The Foreign Exchange - Tales from the Land of Milk and Honey 2LP

Only two months after Nicolay issued his collaborative CityLights, Vol. 3: Soweto, the producer and instrumentalist, along with singing, songwriting, and arranging partner Phonte, returned with the most varied Foreign Exchange album. It's also the one that most emphasizes the duo's extended family of collaborators. The cover of this, their fifth proper full-length, displays Carmen Rodgers and Tamisha Waden - two of their co-lead and background vocalists - as well as Lorenzo "Zo!" Ferguson. The FE nucleus and Zo! Go way back and take it to another level here, with Zo! - similar to Nicolay, a studio wiz who typically works in isolation - a co-songwriter and co-producer of every song. Perhaps proximity and a history as performing partners partly explain why so much of this sounds like a party, as free and easy as the group's shows. FE previously went house with "So What If It Is," a deep and cleansing track, but when they return to the form here, it's with the humorous and rhythmically to