Bing Ji Ling

I'm feeling a bit duped. The PR guy for Bing Ji Ling (NYC-based Quinn Luke's outfit) sent me a note that got my juices flowing. "If Sly was a one-man family or if Beck and Prince took a double dip...," he wrote to promote BJL’s latest, June Degrees. Being a huge fan of all three, I thought to myself that this was something that was going to funk me away. Well, I suppose the tracks I was sent to review had a marginal taste of "Strollin'" from Prince's Diamonds & Pearls to them, but the comparison ends there.

What we have here is easy listening, light rock, plain and simple. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you, but equating this music with some of funk's finest is like calling a toy poodle a canine killing machine. You might be able to find some common ancestry somewhere in the lineage, but the two are nowhere near the same today.

Again, though, this is not to say these tunes are bad. They're simply not as advertised. If you like 70s, non-threatening rock in the vein of a less threatening Steely Dan or if you are working on a mix for your mother (or possibly grandmother), BJL will more than satisfy. I'm merely warning you, if you try to put these tracks on your James Brown/Parliament-Funkadelic All-Time Greatest Funkin' Hits mix, don't play it for anyone else or you'll get laughed out of the room.

Kathalina
Be Here With You