ANA POPOVIC "STILL MAKING HISTORY" Source: Blues In Britain Date: 05/2008 Writer: Mick Rainsford

Eclectogroove is the new offshoot of DeltaGroove Records - so named because the artists and music to be represented on the label will not strictly be blues, but draw their influences from a wide (eclectic) musical foundation, with blues being a common thread that embroiders each release.

In choosing Ana Popovic as the seminal artist to record on the label, ElectroGroove have made an inspired choice, as Popovic openly expresses a love for the blues, but does not profess to being a blues artist per se - also incorporating and drawing influences from rock, soul, jazz and R&B - all of which are amply demonstrated on this impressive set.

EclectoGroove recruited John Porter (Roxy Music, Bonnie Raitt, The Smiths, Keb Mo) to produce the session and surrounded Popovic with musicians of the calibre of John Cleary, Jim Spake, Steve Potts, and Phantom Blues Band regulars Tony Braunagel, Mike Finnigan, Darrell Leonard and Joe Sublet, ensuring that Popovic had the perfect canvas on which to layer her own formidable talents.

Popovic opens proceedings with the funky "U Complete Me", her raunchy vocals enticing her lover to "awake my senses" - a sensuous invitation that feels like it is aimed directly at the listener - I should be so lucky!. That overt sexuality and salaciousness also permeates "Sexiest Man Alive" where she comes across as a "Barry White femme fatale" insistently exhorting "Who's about to make amove, Tonight..".

Popovic was raised in Serbia during the Milosovic era, so is well aware of the dangerous synergy between power, violence and corruption - warning of this in umbers like "Hold On" and "Between Our Worlds". The former is played over a funky rhythm laced with muscular horns, whilst the latter finds Popovic's sassy vocals and Santana inspired guitar swathed by baying horns.

Popovic's blues credentials are borne out in numbers like the CDs "blues" version of "U Complete Me", this time delivered with salacious vocals over laid back B3 and "moaning" guitar - giving it a late night feel, whilst Snooky Pryor's "How'd You Learn To Shake It Like That" is a raunchy blues oozing sexuality replete with menacing slide and deep rolling piano.

Add in the strutting R&B of Big Mama Thornton's "You Move Me" - the mellow and moody "Still Making History", and the jazz inflected "Doubt Everyone But Me" - and you have an ausoicious debut for EclectoGroove and a triumph for Ana Popovic. (www.deltagroovemusic.com)