One of the 11 tracks on this 1996 release is a lovely little piece of soul-jazz-inflected flute called "Thai Stick," which gives an idea of the blissed-out state in which flautist
Lenny MacDowell wants his music to be heard.
Radioactive sounds like a mid-'90s hipster's idea of what soul-jazz albums of the early '70s must have sounded like: flutes, wah-wah guitars, Latin and African percussion, wiggly synth lines, mellow beats. The thing is, real '70s soul-jazz (along the lines of
Herbie Mann or
Rahsaan Roland Kirk) didn't actually sound much like this at all. Compare the overstudied cool of
MacDowell's version of
Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" with the impassioned, gritty take on
Kirk's
Blacknuss album from 1973. There's no comparison in terms of soul, but
MacDowell's version is undeniably easier on the ears and generally more pleasant, veering dangerously close to new age when he's clearly aiming for something a few notches higher on the coolness scale.
Radioactive isn't bad at all, but it's more like background music than anything anyone is likely to play for fun. ~ Stewart Mason