When Paul Eve moved to Sydney in 2002 he was just the latest in a line of high profile producers to relocate, attracted by reasonably priced studio time (and talent), sun, sand and pretty girls. Fresh off a particularly successful Vibes on a Summer’s Day national tour, his skills behind the decks as a long-time funk, soul and hip-hop selecter gave him a good start in the harbour city. And no wonder, as DJ Regal, Eve has pedigree. Since his first record, with the Wiseguys in the mid-’90s, Regal’s had the funk and soul end of the funky breaks scene locked down. Think ‘Ohh La La’, ‘Casino Sans Pareil’ or the indomitable ‘Start the Commotion’. Eve parted ways with the Wiseguys in ’97 and set up the Marble Bar label, which released a string of records from Brisbane’s Resin Dogs, and Eve’s new group the Bronx Dogs, with the epochal dancefloor funk of ‘Tribute to Jazzy Jay.’
As well as joining the Sydney DJ circuit, Eve also co-opted harbour city producers and DJs – Jimi Polar recorded, engineered and mixed the record; Nick Toth scratches on a track – and started work on the DJ Regal debut. The production is not adventurous, far from it, a track like ‘The Village Calling’ could have been released any time in the last 10 to 15 years. The cliched vocal – on that track in particular: “All we’re trying to do is do our own particular sound” – almost undermines the funky interplay between strings, bass and beats. In fact, the samples just don’t sound fresh, in general. On the other hand, ‘Polar Ice,’ featuring Jimi Polar on Rhodes, is a layered and warm, heavily percussive track that bursts with dancefloor potential. First single, ‘Shock Ya Mind’, rocks with vintage breaks – razor-sharp and with more than a nod to vintage Jedi Knights – while the pace-dropping ‘Starlight’s shows it’s not all mid-tempo.
It is all b-boy dance music though and, despite the record’s failings, it’s tough to resist these grooves.
Matthew Levinson
