Category: Some Great Stuff I’ve Heard Recently

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Some Great Stuff I've Heard Recently

Some Great Stuff I’ve Heard Recently: Missio-Missio EP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHBT-F-3SzM

Check out Missio here

Before you read any of this post, watch the video above. It is absolutely stunning. As the spectral guitar line is joined by echoing synths, a beautiful vocal line floats above it all. A verse builds, culminating with “We make mistakes, we leave them by the door. I run to you. I run to you, love” And then another voice: (God? The greatest lover of all) calls out in the quiet “Don’t quit on me, don’t quit on me. Please trust me now, I won’t hurt you love”. A song about keeping going, accepting and giving love, even and especially when all seems lost, “I Run To You” may not be about God at all (I have a habit of finding God in strange places where he’s not meant to be), but it feels like one of the most honest worship songs you’re ever likely to hear. Not that I’m an EDM aficionado (at all) but this feels like the missing link between James Blake and the great songs he wishes he could write..

Missio’s debut EP only gets better from here. “Missio Dei” (a phrase I thought I’d left behind at theological college) pulses with passion, as the almost chanted vocals crescendo to a chorus of “Amen’s” at the song’s conclusion. The song is minimalist in its composition, no overbearing competition for instrumental and harmonic space here, but yet feels full and satisfying.

“Monster” feels brighter, built on a bed of piano and twinkling synth lines, soon augmented by some sterling tom work. “You’re not a monster, I’m not a monster but we have monsters inside our hearts”, the songs’ chorus, speaks of a battle. Am I ok? Am I not ok? Who can tell?

“Who Do I Think I Am?” asks the closing song. And in the chorus, perhaps we have an answer. “Oh God of Abram, God of Isaac, Pull out your sword and lead me home, My vine has withered, my roots have shattered, Pull out your sword and lead me home”. As the following verse states “I dance with the devil, I kinda like it”. Ain’t that the truth. That’s a battle that’s always on.

Each psalm-like track here fulfils Missio’s wish to be minimal yet meaningful in his songwriting. No single note or beat is wasted. His crystal-clear vocals soar and weave over and around the instrumentation, never dominating but always powerful. Whether you take this gorgeous collection of songs as the cry of a heart to God or not, anyone with a love of melody, of harmony and of honest songwriting will find plenty to love here.

“Missio” is released on May 15th.

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Some Great Stuff I've Heard Recently

Some Great Stuff I’ve Heard Recently – Laila Biali and the Radiance Project “House of Many Rooms”

When this popped into my inbox, I didn’t really know what to make of it. An entirely new name to me, Laila Biali is a jazz singer of some repute as well as a collaborator with Sting and Paula Cole among others. So she’s pretty good, right? Right. “Shadowlands” kicked things off and immediately blew my mind clean away. It’s a fast-paced piano driven rock song with hard as nails grooves from drummer Ben Whitman (co-prodcuer and also Laila’s husband). Not only that, it’s covered in swathes and swathes of absolutely gorgeous, soulful horns. Not only that but it also features a spine-tingling vocal arrangement, brought to life by the Toronto Mass Choir. The song is astonishing. I cannot tell you the grin that has danced across my face each time this song has played. It’s the kind of track that you can’t just nod your head, stamp your foot or click your fingers to. You have to do them all. It also contains within it a notably hopeful lyrical sheen. “There is hope beyond the dark and long”, Laila riffs at the climax of the chorus. By the songs’ end, you’ll believe her.

This is by far the best song I’ve heard this year. If it does not proper Laila Biali into the consciousness of people all over the globe there is no justice on Planet Music. Ok, so we know there is no justice on Planet Music, but allow me to indulge in some proper hyperbole, where only proper hyperbole will do.

And that’s only track one.

I could go on, and on, and on. “Love” takes things in a piano pop direction, and features one of those choruses. “Sparrow” speaks of the beauty of every day’s new mercies over some succulent piano chords. “Upside Down” is all bass groove, topped with sensuous Rhodes, and then surprises with a straight-ahead chorus of considerable power. By the time closer “Plainclothes Hero” rolls in to view, you’re ready to submit to the sheer passion, beauty and skill on display here. If there’s a better debut album released this year I’ll be surprised.

