Vernon Reid: as founding member of Living Colour he forever changed the musical landscape, but you could write a weighty tome about the projects he’s played in. Enlivening releases from Public Enemy to Jack Bruce via Geri Allen, he’s something of a musical chameleon, changing form with each influence he’s picked up on his travels. For his latest solo album, Hoodoo Telemetry, he’s brought all his experience together to create an eclectic album that, nevertheless, hangs together as a cohesive whole. Featuring fourteen tracks painted from a wide palette, Vernon has produced an album that sparkles and shines, and stands as a career best.
You’ll often find Vernon Reid near the top of those “Greatest Guitarist Of All Time” lists, but the musician I’d closely align him to is Johnny Marr of The Smiths. Both have influences so wide that they go off the spectrum and both filter those inspirations into something wholly original so they don’t sound like anyone but themselves. That doesn’t mean Vernon won’t occasionally wear his influences proudly on his sleeve and you can definitely hear him paying homage on Hoodoo Telemetry. For example, I detect a touch of Steve Vai in the fluidity of opening track ‘Door Of No Return’, with Vernon making his guitar sing in a way that mere words never could. His playing is spellbinding and is enough to make any aspiring musician throw down their instrumentation in exasperation. However, unlike some virtuosos who sound sterile and soulless, there’s an organic element that makes Vernon sound human (as opposed to some machine-like shredder).
While you might lock in tightly with ‘Door Of No Return’, your revere will be shattered by the following ‘Freedom Jazz Dance’ that simultaneously throws a curveball and takes a left turn. In a move that will characterise the album, it’s a startling sonic shift, but one made smoothly. If Vernon had played on Miles Davis’s Live-Evil and Bitches Brew then I imagine they’d be stylistically similar to ‘Freedom Jazz Dance’. But that’s one of many Detours Hoodoo Telemetry takes with ‘Bronx Paradox’ being some kind of rap/jazz fusion before ‘Dying To Live’ flows like a river of silk. It’s to Vernon’s credit that no matter what twists and turns he takes, the genres he fuses like a mad scientist, Hoodoo Telemetry is a unified whole and is stitched together by its own eclecticism.
At once looking back towards his musical lineage whilst also moving his sound into new realms, Hoodoo Telemetry finds the past and future coming together in spectacular fashion.
- Hoodoo Telemetry is released via Artone/The Players Club Records on 3rd October 2025.
Track Listing: CD/Digital
1. Door Of No Return
2. Freedom Jazz Dance
3. Good Afternoon Everyone
4. The Haunting
5. Bronx Paradox
6. Or Knot
7. Dying To Live
8. Politician
9. Black Fathom Five
10. Beautiful Bastard
11. Meditation On The Last Times I Saw Arthur Rhames
12. My Little Zulu Babe
13. In Effigy
14. Brave New World
Track List Vinyl Version:
Side A:
1. Door of No Return
2. Freedom Jazz Dance
3. Good Afternoon Everyone
4. The Haunting
5. Dying To Live
Side B:
1. Politician
2. Black Fathom Five
3. Beautiful Bastard
4. My Little Zulu Babe
5. In Effigy
