Incognito, Bees+Things+Flowers (Narada Jazz)

 

Incognito is the sort of thing that couldn’t come out of America. The lite jazz/soul/funk is all about the groove and feel, creating an unapologetically bourgeois sound that, like house music, often has a few lines of lyrics that seem dropped in the groove like samples. Here, our class issue anxieties keep all but the most ironic and secure from willing sounding so affluent. The sound is a glossy descendent from that of Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack and Earth, Wind & Fire, whose “That’s the Way of the World” they cover here. Incognito is so committed to that sound that it borders on parody, staying on the right side during the Fender Rhodes-heavy “Everyday” and falling badly to the wrong side on the muzak-y version of America’s “Tin Man.”