The enticingly named Lost Cho Project is an interesting collection of juxtapositions. It runs on smooth, timeless, soulful and laid-back sonics and yet delivers lyrics in the more contemporary language of the street, honest and direct. It blends affected vocal styles with more unadorned lyrical salvos. It is, in many ways, a bridge between the conscious soul of the likes of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield with the directness of the hip-hop and rap forms which followed.
And, across seven often short sharp and shockingly honest tracks, PhillT waxes lyrical about life and love, relationships and realities, heartache and honesty, the highs and lows, reflection and reminiscence.
In many ways, such an album is also a healthy reminder of where music is today. It clearly borrows from some iconic sounds of the past, merging the urban styles of today with the timeless sentiments, sounds and styles of what has gone before, and it fuses these into something perfect for a contemporary audience.
Any artist, who can learn from artists of the past whilst creating music perfect for the audience of today and still helping to paint a sonic picture of what the future might look like, is clearly someone making a valuable contribution to the evolution of music in general and urban sounds in particular.
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