All in all, you can’t do without this record. It’s a fantastic album. Simply a stellar piece of work.  I was floored from minute one. This is pop, this is indie, it could be jazz. It speaks to me of Ben Folds in parts, and not just because the piano features heavily. There is great orchestration throughout, all topped with a series of beautiful and confident vocal performances. Mixed in throughout is the reality of a lived-out faith but whether you agree with her beliefs or not, this is music to transcend divisions and boundaries. As Laila says in the video below, she wanted to mix soul with an independent heart. She succeeds in this aim in spades. One not to miss. Catch her on tour in the UK this autumn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=149&v=hwRd9MOvMcc

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Some Great Stuff I've Heard Recently

Some Great Stuff I’ve Heard Recently: Trupa Trupa, Lewis & Leigh

Trupa Trupa “Headache’

Buy the album here

Alternative Rock from Gdansk, Poland, Trupa Trupa combine unsettling tones with just enough melody and pop nous to draw the listener right in to the midst of the swirling 90s alt rock atmosphere their new album Headache successfully creates. “Snow” opens proceedings with a heavy groove, teetering on the brink of a loss of control. Single “Halleyesonme” (watch the video above) takes things in a lower key, more atmospheric direction, whilst “Wasteland”, a particular highlight, shimmers and crunches in equal measure. “Getting Older” is discordant and hard work, but ultimately deeply satisfying. It needs concentration, but the best music should demand focus from the listener. Conversely. “Unbelievable” is almost lovely, an open-strummed pop song with real depth. This is the point with Trupa Trupa. They plough their own furrow, almost daring you to join in with them.

Released on UK label Blue Tapes, this is their third album. An album that rewards repeated listens, and a band that I have no doubt  would go down well on the UK festival circuit. Never settling for simply one style, this runs the gamut of noise-rock. Impressive drums from Tomek Pawluczuk punctuate the album. Really though, this is a challenging but inspiring listen. This is the sound of an exciting new band deserving of attention.

Lewis and Leigh “Missing Years EP”

Pre-order the EP here

Taking things in a completely different direction, here is the second EP from Ava Lewis and Al Leigh, the sublime “Missing Years”. This one really caught me off guard. Sounding like the kind of thing that would be on show at the Bluebird in Nashville, opening salvo “Devil’s in the Detail” has been getting some love on BBC 6Music, and it’s no surprise. It’s basically a perfect song. The chord progressions are wonderful, there’s enough going on underneath it all to catch your ear unawares as layers are subtly built in, but more than that, the vocal interplay between the aforementioned Lewis and Leigh is just right. The demise of The Civil Wars was much mourned in these parts. It would be cheap to mark out Lewis and Leigh as a potential follower in their footsteps. if anything, this song is proof positive that they have it in them to far exceed the achievements of that band (keep being nice to each other guys). I suppose having the production team behind Laura Marlings’ recent album doesn’t hurt, but the best production team in the world can’t make something out of nothing. The raw materials on offer from Lewis and Leigh are startling. They should be massive in a fair world. “Late Show” swings and slinks its way through a honky-tonk workout. “Rubble” begins with a glorious guitar tone. It’s the kind of tone that forces the listener to smile. There’s no other way to describe it. A paean to lost hopes of love, this song is another beauty. Closing with a  cover of Coldplay’s “Spies” could have been a mis-step, but it is so strong that, were the song not already so well known, it could pass as one of their own. I can’t think of higher compliment to pay to a cover than that. My only complaint is that the inclusion of a cover denies us the chance to hear more from the pen of Lewis and Leigh. As this is their second EP, we can only hope that a full-length, with its opportunities to stretch and show songwriting breadth, is to follow shortly.

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Some Great Stuff I've Heard Recently

Some Great Stuff I’ve Heard Recently: An Introduction

I’ve been writing 1 review a week, or thereabouts, for Drowned in Sound for the last few months. Quite amusingly, it has resulted in a couple of things pretty instantly:

1. Lots of people read what I have to say. Which is nice. It is also different from virtually every other musical or written platform I’ve ever had. There’s a humility lesson there. Writing about music isn’t in any way about me, or promoting my “brand” or any other nonsense like that. I do it largely as a pleasing diversion. A learning point perhaps?

2. I get deluged (several a week as I said in a post last week) with offers to hear albums by artists who themselves have read stuff I’ve written, or whose PR person has done the same. There is so much great music in the world. I can’t write about everything on Drowned in Sound. I have a job, and they have a review assignment policy, but it seems only fair to draw attention to some of this fantastic music if I can do. Hence I’m making a home for it here on this site. It doesn’t have the reach of Drowned in Sound’s several hundred thousand unique visitors a month (a man can dream, perhaps if I was a conservative evangelical?) but it is just as quotable.

