'Just for a Minute' is the new one from musical innovator and general British Asian music icon Shri and it's a typically striking effort. Featuring the heavenly vocal talents of Fola Phillip and sounding like a traditional version of Attack's 'Unfinished Sympathy', the single comes ahead of the new album Seven Steps and is as varied as you might expect.
There's a rhythmic bass line (though it's unconfirmed whether this is being produced from his own bow-driven bass creation, but we like to think so), and a panpipe-style background, again believed to be his own Indian Bamboo flute, beset to Phillips' soulful voice.
The single features three versions of the track, though strangely it's the stripped-down original version which works the best, despite some mean mixing of Phillips' "On, and on and on" lyric in the others. If Ministry of Sound don't hunt this down for their next chill-out album then they're missing a trick. A smooth jazzy beat serves to draw this instrumentally-rich track to an understated close - it's subtle, but effective.
Lyrically, the song wouldn't fill a paddling pool, as the emphasis and impact of the track is undoubtedly on the experience. You do wonder whether a bigger vocabulary would have propelled this song even further. Nonetheless, what is there is enough to strike the chord that Shri wanted, though the various mixes bundled with the single don't expand on this as much as they might have. This song is sleek, discreet and sweet, and worth a listen on the comedown.
Rating: 3/5