- Label: 'BooCoo Music / Thirty Tigers'
- Genre: 'Soul'
- Release Date: '1st June 2015'
Our Rating:
Combining soul, funk,and R&B, the ”deliberately broad" subject matter of this album covers issues such as immigration, racism, infidelity and fatherhood. Key influences include Bill Withers’ Just As I Am, Marvin Gaye's What’s Going On , Sly Stone and The Staple Singers.
Bhiman may come from a Sri-Lankan background but the singer /guitarist enjoyed an all-American childhood in St. Louis, Missouri. Although he deals with some weighty topics, he does so with a lightness of touch and a fair smattering of humour. This is evident on There Goes The Neighborhood where he puts himself in the shoes of an intolerant resident watching his neighborhood (and country) change,
“Most of the tracks could be heard as love songs", Bhiman says. For instance, Moving to Brussels, the opening tune, is described as “an immigrant's story disguised as a break-up song”.
Meanwhile, The Fool may seem like a straightforward lament from the perspective of a wronged partner but it was actually written with the Sri Lankan civil war in mind, In Waterboarded (In Love) Bhiman sings of a man being interrogated by a jealous lover and the frenetic beat aptly conveys a sense of discord and threat..
The album title comes from a lyric in The Color Pink, a song directed towards opponents of same sex marriage ("whatever happened to rhythm and reason").
Alongside this kind of topical social commentary, the theme of family is strong with Bhiman conceding that becoming a father has changed his perspective on everything. He gets down to brass tacks on Bennie Please a lullaby melody about a poor mother trying to get her hungry child to sleep ("keep counting them sheep"). Bread and Butter is about coming home and enjoying the contentment with his family and resisting the temptations of the seven deadly sins.
Rhythm & Reason was produced by Sam Kassirer at his Great North Sound Society studio in rural Maine. The jazz/gospel background of the producer comes through on the horn-driven final track Closer to Thee which puts a philosophical gloss on all the trials and tribulations of daily life.
This provides an appropriately genial conclusion to this intelligent, warm-hearted and soulful album.
