Various - Thicker Than Water: Music From a Film By Jack Johnson and The Malloys

I would like to personally thank SilentUproar.com for exposing me to Jack Johnson via The September Sessions soundtrack, which has become one of my favorite albums of all time, and I also have developed a love for Johnson’s solo work (you should own the magnificent On and On by now). I must say that Thicker than Water is another superb and excellent offering to the music community via Mr. Johnson. Like September Sessions, Thicker than Water is a soundtrack (this time to “a collection of images and memories” of an 18-month surfing trip) and musically includes G. Love & Special Sauce and some solo Johnson (“Holes to Heaven” was on On and On). There’s a particularly good Hawaiian blues beauty duet, “Rainbow,” between G. Love and Johnson. And we are introduced to some new players, just as September Sessions included the not-oft-heard Ozomati and Princes of Babylon. This time we get the seductively spacey “Dark Water & Stars” by Natural Calamity and some Motown funk with The Meters’ “Liver Splash.” There’s even some blippy-sexy Spanish-sung funk in Smoke City’s “Underwater Love,” water atmosphere in Todd Hannigan’s “Thicker than Water,” and the 70’s summer chant (remniscient of quieter DJ Shadow) of Harpers Bizarre’s “Witchi Tai To.” There are a few audio luminaries hidden in some of the tracks, like Mario Caldato, Jr. (“Rainbow”), The Dust Brothers (“Dark Water & Stars”), and Dan the Automator ( the sitar and mo’ “My Guru”), that make the album seem more trustworthy. But I promise, if Jack Johnson’s name is on a compilation, soundtrack, or even a phonebook, you’re guaranteed a super, melodic, and beautiful mix. [www.brushfirerecords.com]