An Evening with Silk Sonic

Roll up, roll up. The Time Machine is ready for boarding…

There’s a new attraction in town. A two-man recreation of another era and a one-way ticket to the 70’s. An escape route to a faraway land of two step. A place where disco halls replace shopping malls and where your love’s only truly valid if you’re singing a soul-soaked ballad.

Silk Sonic’s more than a pet project. It’s a loving ode. A 21st century love letter to a bygone era of R&B, Funk and Motown, and a dedicated re-read of one of the richest chapters in music history.

Concept albums aren’t breeds anymore, let alone dying ones but Mars and Paak bring one back in pure, unmistakable form with their influences worn proudly on sleeves poking out from under their matching velvet dinner jackets. 

You see, the devil’s in the detail. What could so easily have felt like a sales-driven pastiche or some botch job modern-day tribute act, is instead something entirely believable and way more engaging. It’s an immersive experience, for us and for them.

While everyone else was busy reaching for the drinks cabinet when the world stopped turning last year, they opened their fancy dress box.

And in essence, that’s what Silk Sonic really is - an excuse to host a costume party, to perform a hyper-detailed exercise in shape-shifting built around a mantra of “if you’re going to embody it, put your body into it”. It’s character-driven stuff, full Marlon Brando method acting, with both men recognising the subtle ticks of the parts they’re playing.

Whether it’s the camp showmanship of the Motown singer or the cheese-lathered lyrics of an R&B boy singing to his girl, no minute detail is missed. They also understand the religious devotion to co-ordination possessed by almost any group from this era - every on-stage pirouette, every harmony and every outfit always needs to match up.

But for Mars, this isn’t untrodden ground - it’s no misstep. He’s played and paid tribute before. At four years old in Hawaii, before he was even Bruno Mars, he was the world’s youngest ever Elvis impersonator. He was the King of Rock n Roll then and who’s to say he’s not the current King of Pop now?

We start from the beginning in more ways than one, with the record’s opener serving as an introduction to pop’s new power couple but also our narrator and tour guide through this glamour land; the 70’s very own Bootsy Collins - one of the original Godfathers of funk.

It’s a cameo that feels calculated.

You get the sense that they thought this modern day audience might take a little convincing before heading back fifty years, so who better to hold their hand and welcome them as they stepped out of the time machine?

“Fellas, I hope you got something in your cup…and ladies, don’t be afraid to make your way to the stage for a band that I name…Silk Sonic”. Our very own village hall DJ but way cooler. There’s no “shout-out to the birthday girl” or “remember to grab your party bags on the way out”.

He continues to drift in and out of the evening (Bootsy, not the bloke having the mid-life crisis behind the decks), acting as a steward of a place he knows better than most, whispering into our ear like a sort of womanising, slutty David Attenborough. Go on, try and shake that image, I dare you.

There’s a confidence to the characters.

When the Motown record label was first founded by Berry Gordy, he and the production wanted their artists to buy into mainstream standards and therefore demanded polished figures to personify these dreams. Back then, they had them.

Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Levi Stubbs were just a few who occupied this rare musical space reserved for smooth operators but listen to any of the call and response lines that Mars and Paak so frequently and effortlessly share on this record and you can tell they’ve done their homework.

Watch any of the music videos that accompany this project and you’d find it hard to argue that they would look out of place on the runway of a soul train night. They may be a few decades late but Berry Gordy would probably still find room for their enrolment at his Motown school of charm.

Track two might be the best showcase of their credentials. “Leave the Door Open”, the first single and staple piece of this collaboration, is now eight months old but feels like it could be another twenty years on and not lose it’s beauty. It’s a you go, I go affair and the vocal carousel the two share, suggests they’d finish each others sentences in the outside world. It’s what a collaboration should be and seems destined for classic status already.

“Smoking Out the Window” is also a perfect marriage - this time it’s two different eras working in matrimony. The verses ride a R&B hook that sounds like the distant cousin of Eve and Gwen Stefani’s early noughties track and the choruses feel like a Four Tops explosion. To mix the new and the old like that is a luxury that Mars and Paak are afforded in 2021 that those artists weren’t.

“Fly As Me” is one part Jungle Boogie, one part cop show theme tune. It’s followed by “After Last Night”, the sexiest, sultriest track on the album, single-handedly cranking up the heat to something resembling the levels of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell Kitchen when the starter hasn’t gone out in time.

It’s got a Boyz II Men verse that meets a Prince chorus but it’s all preceded by the ultimate 70’s formula to a sexy song intro: some extremely heavy female breathing layered over a soft come-to-bed instrumental. Somewhere in the world, Curtis Mayfield and Barry White are waking up.

Is any album perfect? Some notes are definitely missed here along the way. “777”, despite trying it’s best to deploy James Brown funk guitar and Rick James brass sections (a combination for one hell of a jacked-up night), feels more like a shoehorn attempt and ends up strangely predictable and lifeless.

But there’s more than enough here to appreciate, despite a running time of just over half an hour. It’s testament to it’s careful construction that you spend a lot of time marvelling at how much it sounds like some of the greats and find yourself carrying out your own guessing game in your head. And that’s what this whole project is - an escape, a bit of fun that also just happens to sound really fucking good.

The album’s length shouldn’t come as a shock. That’s been their thing from the start, not showing their hand too early. We’ve been teased since March and drip-fed ever since. The thing is, after you’ve had An Evening with Silk Sonic, you want the whole weekend.