...Into A Real Thing (LP)

…Into a Real Thing?is the first record David Porter produced by himself, and it sounds like an important checkpoint in the invention of progressive R&B as a genre, an album that bent the space-time continuum around R&B and willed it into something new altogether. It’s in conversation with Isaac Hayes’ own output of the era —?Hot Buttered Soul?especially — but where Hayes blew up the R&B form by throwing a bomb into it, helping create funk in the process, Porter worked more firmly in R&B’s space to build something new from within.?…Into a Real Thing?is a six-song powerhouse that manages to cram an 11-minute cover of a garage rock hit by the guy who’d later write Hulk Hogan’s entrance song alongside gut-bucket ballads with intricate string arrangements, and metaphorical tracks that compare grocery delivery to lovemaking. Its 33 minutes feel more like a fever dream than most other collections of 33 minutes.

Tracklist:

A1.?Hang On Sloopy
A2.?Ooo-Wee Girl
B1.?Too Real To Live A Lie
B2.?Grocery Man
B3.?I Don't Wanna Cry
B4.?Thirty Days