Mass Production ”Believe”

Mass Production

”Believe”
( LP Cotillion Records, 1977 )
Catalog # SD 9918

Tracklisting:
A1 Free And Happy (5:20)
Written-By – Ricardo Williams
A2 I Believe In Music (6:46)
Written-By – Ricardo Williams
A3 Being Here (6:20)
Written-By – Ricardo Williams
A4 We Love You (0:40)
Written-By – Otis Drumgole, Rodney Phelps
B1 Keep My Heart Together (3:58)
Written-By – Gregory McCoy, Otis Drumgole
B2 Cosmic Lust (5:53)
Written-By – Gregory McCoy
B3 Superlative (4:33)
Written-By – Otis Drumgole, Rodney Phelps
B4 People Get Up (5:43)
Written-By – Ricardo Williams

Personnel & Credits:
Bass – Kevin Douglas
Drums – Ricardo Williams
Engineer – Dave Whitman , Michael Frondelli
Guitar [Lead] – Rodney Phelps
Guitar [Rhythm] – Coy Bryant
Keyboards – Tyrone Williams
Lead Vocals – Larry Marshall, Tiny Kelly
Mastered By – Dennis King
Percussion – Emanual Redding
Producer – Ed A. Ellerbe
Saxophone – Gregory McCoy
Trumpet – Otis Drumgole

Notes:
Recorded & mixed at Electric Lady Studios, New York
Mastered at Atlantic Studios, New York, N.Y.
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1977
Covers here.

Review:
When James Brown popularized funk in the 1960s, he elevated repetition to an art form in the R&B world. The cardinal rule became “find the perfect groove and work it to death,” and the goal was musical hypnosis. Brown, of course, didn’t single-handedly invent musical repetition — in India, Hindu musicians were celebrating the joys of repetition centuries before he was even born. But the Godfather did pave the way for numerous funk, disco, house, Latin freestyle, jungle, and trance artists who liked to stay on the groove. In the 1970s, the use of repetition worked wonders for everyone from Parliament/Funkadelic and the Ohio Players to Donna Summer and Cerrone — and the value of repetition certainly wasn’t lost on Mass Production, whose hypnotic funk-disco continued to sound fresh on its second album, Believe. There are no signs of a sophomore slump on this LP; the club DJs who went wild over MP’s first album were equally impressed with exuberant, ultra-danceable offerings like “Free and Happy,” “People Get Up,” and “I Believe in Music.” The record also contains a few dreamy soul ballads, including “Keep My Heart Together” and “Being Here.” But Believe is party album first and foremost, and it’s an exciting one.
By Alex Henderson (AMG)

By Pier