then I can honestly say you have to buy this – Every Second’s Gold and Everyone Should Geddit.
10/10 (Eleven Should Go)