NYTRO - TWO GEMS (1977 / 1979)

Hello everybody, I know that the two albums by Nytro have been posted previously on other blogs and since I wanted to see if I could make all those older rips obsolete (grain of salt here of course!), I decided to painstakingly make fresh, new rips that hopefully will sound CD like. I think the rips sound just great and I have asked buddy Simon from Never Enough Rhodes to write an article for us all. Both rips done at 320Kbps with full high res artwork plus small covers in the tracks for the pod users. Please enjoy folks, and don't forget to reply!

NYTRO - NYTRO (1977)

Nytro - Nytro

NYTRO - RETURN TO NYTROPOLIS (1979)

Nytro - Return To Nytropolis

First of all, big thanks to Baby Grandpa for asking me to write about his great new rips of the two Nytro albums! These really sound fantastic.

These albums are produced by Norman Whitfield, and I first came across them when I was compiling a discography of his work just after his death. Whitfield was a revolutionary in terms of production, arrangement and content. His politicised and orchestrated psychedelic productions for the Temptations and others at Motown in the 1960s, in combination with lyricist Barrett Strong, changed the way people saw the possibilities of the role music could play in the changing world, and strongly influenced the way everyone else at Motown and elsewhere worked afterwards.

He was a one-man hit factory who worked with teams of musicians across classic song after classic song, from Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" to his masterpiece "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" for the Temptations, who became his main band at Motown.

Even in the later days of his Motown period, he began to "test out" songs and production techniques on the band The Undisputed Truth, before perfecting them on the Temptations releases.

After the success of his 1976 soundtrack for "Car Wash", featuring Rose Royce, he left Motown and set up Whitfield Records. At the new label he built his new "factory" of musicians, some of whom had followed him from Motown. These people often crossed between the various albums and groups as Whitfield continued to "perfect" tracks and styles.

The Undisputed Truth were bumped up to "main group" status; and joining them in Whitfield's stable were Rose Royce, Mammatapee, Stargard, and of course Nytro. Solo releases by Spyder Turner and fellow Motown-alumni Willie Hutch were also released.

Over the next five years, Whitfield incorporated elements of disco without ever losing sight of the funk. He introduced drum machines, but kept a human feel with live congas. He included growling synth basses that had learnt their lessons from Funkadelic's Bernie Worrall, yet he still retained the funk slap of an electric bass guitar to complete the rhythm.

As one of his newer bands, Nytro became the latest testing ground for Whitfield's ideas. He would try some tracks out on them, and then later develop some of their own tracks with his other artists.

The killer, killer opening track here on the first album, 1977's "Nytro", is the bands' own composition "Atomic Funk", which Whitfield would revisit two years later on the Undisputed Truth's "Smokin" - but Nytro's version is the definitive one, with the filtered synth bass, programmed for maximum funkiness, winding its way around the electric slap bass. Things really don't get much funkier than this ...

Later in the album, Nytro return the favour with an extended take on the Truth's classic track "What It Is", originally recorded on their first album "Face to Face with the Truth". But these guys are no mere studio hacks, and the producer leaves them space in their own tracks like the soulful "Dreaming", all floating harmonies and subtle falsetto.

By the time of their second album, "Return to Nytropolis" in 1979, Whitfield's bands were starting to blend together in his pursuit of the ultimate groove. Nytro's brass section had been all over the label's other releases, like the Mammatapee album.

Whitfield's in full soundtrack mode on the opener "Nytro Express", using actual sound effects of trains and crossing bells, while at the same time scoring clusters of brass and tuned toms to imitate the sounds of a train. Over its seven minute length it builds to a dense mass of funk and studio tricks over a rolling bassline, with delayed arpeggiated synths also adding to the rhythmic train effect. The producer later revisited the track under the title "R.R. Express" on Rose Royce's 1981 album "Jump Street" - I've also got a 12" of it here.

The experiments shift to synth textures in "Return to Nytropolis", the instrumental title track that follows, and the band continues to show their own vocal and player strengths with nice soul tracks like "Could This Be the Night" and "Make It".

The other big funk number here is "High On Disco", which apart from the syndrums has little to do with disco at all, and was in fact re-named and re-generated a few years later as "High On the Boogie" on the Stargard album "Back to Back" - you can grab a WAV of that track near the top of the discography.

So thanks again BG for asking me to write about these, I've really enjoyed listening to them in these fine new rips. Enjoy them everyone!

Other albums linked in this post are at :
Never Enough Rhodes, Soundological Investimigations, Drum Machines Have No Soul, Oufar Khan, Dance Music Factory.

Thank you from myself -Baby Grandpa- Simon, for a great and informative article! I sure hope y'all like my vinyl rips, too!

AND: let's see those replies, people! It's nice to know when the hard work is appreciated!

Note: track 1 and 2 on "Return To Nytropolis" were originally joined together as one continuous cut on the LP. I have turned both songs into two separate tracks, but on a state of the art MP3 player you should not hear the transition from track 1 to 2, as I only separated the two without silence in between. If you tap your finger to the beat during the transition to track 2, you'll notice that it's all on beat. Also note, thanks to visitor Babi's comment, "that the long version on the 12" is exactly the same as the album tracks 1 and 2 joined together."