The Newest Prince of Soul

Brooklyn’s Alan Wilkis is a genre-chameleon.  With a healthy diet of sugary-sweet synths, blissful acoustics, and a side of Prince, Alan produces soulful grooves that evoke Jamie Liddel, early Dirty Projectors (The Glad Fact’s up-beat tracks) mixed with your favorite stuff by Stevie Wonder and Hall & Oates. His debut solo-album, Babies Dream Big, was self-produced over the course of a year and is a testament to his obsession with dreamy-pop classics. His ability to blend sounds of the past into new forms is refreshing and unique. And that boy’s voice is slick.

His funk-driven sound neglects the sleaze-tastic tactics (think: pencil-’stache) from other electro-soul bands a la Chromeo, and instead lays an emphasis on pop sensibility and ’70’s-’80’s electronics. A multi-instrumentalist, Wilkis constructed his melding of acoustic and electronic with a little help from pals Eric Biondo (TV on the Radio) and Jason Treuting (So Percussion).

Check out his MySpace page for more information! Babies Dream Big is available for purchasing on iTunes and through CD Baby.

Alan Wilkis – It’s Been Great [MP3]