And so I hope it helps. Having spent a long time trying to get attention for various bands myself, I know it can be a pretty lonely job. So far I’ve had albums from three continents. The internet is a small world. I’ll only write about stuff if I really like it, but if I really like it I promise to enthuse gratuitously. Deal? Good.

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Some Great Stuff I've Heard Recently

My Albums of the Year

So, 2014 is drawing to a close. It’s been a year of a lot of change, a lot of new things have happened. I’ve learnt a lot, and realised along the way that I knew a lot less in the first place than I had previously thought. In the midst of all these changes, joys and celebrations, celebration, mourning and downright hard work, I’ve heard some fantastic music. Music is a gift, I think. It never ceases to amaze me that there is a song, or an album for every mood, seemingly every circumstance. I’m writing this list as much for my own sense of posterity as anything – it’ll be nice to look back on this in a while (perhaps years) and see what was exciting me by the end of 2014! I’m not going to be pretentious and write long, florid paeans to each album. If they sound intriguing, take the time to track them down and delve in. I hope that they give you as much joy as they have given me this year. A final caveat, there’s no way I could possibly do this list in order or anything like that, so just assume that I like them all equally! Ok, here goes…

Motorpsycho – Behind the Sun

2014 was the year I discovered vinyl. I know it had been there for a  long time. I was slow on the uptake. It was also the year I discovered the incredible Norwegian band Motorpsycho. This is their 2014 release, but as I began to delve in to their back catalogue there was the glorious realisation that here was a band who defied characterisation and had been making albums since the late 1980’s. Sometimes it’s like Black Sabbath. At other times it’s free jazz. Sometimes 60s pop, other times a cacophonous racket. A staggeringly inventive and individual band. If you do nothing else after reading this, listen to this album.

Royal Blood – Royal Blood

This won’t surprise anyone who knows me. I was fortunate enough to hear about Royal Blood 18 months ago, before their first single was released, and saw them twice, playing to a combined total of about 120 people. I don’t think I’ve ever been more inspired by seeing a band I barely knew anything about than that first time in Leicester. Fortunately their debut album delivers on their promise in spades. It’s crazy to think that they are among the biggest bands in the country now. Can only wait and see what comes next with interest.

Neil Cowley Trio – Touch and Flee

This was a departure for the best live band in the world, a dancehall record. Quite restrained. Full of emotion, but lacking in some of the bombast of previous releases, which really gave Neil’s compositional flair space to shine. I have no idea how they aren’t the biggest band in the world, as I keep saying. If you like music you will like this album. If you don’t like this album you probably should give up listening to music.

Enormodome – Big Boy Machines

The second rock duo on this list. This is a huge sounding, melodically inventive, inspiring listen. This has more of my favourite songs of the year on it than any other album. It sounds so good loud as to be ridiculous. Fantastic work from J Hall and Brad Blackwood on mixing and mastering.

David Bazan and Passenger String Quartet – Volume 1

David Bazan is a world-class songwriter. He is also a world-class quester after truth, willing to question and doubt, and honestly express his feelings and findings at every step. The songs on this album see Bazan’s haunting vocal backed only by a string quartet. in these environs you see just how strong his writing is. He’s a special talent that everyone should know.

Plank! – Hivemind

An instrumental trio traversing the line between indie, rock and electronica, this is a brilliantly joyous record. No-one seems to have heard of them either…

Gavin Clark – Beautiful Skeletons

I’ve been waiting for a new release from Gavin, the voice of Funhouse and Clayhill, for what feels like an eternity, but was actually only about 8 years (I’m impatient). This is a beautifully presented collection of sparse, emotive folk, charting the course of the last 20 years or so of Clark’s songwriting life. Her has one of of those voices. Another one who, if there was any justice in music world, would be a household name.

Early Winters – Vanishing Act

This is a flat-out beautiful album. Carina Round is another one of those singers. Here, her vocals intertwine the equally brilliant Justin Rutledge’s, as they adorn some amazing and effortlessly laid-back songs. Just wonderful.

Ormonde – Cartographer/Explorer

This record has Anna-Lynne Williams on it. That should be enough to send you scurrying out to hear it. If you need more, this is marked departure for her duo with Robert Gomez. More direct, perhaps even aggressive, but still maintaining the wonder and sense of the numinous. Another special album.

Damien Rice – My Favourite Faded Fantasy

A surprise new album from Damien Rice came late in the year. In a sense though, what we got was far from a surprise. Perfectly crafted, full of emotion, twisting and turning. A lovely return.

