nathaniel merriweather Lovage: Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By (Tommy Boy/BMG) Rating: NNNN
The sequel to the Handsome Boy Modeling School’s So How’s Your Girl? debut finds Dan the Automator, this time minus Prince Paul, returning to the art of sonic seduction. As with the Handsome Boy disc, the album is built around a running joke about a greaseball with the secrets to love. Ignore the dodgy theme, though, and you’ve got a smooth set of slow beats and soul. Kid Koala cuts up Airplane dialogue, Afrika Bambaataa, Damon Albarn and Elysian Fields vocalist Jennifer Charles croon coolly, and the Automator’s beats remain better than most in hiphop. It makes you wonder what he could do without such a hokey concept.