The Red Inspectors

Genre pigeon-holing is getting even more discriminatory – this set is apparently Lounge-Core but The Red Inspectors seem, to me, to cross an awful lot of other boundaries on the way to a delightful set of ‘tunes’.

There are touches of cocktail jazz, detective show groove, soft-core porno chhese and Hammond funk wrapped up in here and the end result is a very tasty dozen numbers with an adult feel.

Miles Chapman and Andy Lewis are old muckers who stared their career in the seminal Pimlico back in the early ‘90’s while Alex Richards keys have been heard in bands such as Mohair and the Bluetones. Pete Twyman has played guitar with Paul Weller alongside Andy Lewis (bass).

The album comes in at around half an hour but the quality of the music is excellent and the variety never stops – one of my favourites has to be ‘Clutching At Straws’ which has psychedelic sitar alongside the strings in the backing and sits alongside ‘Monochrome Sunrise’ which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Lalo Schifrin album!
‘Into Morocco’ has an oriental/African feel to it while the funk of ‘Frankenstein’s Finger’ is one for the dancefloor of a club with ‘A Go Go’ in its title – you can almost see the caged dancers and paisley patterns. ‘The Kardomah’ is a delightful piece of BoHo jazz and the most sophisticated number on the album.

All told a very fine album and a great ‘debut’.