Solex vs. Cristina Martinez + Jon Spencer

There are collaborations and then there are collaborationsand that's exactly what Solex vs. Cristina Martinez + Jon Spencer is. This mother of all team ups is all about taking the garage soul that made Cristina and Jon legends and funking it up at the hand's of Miss Lickity Split herself, Solex. Amsterdam Throwdown, King Street Showdown! is like a decade or so over due, but shows what in the world would happen if you took The Blues Explosion down to the local disco, fed them a lot of whiskey, and then threw them out on the dance floor. This sampledelic funkopolis of garage soul is a Mecca to rusty grooves, broken down samplers, and fuzzed out jams that just don't get made anymore.

Amsterdam Throwdown, King Street Showdown! is a great record of songs that sound as though they've been dragged through the mud...twice. This is a scuzzy fuzzed out rock and roll affair that's held together with broken beats and samples from the most obscure places on tape. Think of something like Cornershop beat up and left for dead by The Kills and you kind of have the right idea of where this team up is coming from. Amsterdam Throwdown, King Street Showdown! is the kind of record that rolls along like a gang looking for no good; slow and suspiciously with it's eyes peeled for some action. When they find it, it's a record covered in ripped cheetah print clothing smoking a really cheap cigarette looking too cool for it's own good. It's tacky, cheap, and probably illegal and that's what makes it great.

Dilaptidated, low budget, and most definitely lo-fi, Amsterdam Throwdown, King Street Showdown! sounds as though it was recorded in the dark alleys where these guys were looking for toruble. From the drunken gospel ramblings of, "Dog Hit," to the sweetly seductive, "Bon Bon," Solex, Cristina & Jon have come up with a record that's a psychedelic flashback that never ends. Groovy and sordid, Amsterdam Throwdown, King Street Showdown! is one heck of a record that took far too long to make. Here's hoping that this gang of the groove get's back together again sometime before 2020 because really they need to.