For many fans of soul music, the whole genre took some sort of freaky wrong turn into goodness knows where a while back and never really found its way back again. The onset of that rather turgid watered down R&B-type thing that’s still eating up the “pop� charts somehow seemed to swallow it, bland it out and sterilise it to the point where it didn’t actually have the very thing it was named after anymore. Stolen drum loops, unmelodious vocal gymnastics and cheesy synths became the order of the day – but thankfully nobody told Angie Stone that’s the way it is, and even if they did she’d probably have advised them in no uncertain terms where to stick it.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Most definitely taking her cues from that classic early ‘70s period of soul, although Ms Stone only really shot to world prominence in the late ‘90s with her Black Diamond album, that didn’t mean she hadn’t been paying her dues for some years prior. Having helped out all manner of folk ranging from Prince protégés to Mantronix to he of a similar follicular form to herself, Lenny Kravitz, her eventual turn in the spotlight saw the former choir girl garnering all manner of awards, massive sales and, most importantly, deserved respect for her incredible talent.

The latest in the continuing series made for cable TV that is Music in High Places, where performers are shipped off to all manner of exotic climes to ply their trade on mountains, rocks, logs – whatever piece of nature is convenient at the time, this episode has a slight difference. Rather than being essentially acoustic only, this episode sees Angie and her entire band plying their trade on mountains, rocks and logs, but complete with often precariously balanced drum kit and all, offering us a much richer, fuller sound.

More than just a simple sightseeing trip, Angie and her posse interact with many of the natives, check out all manner of totem poles, wig out in the woods Blair Witch style, take a trip on a seaplane and severely diss the accordion at any given opportunity. Oh, they also perform seven fabulous, real soul-drenched tunes, including Pissed Off, which is as good an indication as any that Angie ain’t no shrinking violet - and with a voice as good as hers, why the hell should she be?

Track listing…

With the quite remarkable lengths the show’s producers go to in lugging massive lumps of equipment to not necessarily very accessible places, it must be a relief that this looks as good as it does. A quite beautiful 16:9-enhanced, 1.78:1 transfer brings all of Canada’s natural glory quite deliciously to our screens, with only miniscule amounts of occasional aliasing being a little bothersome at times, if you happen to tune into such things. Colour is rich and inviting, from the verdant forests to the bluest waters – if only all travelogues looked as alluring as this.

No matter which way you turn, there’s an audio mix to please. Three are offered up – DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 affairs, and the old staple Dolby Digital stereo. Despite the performances being predominantly acoustic, the two 5.1 mixes are spaced nicely and offer up some decent enough subwoofwoof oomph when appropriate, the only really discernable difference between them at the end of the day being in the volume department. Again, the producers of Music in High Places go to a lot of effort in capturing their recordings as well as possible, and we end up the beneficiaries. If you’re stuck with only two speakers, the decent enough 2.0 mix won’t disappoint, but as the old adage goes, “if you’ve got it, flaunt it�

Extras tend to vary in this series, from the thin on the ground to the rather plentiful. Angie Stone – Live in Vancouver Island fares pretty well, starting off with nine featurettes, running anything from under a minute to around four and adding up to around 19 minutes in all, mainly showing off Angie and pals mucking about behind the scenes, and really letting that poor old accordion have it some more. Just the Music offers direct links to the songs (in un-enhanced vision), including one which isn’t included in the main feature, a cover of Simply Red’s Holding Back the Years. Needless to say it’s infinitely better than Mick Hucknall’s hodgepodge nasal meanderings. A fairly brief, rather standard biography wraps things up, which should offer the odd reasonable insight for the new convert.

That which is apparently known as “neo-soul� just doesn’t get any better than this – the most soulful travelogue you’ll ever bear witness to.