Dan Wilson – Love Without Fear

The former singer with Semisonic, Dan Wilson writes great songs. They are the kind of songs that make you, were you to find yourself considering yourself to be a songwriter, more than willing to down tools to retirement.

Luke Sital Singh – The Fire Inside

One of the standout performers I saw at Greenbelt this year, Luke’s debut full length has justifiably elevated him to a new level of recognition as one of the best songwriters in this country. Don’t be surprised if he’s everywhere next year. It’s his time.

Her Name is Calla – Navigator

I love Calla. They’ve been in my life a long time. This year they released an astonishingly progressive album, nuanced and full of maturity. Out with noise, in with pastoral folk of the best kind. On with the show. Can’t wait for their next one.

 

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Luke Sital-Singh “The Fire Inside”

In October of 2012, in a tiny independent record shop, a side event to The Gathering in Oxford, I had my first encounter with the transcendent wonder of Luke Sital-Singh. At the time I had just started dating my now wife, and she had excitedly told me I should hear him. I wasn’t confident, but wanting to impress my new girlfriend. I dutifully allowed myself to be dragged down the Cowley Road. He shuffled in, quite an unassuming-looking chap. Definitely an indie singer-songwriter. There may have been 20 people there. Maybe slightly more, but this was certainly not a big deal in the offing. As he set up, apparently nervously, I wondered what would unfold. “I Have Been a Fire” stuttered into life, with its gentle, almost non-descript first verse, and I was drifting away. All of  a sudden, Luke bellowed “I have been a fire” with an almighty guitar clang, redolent of Radiohead at their most truculent and I was jolted back to attention. What was this angelic beauty? In an all-too-short 20 minute set I was hooked beyond belief. Afterwards, I convinced my girlfriend to buy the Fail For You EP from a slightly bewildered looking tunesmith and one of those musical obsessions began, the kind which come to exist in a moment but are so powerful that you wonder how you managed without them for so long.

Following that night in Oxford, a lot has changed. For one, I’m married now. For another, after a prolonged period of releasing ever-more urgent EPs, The Fire Inside, Luke’s debut album, is finally here. I’ve been intrigued to see that Iain Archer plays a large part in Luke Sital-Singh’s production. Another favourite of mine, Archer shares the wistfully insistent quality of songwriting that makes Luke so special. Both of them write what are basically pop songs, but which at the same time have a quiet sense of epic desperation, darkness hidden underneath breezy melodies and lilting lyricisms.

The album begins with Nothing Stays the Same and The Greatest Lovers, two uptempo tunes which could have fitted on Archer’s Flood the Tanks, a criminally underrated album of the early part of the last decade.

It is on gentler tracks such as Bottled Up Tight, Nearly Morning and Fail For You that the genius of this artist shines through brightest, however. Vocally yearning, melodically and harmonically satisfying and doused in beauty, these songs truly shine. Particularly Fail For You. I’ve never been sure whether this is about a girl, or a love song from a parent, or God to a child, but it is one moment where the aforementioned transcendence really shines through. Whatever its about, it is a wonderful moment. It is also the only track from previous EPs left seemingly-unchanged for this album. You can’t improve on perfection.

Moments of beauty abound throughout the album. Through it, the satisfaction of hearing a young songwriter mature in to a formidable talent and voice in pop culture is palpable. Finishing with two more restrained moments of wonder, Cornerstone and Benediction leave the heart straining.

It will be exciting to see where Luke goes next after this splendid album. A summer of festivals, including Greenbelt this weekend, and a tour in the autumn (on which the equally brilliant Karima Francis opens) are in his immediate future. Some of the venues on the forthcoming tour are tiny. Make the effort to see him. I don’t think he’ll be playing venues of that size again. A formidable talent, armed with great songs and a stunning album. The world could be his oyster.

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Her Name is Calla “Navigator” (2014)

I vividly remember playing a gig at The Social, on Pelham Street in Nottingham, in around 2005. The Social is a cool venue. A lot of bands and artists play it on the way up (and on the way back down again) on the indie rock touring treadmill. For me as a young songwriter it felt pretty important to be playing at a place like that. From my memory, I played early on, played ok, was suitably intense and moody and was lifted off the stage (elegantly) feeling pretty good about myself. Then a guy called Tom, playing under the name Her Name is Calla, got up and played a set of such searing, visceral power that I was spellbound, and firmly put in my place as to the relative merits of our respective live performances. I picked up a demo and wore it out. Calla of old were a post-rock band extraordinaire. They did quiet and loud in all the right places, better than most other bands and yet, through a variety of circumstances, never quite reached the level of acclaim of some of their (in my opinion) lesser contemporaries. Who knows why.

