Black Stereo Faith is a project 10 years in the making from Ultra Naté and Quentin Harris. The album harkens back to the unvarnished and underground feel of Ultra Naté’s 1990 debut, ‘Blue Notes in The Basement’. A vibey, loose amalgam of R&B, house, rock and electronics highlighting multi-instrumentalist Quentin Harris’ production and arrangement alongside Ultra’s vocal stylings and delivery.
With the songs, there’s the slap bass gospel inspired house of ‘SNL’, the theatrical ‘Stay’, the Italodisco / Moroder-esque ‘Tears’, the New Wave influence of ‘Transformation’, the electroclash-era cover of Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy (Touch This Skin)’, the vocals of ‘Hey’, the ‘70s disco-funk of ‘Taking Me High’, the rock infused ‘Lil Miss Baby’, the op dance of ‘Life’, the uplifting ‘Luv 2 Bee’, the dance-meets-classical music clash of ‘Give It 2 U’, and finally, the dance rock hybrid ‘All The Money’.
Ultra Naté: “I think the most important thing to us was to not limit or restrain ourselves with worries over where music is at this particular moment. When we were putting the initial ideas together I would just fish through everything and anything I liked as a jumpoff point. Pink Floyd, Pointer Sisters, Nine Inch Nails, Madonna, Timbaland, Chic, Tammi Terrell, Eurythmics, The Go-Go’s, Fleetwood Mac, Frankie Knuckles, The Stones, Kate Bush, Earth, Wind and Fire, Sinead O’Connor, Soft Cell, anything that moved me. The great thing about Quentin and what we were doing is that he was open and excited about all of it - no matter how quirky and left of centre the idea. I think most listeners are music lovers and open to whatever makes them feel.”
Quentin Harris: “From the moment we started we had no rules with the kind of music we were making on this record. I didn’t feel any kind of pressure to make things this way or that way. We made whatever we were inspired by. Even with all the different genres we touch on from song to song, if you listen to Black Stereo Faith cohesively it all makes sense together. It’s all encompassing of dance music from rock to disco to urban. It’s not a one trick pony…”
The release of Black Stereo Faith coincides with the 20th anniversary of the release of Ultra Naté’s all-time classic #1 hit, ‘Free’, which was named by Billboard as one of the top Dance Club Songs of all time. Ultra Naté was also named by Billboard as the #12 top dance artist of all time.
Those in NYC on Saturday, 8 July are welcome to join Black Stereo Faith for their debut DJ performance as part of Silent Disco at Lincoln Center NYC for Midsummer Night Swing: Nu Disco Edition.
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