MAYER HAWTHORNE, A Strange Arrangement, Stones Throw****

Thanks to one of those random twists of fate, Andrew Cohen found himself transformed from a jobbing club DJ in Michigan to new Stones Throw pin-up and retro soul and doo-wop throwback Mayer Hawthorne. Not bad for a skinny white boy who had really no intention to head down this road to begin with, but a warble akin to Smokey Robinson at his smoothest, a knack of turning on the funk like The Stylistics at large and a bunch of sleek, snazzy songs beaming back from Sixties Detroit said otherwise. In what is turning out to be a slick season for highly retro rig-outs (this album is the perfect bookend for Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It), Hawthorne's swagger, sensibility and musical chops are a thing to behold as he breezily goes back in time with crooning panache. And you thought that they don't make 'em like this any more? www.myspace.com/ mayerhawthorne

Download tracks: Maybe So, Maybe No, Just Ain't Gonna Work Out