Ezra Collective need you dance to their new album. Hardly stunning when you’ve ever listened to them earlier than – whether or not it was in 2019 once they dropped their first album as rising stars of the UK jazz underground, or in 2023, once they received the Mercury Prize. They know what they’re good at: thumping, gyrating dancefloor music, constructed on a pacy undercurrent of upbeat jazz grooves. However now, they’re making an express demand: ‘Dance, No One’s Watching’, drummer Femi Koleoso says, is an album supplying you with the liberty to “be who you wish to be” and never let “another person steal your pleasure”.
On their third album, the five-piece pivot their type of jazz into exhausting funk, dub, neo-soul, Afrobeat and highlife. Lead single ‘Ajala’ is an ode to the latter two genres, its irresistible vitality protecting you shifting to the spirit of moped adventurer Olabisi Ajala. The tight stabs and powerful horn traces right here function throughout the album, from the marching, joyous ‘Hear My Cry’ to the Fela Kuti vibes of ‘Costly’. You realize this document will sound even higher dwell (particularly at OVO Area Wembley, once they grow to be the primary UK jazz act to play there in November).
However the dance vibe does transfer from borderline moshable to extra groove-led. ‘God Gave Me Ft For Dancing’ dials all the way down to a cushioning, neo-soul vibe as Yazmin Lacey pleads for “bassline, highlife, dolla wine, [and] good occasions”, whereas ‘Streets is Calling’, a collaboration with M.anifest and Moonchild Sanelly about feeling that pre-party hype, channels dubbed-out funk.
The group hit up Abbey Street Studios to document the album simply days earlier than changing into the primary jazz act to win the Mercury Prize – a crowning second for the group, who met in 2012 by the youth membership and jazz growth programme Tomorrow’s Warriors. The one signal, maybe, of newfound stardom on ‘Dance, No One’s Watching’ (they noticed a 859 per cent improve in mixed gross sales and streams post-Mercury) is the voice notice from beloved Arsenal soccer legend Ian Wright on the Latin-influenced ‘Shaking Physique’.
Ezra Collective show much less is extra with the late-night jazz-funk monitor and Enfield evening bus tribute ‘N29’. Olivia Dean follows that with gorgeous vocals on ‘No One’s Watching Me’. Extra growth of the strings with the band in ‘Acts 1-4’ would have been welcome to show them into extra than simply interludes, however the last three tracks actually present how Ezra Collective don’t at all times depend on the frenetic to get you shifting. ‘Have Endurance’ sees an exquisite piano solo from Joe-Armon Jones that builds into the euphoric, celebratory ‘Everyone’ that exudes the optimistic group spirit Ezra Collective champion of their music.
Koleoso instructed NME final month when you give them “Paul McCartney cash, we’ll construct a youth membership”. The group wish to deliver communities collectively and “cross that baton” of music onto the subsequent era, simply how they have been inspired rising up by their mentors at Tomorrow’s Warriors. Ezra Collective ship on the wonderful ‘Dance, No One’s Watching’, bringing folks again collectively on the dancefloor.
Particulars
- Launch Date: September 27, 2024
- Report Label: Partisan Data
