Browsing through the reviews for Mark Ronson's recent excellent cover of Just by Radiohead, every now and again two wonderful, evocative words popped out of all of the lazy and misleading "jazz funk" descriptions of the unique sound Ronson had captured so well - Muscle Shoals. Taking its name from a town in Alabama where the sound was forged, this is a glorious, devotional form of soul music heavy on brass, crisp production, gently shuffling beats, warmly funky basslines and heartrendingly beautiful songcraft. Much of the UK's Northern soul tradition was built on this undeniably Southern soul style - and what better person to resurrect it now than the an astonishing soul singer known for being the woman who sang one of the most famous club tunes of all time, Candi Staton?

Candi's voice is familiar thanks to her vocal for You've Got The Love, which was nailed to a deep house track by The Source more than a decade ago and which gets re-released just about every year thanks to a wistful Ibiza-going audience, and this album is a million miles from that sound - in the right destination. Think laconic soul music played with absolute adoration and excellence by a bunch of tremendously talented musicians, with Staton's ludicrously mellow tones sailing gently over the rich piano and warm orchestration like a lover strolling down a beach at sunset. Opener You Don't Have Far To Go is the stand-out track by far - layers of trumpets on top of acoustic guitar and a funky rhythm section - but the standard is uniformly high throughout. A gorgeous little album - forget your "Soul Music From Adverts" compilation and get the real thing.

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Released: 27th March 2006
Label: Honest Jons