The Sun Does Rise - EP

Album Review

To herald the release of Take Me to God (JWIOTH's first release on Island records) the label put out a slew of smartly packaged EPs , each featuring a remix of one of the album's singles, along with one or two unreleased tracks. The Sun Does Rise EP was the second of these singles/EPs to be released, and featured a shortened radio-edit of the title track. The song itself featured Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries on lead vocals (with her typical yodeling croon), alongside Wobble's bubbly bass and Justin Adams' North-African-flavored funk-guitar riffs. This upbeat and commercially accessible song proved so endearing that it even persuaded the normally shallow-pocketed Island to fork over the dough for an elaborate video which appeared in regular rotation on MTV during the early part of 1994. Of the other tracks; the aptly named, trance-inducing "Raga," and the latin-tinged "Whiskey Priests" were versions taken directly from the Take Me to God album, while the sultry bonus track, "Yalili Ya Aini," appears only on this release. It is worth it for fans to seek this EP out, if for this track alone. "Yalili Ya Aini" is one of the best bits of sexy, North African lurch that Wobble and Adams have ever set to tape, and the lead vocal (by multi-lingual, belly dancing, worldbeat chanteuse Natacha Atlas) is positively seductive and entrancing. Go. Find. Now. ~ J. Scott McClintock, Rovi