It’s odd to think that Blue Six’s Jay Denes’ Naked Music started ten years ago with the sweet-n-sour ’70s-soul-inspired, What’s on Your Mind? Then, its brand of buoyant contempo-R&B, tippling house music and softly-struck electronics were barely out of the Buddha Bar. Now, Denes’ downtempo noir music is near Muzak and his collective’s innovations are de rigeur within the Brazi-soul humming-electronic dinner music crowd.

Recreation

That doesn’t mean quietly storming efforts like the spare, elegantly dramatic “Pleasure Seeker” or its humbly clicking kicker “This Time Around” aren’t poignant or that the mightily moody, phase-shifting “Love Only One” or that “Heroic Chic” (alone or in its dub remix) aren’t theatrical. It doesn’t mean that Denes and his crew—from longtime singer Mark Anthony Jones to new crooner Tabitha Fair—aren’t lovely. It’s just that the tiny, thumping, coolly gurgling sound is, very comfortably, familiar. (A.D. Amorosi)