A Guy Called Gerald - Essence

A CALLED GERALD Essence
(Studio !K7)

Here's my foolproof one-point plan for reviving jungle: Buy every DJ and producer on the scene a "Respect the Black Woman" T-shirt. For a music that once advertised its universalist aspirations, jungle has become a boys' club, leaving its house roots far behind to veer between the clinical and the aggro — happy to let a ragged-voiced MC bark over the din but unwilling to make room for a woman's croon. Even a sweet-heart like Roni Size, who's genuinely interested in the female voice, usually drowns it out by sticking his rat-a-tat-tat too high in the mix. No wonder the gals all fled to the warm R&B embrace of 2-step garage.

Gerald Simpson (a.k.a. A Guy Called Gerald) of the pioneering 1989 single "Voodoo Ray" was one of the first acid house artists to leap into jungle, and his fourth record, 1995's Black Secret Technology, was arguably jungle's first great single-artist album. (Omni Trio's Music for the Next Millennium is the stiff competition.) The long-awaited follow-up, Essence, features three different wimmen singers, each of them treated with care. On "Fever (Or a Flame)" and "Beaches and Deserts" he lets Wendy Page stretch out before lush, expansive canvases, and on "Hurry to Go Easy," he stands back while Deee-Lite's Lady Miss Kier scats ineptly over jungle's sacred amen break. Some of the songs are only as strong as their arrangements, but even then the result is solid trip-hop bejeweled with top-flight breaks. The sound may be five years old, but Essence's insistence that jungle left something valuable behind back in '95 is a major part of its appeal. It's as if Gerald's as happy behind the times as he was ahead of them.

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JEFF SALAMON