With a career that’s spanned gospel, doo-wop, soul, funk and R&B, Philly crooner Frankie Beverly is a name that should rank up there with some of America’s golden voices like Al Green and Marvin Gaye, the latter of which helped Beverly and his band Maze reach greater popularity in the ’60s. He may not be as well known, but at least that leaves something to discover, like his early stand-out with the Butlers, “Love (Your Pain Goes Deep).”
More recently—as in this year—Beverly & the Butler’s classic got a slick, Ugly-edit-inspired dub cut-up from Florida-based edit maestro Earwig. Best known for his soul, disco and world beat reworks, Earwig also runs the Plimsoll label, a home for all things Afro, Latin, boogie, discoid, extended and optimized for maximum playability.
Part of Earwig’s Soul Slow Flow DJ mix and edit collection, his Beverly edit recalls the call and response looping style that Theo Parrish immortalized with his now famous Ugly edit series. Easing into the mix with reverb-laden and phase-heavy drums, Earwig gives the song’s break room to breathe, and with good reason. The rolling drums and Motown strings are ripe for sampling, but from our research have remained surprisingly under-utilized. After a requisite slow-burning tease, the namesake vocal makes it’s debut with a circling hypnotism that sets the pace for the song’s duration. An extended outro teases the vocals in and out, rinsing them through the echo chamber for added effect.
A meditative revisiting of this throwback gem that stays true to the original, Earwig’s Slow Soul Flow treatment never outstays its welcome or goes off into an overly cut-up frenzy. Rather, it earns its “Slow Soul” title by skirting the line between a kick-back head nodder and that song that might just get people out of their seat.
Catch Earwig’s full Slow Soul Flow mix below:
And catch Earwig’s edit in the mix on Abstract Science with Radio Show #863