Tony Fate - Fate Machine

 

This is the second CD that Tony Fate produced (alongside Truck Stomp!) during the pandemic (don't you just hate productive people?!) and it's another monster! This is also all instrumental, but with plenty of variety and an overall soulfulness'n'funkiness complete with pseudo strings'n'horns, keys, wah-wah, and so much more.

 Pure funkiness abounds in the opening "Automatic Lover" but it's combined with powerful guitars and a crazed lead break for a wild cauldron of cool. Hip keys and a stompin' back beat highlight "Mr. Meanie", followed by the first of four "interludes", this one being a short acoustic blues guitar piece proceeding a monstrous "Magnus Opium" - power chords, rollin' drums (drum machine?) and more keys for accents. "Yay Yay" is a quirky, almost techno/rap beat with silliness on top but it melds into some more hep funk, "Baron Landscape" (hah!) is a ballad with an Asian feel and an odd laugh track in the middle (!), "Interlude #2" is an extremely brief piano bit, succeeded by the heavy'n'fleeting "Warlord" and more tough funk for "Where's My Damn Money" with some excellently fuzzed out'n'freaky leads. "Fire With Fire" is nicely percussive - I think this is all drum machines but Tony is doing very cool'n'interesting things with them - with more funky bass and keys. "Mars Africa" is a riff-laden bit a Isaac Hayes-ness, "Interlude #3" passes by in the blink of an eye, while "Freak Flag" again has some Mid-Eastern textures mixed into the funkiness, "Interlude #4" is a spoken piece and the finale is a nice keys'n'strings ballad called "Who Do You Think You Are" that includes a jazzy key'n'guitar lead section.

Tony is truly one of the more creative instrumental writers on the planet these days - he can create unique pieces that are still melodic'n'memorable, with impressive arrangements and many varied feels. You can always tell it's Tony - partly due to the creativity, but he also has his own sound - but he can write in a variety of different styles and it's all good! Once again - super recommended!