Shawn Lee & Clutchy Hopkins "Clutch Of The Tiger" (2008) / downtempo, easy, hop, jazz, funky

Nothing heralds the changing of the seasons like another Shawn Lee album, and for the latest installment, Clutch of the Tiger, the talented London-based multi-instrumentalist can be heard collaborating with the homeless multi-instrumentalist known to most of us as Clutchy Hopkins. Clutchy is presumed to be the alter-ego of some established artist, but really the only important thing to know is that the Clutchy persona puts forth instrumental works that are in something of an organic hip-hop vibe. The current release makes it difficult to separate the contributions of each persona, all the more difficult given Shawn Lee’s penchant for stylistic mimicry. The album is mostly comprised of live instrumentation and is characterized by a dark, break-laden jazz mystique, not unlike the Axelrod or MacDermot fusions of jazz, rock, and R&B that are popular in certain hip-hop circles, but a less-expansive version that isn’t as focused on explosive bursts of improvisation and melody as on groove and atmosphere.

The album starts and ends strong. “Full Moon” and “Two Steps Back” cruise along with an interesting passing of melody between instruments, and “Indian Burn” closes with sitar licks befitting the title. An earlier track, “Bill Blows It,” makes great use of flute and sax, while “Across the Pond” is very effective in its combining of smaller, simpler parts ---single-note guitar bends and organ stabs--- into an effective but somehow disjointed groove. Somewhere in the middle of this track, tablas and woodwinds open things up into a brief pub-band breakdown that really can’t be compared to anything.

Although Clutch of the Tiger has a lot of interesting moments and does reward attention, one of the weaker aspects of the release is that the style and instrumentation seem too limited, not offering enough variance to keep a mind from occasionally wandering. The pieces are roughly all at the same tempo and exhibit very similar rhythms, they tend to be dominated by drums, keyboards, and bass, and nearly all tracks present the same moody, dark feeling. None of those things are bad in themselves, and the music never suffers from a significant drop in technical quality, but there is an overall consistency in effect that sometimes fails to demand attention. To be clear, this does not mean that the album is bad, only that it drifts into average territory once and awhile, remembering, too, that average for Shawn Lee can still be better than average in a larger sense.

- Justin Deremo