My high school friend, Andrew Cohen, once played guitar on stage at an Ann Arbor Huron talent show dressed in a space suit. On stage with him were two other friends of mine, Jamall and Zack, who rapped over Cohen and a drummer’s beat while donning back masks over their faces, anonymous style. When they were done everyone went crazy and they threw demo tapes in the crowd before administrators started confiscating them and escorted them off the stage.

Jamall (Buff-1) and Zack (Trey/Logic/?) went on to form Athletic Mic League along with Mike (Grand Cee), Kendal (14KT), and brothers Wes and Vaughn (can’t remember their rap names). They were sweet, putting out a few albums, including their last CD, “Sweats and Kicks”, (and their 12″ EP) which we have for sale at our store.

In addition to their lyrical style and masterful blend of five unique voices, what made AML good was how they incorporated a blend of retro yet futuristic soul into their music. And one of the masterminds behind that was their DJ, Cohen, aka DJ Haircut.

After AML split up, Haircut split to LA, teaming up with ex-Funktelligence members Jackson and IX Lives to form a new group called Now On. Haircut continued to explore his musical interests, digging heavily into soul, disco and funk. I’ve sort of kept track of where everyone is - I have another childhood friend, Topher Mohr, who also was in Funktelligence and then went out to New York to pursue a solo career and is doing well. On a side note, I have Funktelligence’s old demo tape with tracks “Similies” and “For Your Soul” that I’ve been meaning to post and write about - maybe I will soon.

So, I just got an email from my mom who sent me a review by the New York Times on a solo album called “A Strange Arrangement” by Cohen, who is now evolved into a soul singer called Mayer Hawthorn:

MAYER HAWTHORNE

“A Strange Arrangement”

(Stones Throw)

Mayer Hawthorne’s debut album, “A Strange Arrangement,” breezes by in a torrent of reference points: doo-wop and quiet-storm R&B, a Philly-soul horn section, Funk Brothers bass lines and drumming, the dignified and elegantly rendered heartbreak that was the text of soul music’s late 1960s and early ’70s glory period. And like most great, faithful admirers Mr. Hawthorne, 30, arrives from outside: born Andrew Cohen and raised in Ann Arbor, Mich., Mr. Hawthorne is white, and before winding down nostalgia lane, he was a hip-hop D.J. His early recordings in this style, he’s said in interviews, were “a joke.”

Whether that was shoulder-shrugging apology or self-deprecating understatement isn’t clear, but on “A Strange Arrangement” Mr. Hawthorne is deadly serious. He’s an able singer, a gifted mimic and an arranger of astonishing precision. Working largely alone in his Los Angeles studio, he’s pieced together some stunning simulacra — not just in lyric and sound, which are unremittingly loyal to the classic soul that serves as his template, but also in tone. Most songs here emerge through fog, slightly distant and slightly obscured.

The feelings are lucid, though, on these knowing nuggets of heartbreak. On “I Wish It Would Rain,” Mr. Hawthorne bleats, “Well, I wish that it would rain/It would be a great disguise/Maybe then you wouldn’t see the teardrops in my ey-ey-eyes.”

But mostly it’s Mr. Hawthorne’s music that does the emoting. By layering his naïve vocals and harmonizing with himself, he conjures a forceful richness, but when it’s just his unadorned voice, aching its way through a melody with audible strain — say, at the top of “Shiny & New,” where he slithers in and out of the correct pitch as if drunk — his structure begins to collapse. Those moments, with the seams showing, are the only ones that leave the impression that, for all of Mr. Hawthorne’s careful work, this may be just a stunt after all.

JON CARAMANICA

You can also check out Mayer Hawthorne in this video, playing with the band “The County”, featuring the aforementioned Topher Mohr. Cohen just has a geat sense of humor, evident in his sweater and tie, and proclamations of him being a “dapper gentlemen”. His album, though, looks serious as well as potentially very good. Hawthorne comments in the video that he remains deeply influenced by hip hop with this Motown influenced album, and that it’s “equal parts J Dilla and Smokey Robinson”.

You can check out his label profile page here, which also links to a page to buy the album (also available on vinyl!).

Cheers, Andrew Cohen/DJ Haircut/Mayer Hawthorne. If you’re reading this, Geoff Anderson hopes you continue to make it. If you want someone to pimp the album back home, send me one :).