The cover art and title should help prepare you for the 3 tracks on this LP. 3 tracks give Les and friends room to stretch out. Some seriously expansive 1972 shit. Spacey more than raging. Songs based on his life stories which he shared with the musicians. Les even took the cover photo himself. Yusef on flute and 2 guitar players. 5 guys on drums and percussion including Bernard Purdie. "The Lovers" takes up side one and is an expansive and rambling journey. More soundscape than song, but it has it's moments. If you are going to take up an entire side of an album with one track, I would prefer it was a little more intense.
"Beaux J Poo Boo" opens side 2 and the title makes me think of some goof on "Beautiful Shit" Les's liner notes say it is "montage of all the pieces of my life, that have made me who I am". Starts out with a subtle groove and then kind of gels into a spacey ambient jam. "poo pye McGoochie" is up next and again reminds me of some kind of veiled fecal reference, but I guess i am just immature. This one starts out trippy and quiet with just keys and builds a nice groove with some synth noodling. Comes back to a more earth bound groove when the Sax kicks in.
I like my grooves a little more straight ahead, but I have total respect for the records Atlantic was putting out during this period that were totally driven by the artists vision -think Yusef or Roland Kirk. I doubt I will grab for this too frequently, but for a buck it is a worthwhile acquisition. Sample geeks and DJ nerds could probably harvest a lot of sounds form this one.
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