My knee-jerk reaction to the music on Keep Reachin' Up is to call it retro soul, and to a degree, that's quite accurate. It's soul music with classic-sounding arrangements and production, but the maturity of the compositions and the ingenuity of the string orchestrations that adorn several of the songs make the retro tag feel unnecessary. Really, this is just plain good soul music that touches signposts from New Orleans to Memphis to Philly to Detroit.
This is solo joint #3 for Willis, who spent much of the 90s dropping guest vocals for The The, Deee-lite, Leftfield and other acts. She has a classic soul voice, sweet and cool but capable of rising up for a good wail when the song needs it. Where, for me, her first two records suffered a bit from their sound, this move to raw, funky immediacy and old-school economy works beautifully and lets her voice fulfill its potential. The Soul Investigators, who are largely responsible for the shift, hail from the soul Mecca of Finland, as does the Pekka Kuusisto String Orchestra, which injects a flash of silver into some of the records' darkest corners.
The Soul Investigators must live and breathe old soul and funk 45s, because they've internalized all of the tropes and elements of the music to the point where they're able to invent new things with them. Drummer Jukka Sarapää holds a steady groove the whole way through, and the guitar, bass, and organ leave lots of room for Willis and the horn section, which includes Willis' husband, Jimi Tenor, on several songs. The record's opening salvo, the exuberant "Feeling Free", is sublime, building a driving beat around a repeated pizzicato string figure. "I'm lovin' this music/ I'm feelin' free," sings Willis on the swirling chorus-it's a well-traveled "weekend is for parties" theme, but Willis, who writes all her own lyrics, puts a nice spin on it.
The opener's ebullience is miles away from the epic waltz that lies near the album's other end. "No One's Gonna Love You" kicks off with a tipsy, palm-muted guitar part that drags you down into a sweaty, organ-soaked underworld, where Willis is menaced by the orchestra, which stalks the arrangement like her estranged lover haunts her thoughts. The chorus splits the song wide open with thunderclap drums, dramatic backing vocals and swelling horns. The song sounds like romantic turmoil feels.
Most of the rest of the record is more in tune with its free-spirited beginning. "If This Ain't Love (Don't Know What Is)" strips the Motown sound to its essential elements, with the snare drum hitting every beat, but the heavily echoplexed flute solo, played by Tenor, injects a dose of psychedelia when you least expect it. Willis forms her own vocal jazz ensemble through overdubs on "Blues Downtown", while the horns get down with the slinky groove and slashing, noir guitar. Engineer/producer Didier Selin deserved a lot of credit for getting such a rich, three-dimensional sound out of the band.
There are a few low ebbs: The instrumental "Soul Investigators Theme" plays like a backing track without the vocal, and the title track sacrifices the tune in favor of a funky groove, and hits one passage where it sounds like a skipping record-dig the drum break and horn arrangement, though. These minor transgressions are hardly worth talking about in light of how strong the record is on the whole, however, and Willis has snatched a solid position in the soul revival world. If I were to make a direct comparison, I might position her as the Martha Reeves to Sharon Jones' Irma Thomas, though that comparison is a bit too facile. In the end, it goes back to what I said at the top: This is just good soul music.
