UPC: 05060180327286
A genre defining compilation and easily the best this year. A primer on London's bright-burning young jazz scene, this new compilation brings together a collection of some of its sharpest talents. A set of nine newly-recorded tracks, We Out Here captures a moment where genre markers matter less than raw, focused energy. Looking at the album's running order, it could easily serve as a name-checking exercise for some of London's most-tipped and hardworking bands of the past couple of years. Recorded across three long, fruitful days in a North West London studio, the crossover between each of the groups speaks to the close-knit circles which make up the scene. Surveying the way that London's jazz-influenced music had spread outside of its usual spaces in recent years, this album bottles up some of the vital ideas emanating from that burgeoning movement. Giving a platform to a scene where mutual cooperation and a DIY spirit are second-nature, it's a window into the wide-eyed future of London's musical underground.
Ubiquitous, much-lauded saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings is the project's musical director. His own recent projects span from South Africa-connected, spiritually-minded jazz players Shabaka and the Ancestors to Sons of Kemet, who match diasporically-connected compositions with viscerally-direct live shows. His entry on the album, Black Skin, Black Masks , is typically difficult-to-define: with an off-kilter, shifting rhythmic backbone, repeated phrases - mirrored between clarinet and bass clarinet - shape the track with an alluring hue. His input ties together a deft, genre-agnostic sensibility that's shared through all the players on the record. Theon Cross - who's also part of Sons of Kemet with Hutchings - starts his track, Brockley , with the solo, distinctive low rumble of his tuba. Winding and mesmeric, it sees tuba and sax lines winding together in rhythmic and melodic parallels. Ezra Collective - whose drummer and bandleader F...