Mark Ronson first branded himself as a nostalgia alchemist with Amy Winehouse, updating mid-century R&B with a rare-groove-fanatics ear for detail. Where super-producers like Diplo might make serviceable magic with anyone, Ronsons classicism generally requires the wearer to animate it. Winehouse was an ideal match. To a lesser extent, so was Bruno Mars, another classicist whose RIAA Diamond-selling Prince homage Uptown Funk proved how lucrative Ronsons science could be.
Late Night Feelings is a sort of feminine inverse of Ronsons 2015 Uptown Special, the latters dude-centric roster swapped for a compelling mix of women singers, and its brittle, chromed funk replaced with a plush, dubby, quiet storm vibe. Late Night Feelingis the better album rangy, sexy and fairly seamless, an LP to play all the way through after a night of clubbing if you happen get lucky, or if you dont. If theres a problem, its songwriting and processed vocals that can feel anonymous; bold-faced names lost in string arrangements, pillowy reverb and period simulacra in a way the singers on Daft Punks like-minded Random Access Memories managed to avoid.
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The title track suggests a bottle-service club jam from the moment when late-Seventies disco opulence pivoted into the Eighties freestyle R&B that birthed Madonna; Lykke Li delivers it impeccably and unobtrusively (she ups the soul factor on 2 AM, a hazy booty-call blues). Find U Again sees Tame Impalas Kevin Parker raining glitter over a crushed-out Camila Cabello, who raps about doing therapy at least twice a week to get over it. You wish her well, but may find it hard to recall a minute later.
The lesser-knowns shine hardest. Arkansas church belter YEBBA launches Dont Leave Me Lonely over a sumptuous house groove you might wish was double its 3:36 length. Diana Gordon brings the silk-sheet soul on Why Hide with a dubby ache recalling The xx, fitting since that groups Romy Madley Croft co-wrote it. Best is Truth, delivered by the Last Artful, Dodgr (a.k.a. Portland rapper Alana Chenevert) over gnarly saw- toothed bass, with Alicia Keys preaching on the hook, educatin and elevatin like it was some great, lost Sly and the Family Stone single.
Honorable mention goes to up-and-coming country singer Miley Cyrus, who conjures her godmother, Dolly Parton, on Nothing Breaks Like a Heart, a trotting mix of Jolene, I Will Always Love You and 9 to 5, perfectly suited for the post-Old Town Road urban-cowgirl gold rush. It shows how Ronsons precision-tooled nostalgia is always somehow right on time.