Zane, Alain - Right Before Your Eyes [LP]

Double vinyl LP pressing. "This record is a whole world unto itself," says singer/multi-instrumentalist Cat Colbert, one half of the daring new LA duo Alain Zane. "There's all these different characters with all these different perspectives: the forlorn lover, the lonesome criminal, the omniscient narrator. All the players are there, all coming together in this symphony of souls." When it comes to Right Before Your Eyes, Alain Zane's bold and ambitious debut, soul is the operative word. Recorded, assembled, and in some cases dramatically reimagined by producer/DJ/multi-instrumentalist Ethan Browne, the music is slick and groove-driven, mixing the old school R&B and funk of Roy Ayers or Grover Washington with the more modern flair of D'Angelo or Maxwell. Browne and Colbert write about love from every angle on the album, examining the dizzying highs of infatuation along with the devastating lows of heartbreak and the fundamental need for connection that ultimately drives us all. The result is an adventurous hybrid of genres and eras fueled by empathy and imagination, an intoxicating collection that tips it's cap to everything from Blackstreet and The Delfonics to Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder as it reckons with pain and ecstasy, fear and commitment, isolation and communication.