
In the week that would have been Prince’s birthday (he would have been 65 on June 7th ), its somehow appropriate that one of his old colleagues is gearing up to release a new album. Prince “fams” (that’s what he called his followers) will know that Danish bass supremo Ida Nielsen joined our man’s New Power Generation in 2010 while she was also part of the Prince created trio 3rdeyegirl.
The little Purple one also encouraged Ida (as he did with all his colleagues) to make her own music and since his sad passing in 2016 Ms N has released three LPs (she issued two whilst her mentor was still alive) and now we can enjoy her new offering… ‘No More Sauce Please!’
Given the lady’s CV, you won’t be surprised to learn that the 11 tracker has Prince stamped all the way through its grooves (or whatever CDs and digital music have!) ‘Bounce Back’ is an obvious Prince tribute . Fast and almost furious it could’ve come right out of Paisley Park. Like most of the tracks this one’s a vocal – Ida takes to the mic as easily as she slaps her signature four-string Sandberg California electric bass. Anoraks might want to know that she also supplies multiple keyboard parts.
Amongst the other obvious Prince flavours are the hard-hitting opener, ‘Been Trying’, the slow chugging funk of ‘Bounce Like Grandma’ and the infectious 70’s flavoured ‘Glorious Disco’ and Prince himself would be delighted to have cut a track with a title like ‘Slappidibopbop’. You might have guessed that this is a (short) showcase for Ida’s bass mastery though there’s some off the wall vocal interjections too. Heavy bass work (obviously) is prominent throughout the album but maybe most obvious on ‘Bounce Back’ and the aforementioned ‘Glorious Disco’ .
The album also features plenty of adept rapping from Son of Light, wild sax work from Ida’s countryman Jakob Elvstrom and even old school scratching from Congolese DJ Amazulu Nanga. Together they craft a great birthday present for Prince. He’d be proud of Ida and what she’s achieved!
(BB) 3/5