Eddie Chacon: Lay Low

You may not know the name but you may recognise the voice. Chacon was one half of the soulful duo Charles & Eddie, who scored a worldwide smash in the 90’s with the soul classic ‘Would I lie To You?’.

Lay Low is Chacon’s third album release since 2020, after a 20 year hiatus, and like the two previous records, it is a deeply personal one. 2020’s Pleasure, Joy and Happiness was a masterful return, and rightly so a critical success. 2023’s Sundown was equally well received, but with Lay Low he has raised the bar.

Chacon dedicated Sundown to his late Mother, and with this new album he explores the feelings and emotions the loss of his mother a decade earlier had on him. This new record is very much a love letter from a son to his mother.

For years I couldn’t even speak of my mother. And finally, I realised that this record is very much about that loss.

Lay Low sees Chacon team up with producer Nick Hakim for solo album number three, with Hakim previously having re-mixed Above Below, from the album Pleasure, Joy and Happiness, establishing a friendship and mutual respect. “Nick totally seemed to get me,” says Chacon. “I would consider Charles & Eddie to be like a retro ’70s soul group, and I wanted to be Marvin Gaye and Al Green. Nick’s sound allowed me to flirt with my Charles & Eddie roots, but in a contemporary way.”

The record opens with Good Sun, a jazz tinged mellow slice of RnB that deals with the sadness of loss but with the hope of something better in the next life, reflecting his Mother’s eternal optimism. If Good Sun focuses on optimism, the endlessly catchy End Of The World plays on Chacon’s dispair at society’s divisions in the world today.

There is a re-occurring theme of how he deals with the acceptance of loss and moving one, highlighted on the atmospheric Let You Go, and the poignant & mellow album closer, If I Ever Let You Go. This is a chilled record… the type of album you put on if you want to lose yourself in the music. The title track Lay Low, and the hauntingly beautiful duet, Birds, only adds to that vibe, with Chacon’s warm falsetto giving a nod to his love of Al Green, as does the ethereal Let The Devil In.

The upbeat soulful funk of Empire brings to mind Gil Scott Heron, and is a real standout, with stabbing brass, staccato backing vocals and a floor filling groove that will have re-mixers queuing up to get their hands on it.

Unfortunately Chacon’s Mother Patricia didn’t get see her son’s return to the mic, and the deserved acclaim that has came with it. For all the subject matter Chacon deals with on this record, it isn’t a sad record. This is music with soul, that has one foot in the present, and one in the past, yet sounds timeless throughout.

• Released 31st January 2025 on Stones Throw Records
• Cat no: STH2498