DONNIE & JOE EMERSON - Dreamin' Wild
Monday, July 23, 2012 at 01:35PM 
Originally self-released in 1979, Dreamin' Wild is about as obscure as records get. After a chance discovery in a rural antique store more than 25 years after its release, a network of excited music bloggers finally helped bring this lost masterpiece to a wider audience. Now Light in the Attic has treated us to a deluxe CD and vinyl reissue, bringing everything full circle. Even without the back-story this is one hot album!
"In between logging, fence-post digging, and other farm chores, the boys practiced nonstop and put Dreamin' Wild to tape with little idea of what was happening in popular music (they barely even knew how to load a reel of tape in their studio) other than what emanated from the radio. Listening through, you catch glints of Smokey Robinson, Hall and Oates, the Commodores, Bread, Pablo Cruise, Boz Scaggs and Chuck Mangione amid the AM bullion. Blue-eyed soul, meandering funk (see "Feels Like the Sun" which encourages you to "sing or play a musical instrument along with the boys"), and landlocked yacht rock are evident. Yet the wide-eyed and utterly sincere vision of a 17-year old Donnie stuns." - Pitchfork
"Opening with a luscious groove of "Good Time," before the inexplicably good slow-funk-fuelled of "Give Me The Chance" – replete with psychedelic-space effects. "Feels Like The Sun" is what it says on the packet; gloriously so. While the sparseness of "Love Is" is wonderfully haunting. "Don’t Go Lovin’ Nobody Else" stands up next to "Baby" as another album highlight – guitar lines snake like psychedelic smoke around a grooving bassline." - Cheese on Toast
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