Cinco de Mowo!

Album Review

For his fifth album under the name Mocean Worker, Adam Dorn moves beyond the boundaries of mainstream electronica and digs into his crate of old records. Really old records. Like, 78 rpm records from the 1930s, as well as soul and funk gems from the '60s and '70s and a variety of Latin sounds. The music that results sounds a bit like a more muscular (and very much more American) version of what the Real Tuesday Weld does with sounds from the heyday of the English music hall. Cinco de Mowo! veers happily back and forth between funky reappropriations of old big band music (check out the archaic but hard-edged "Shake Ya Boogie") and gleeful Latin jazz (check out the fun, if slightly repetitious, "Olé Baby" and the more subtle and jazzy "Pretty"). In between are some surprises: cameo appearances by Rahsaan Roland Kirk ("Reykjavik," "Siss Boom Bah!") and Herb Alpert ("Changes") and a soulful and understatedly sexy love song featuring a female vocalist named Morley ("I Got You"). The album closes on a cool note, with the almost ambient "Songnumber3." There aren't very many truly unique voices in the world of electronic music these days, but Mocean Worker is one of those few.