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Uniting Nations - One World (Gusto)
UK release date: 14 November 2005
Uniting Nations - One World

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track listing

1. Out Of Touch
2. You And Me
3. She's Special
4. Music In Me
5. Tonight (In The City)
6. Ai No Corrida (featuring Laura More)
7. Loving You
8. Feels Like Heaven
9. Make Love
10. We're Gonna Make It
11. Destiny
12. Blues And Twos
13. Out Of Touch (I Love You So Much) - Extended Version
14. Music In Me - Accapella
15. Tonight (In The City) - Accapella
16. Loving You - Accapella
17. Feels Like Heaven - Accapella
18. Make Love - Accapella
19. Uniting Nations Drum Sample
20. Uniting Nations Funky Guitar sample
21. Out Of Touch (Video)
22. Video - You And Me (Video)
23. My Tone (create your own ringtone)

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Having a hit dance record is relatively easy compared to sustaining that success over a full album. Many a Europop outfit in the 1990s enjoyed a hugely successful singles career but ran into a brick wall when confronted with the daunting task of an album, reduced to the trick of including multiple mixes of the hits, or blatantly copying the formula of the chart smashes.

In that respect Uniting Nations have made a 1990s dance album. And yet it's extraordinary the album has come about at all, given that Daz Sampson lives in Manchester, and Paul Keenan, his partner in crime, is a policeman in Scotland. The two fileshare over MSN, so in that respect Out Of Touch was a wholly appropriate first hit for their online studio.

That track retains the perky dancefloor appeal that saw it break through from the clubs to the radio, its update on the Hall & Oates original an extremely catchy and upbeat version. To their credit the duo have gone easy on the cover versions for One World, but unfortunately it shows in second single You And Me, a Eurobeat track strongly reminiscent of Together's So Much Love To Give - presumably a coincidence. Worst of all though is the second cover version, of Quincy Jones' Ai No Corrida. Vocalist Laura More has previous with towel-wielding aerobics in Eric Prydz's Call On Me video, and she has a sweet tone, but this version is a stinker, full of lazy filtering effects.

And this is where the album really falls short, relying on musical cliché for much of its duration. Filter effects aren't the only crime either, as there is a heavy reliance on the technique of building up the drums then dropping them for a beat, as used by Roger Sanchez in Another Chance. Once is fine but five or more times smacks of complacency. It's not all bad news on the vocal front though. Jinian Wilde is a perfectly good vocalist, even if a few shortcomings come over on the acappella samples offered as a bonus at the end. Donovan Blackwood has a good voice, overtones of Seal coming over on his contribution to She's Special.

Elsewhere Tonight (In The City) is suitably nocturnal, and has some nice Balearic touches. Music In Me whacks up the guitars but the same formula remains - good beats but very predictable. Destiny attempts to incorporate a trance riff into its core, unsuccessfully, while Make Love retreads the same chord patterns as Out Of Touch. The instrumental Blues And Twos is actually the pick of the album tracks, an easy going loop from the outset.

However the problem of formula remains - there's nothing on here to mark out the boys as long haul chart botherers, and nothing that hasn't been done to death before. If you're a huge fan of the singles you probably won't be disappointed, but otherwise I'm afraid it's mostly a case of out of touch, out of time.


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Uniting Nations
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Uniting Nations - Ai No Corrida

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Uniting Nations - You And Me

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