As time has gone on, Tom has released a string of increasingly wonderful solo records under the name T E Morris, filled with heart-on-the-sleeve honesty, and startlingly serious vocals. All the while, Calla has carried on in the background. Condor and River, The Heritage and The Quiet Lamb built them an enviable reputation as a creative and daring studio band and a juggernaut of a  live experience. With The Navigator, the full potential of the band is finally realised.

This is an album which has “intense” written all over it. The Roots Run Deep has Tom crooning “I’m alone in here now and I’m mixed up” over a skittering beat, strident synths and the kind of blips and bleeps which have characterised the work of contemporaries Ghosting Season. It seems to be a song about lost hopes, maybe romantic, maybe musical. What’s clear is that, after the almost pastoral opening of I Was On the Back of  a Nightingale, that this is no standard post-rock album. Morris and his cohorts have stretched themselves, taking in electronica, folk, even some ambient drone-like elements, as on It’s Called Daisy, which leads into the wondrous Ragman Roll.

Elements of the album bring to mind for me the wonderful Josh T Pearson, such as Burial’s “I don’t have choices, only anger” refrain, which you find yourself singing along to, and then wishing that you, and Tom, didn’t wonder if it were actually true. The interplay of vocals, banjos and violin on this track is a particular highlight. another example of how HNiC have taken the post-rock template and built on it in such a way as to entirely stand out from the crowd. This is pastoral post-rock. The kind that might be made if Nick Cave and Nick Drake had had the same parents.

Best of all, when the explosive release does come, as in the coda of the title-track at the album’s midpoint, it is so unexpected and exciting that it feels perfect. That the wall-of-sound is not returned to in the same way throughout the rest of the album is to its credit.

The concluding quartet of It Was Flood, Whale Fall_A Journal, Dreamland and Perfect Prime will, I think, not be bettered by a band of this type this year. Satisfyingly, HNiC do not resort to going out with a bang, instead space is given to beauty and wonder.

This is an album. It is a heavy listen, for sure, but as an exercise in to how to build and pace a whole suite of music in to a coherent whole, it is excellent. This is the kind of music people who are serious about songwriting should listen to. Tom Morris is  a singular talent and deserving of much more recognition than he is currently afforded.

So, a folk post-rock album, which sounds a bit like Radiohead, a bit like Josh T Pearson, a bit like depression, a bit like Bon Iver, and a lot like the kind of cross-over success that Her Name is Calla have deserved for so long. Let’s hope it arrives, so that they don’t have to spend four years making the next album.

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Neil Cowley Trio – “Touch and Flee” (2014)

I make this the sixth album from Neil Cowley and the duo that make up his Trio, Rex Horan and Evan Jenkins (not counting EPs, iTunes live sessions and so on). The PR for the record trumpets Neil as “Adele’s Pianist”, which he is, among many other things. It’s him twinkling the ivories on the proper intro for Chasing Pavements, for instance. He’s also had a hand in Birdy’s recent career-high album, been Derry’s Musician in Residence as they were last year’s European City of Culture, and, perhaps most importantly of all, he had a telegram read out at my wedding. Albeit it was a telegram berating me for being so keen on getting early review copies of his band’s albums, but still. As a side note, Neil wasn’t the biggest man to have a telegram read out at my wedding. Neil is quite a reasonably-sized chap. Adebayo Akinfenwa, on the other hand, well. I think you could fit three Neil Cowley’s into one Adebayo Akinfenwa. However, when it comes to the modern jazz pianist, Neil Cowley is an almost peerless heavyweight and the maturity and nuance of his band’s new album, Touch and Flee will only serve to cement and enhance that reputation.

I’ll admit took me a while to “get” this album and as a result. I missed the album’s June 9th release date for posting this review because I didn’t know what to say about it. And then, all of a sudden, it seemed, I “got” it. This is a great album. It will go down as a classic. It is the best jazz album of this and most other years. Now I shall tell you why.

Beginning with the beguiling Kneel Down, there is an immediately noticeable development in the band’s style and approach. While all the sounds are immediate, Kneel Down unfolds laconically, rather than with the insistence of the Trio’s former jams, as an elastic bass riff is juxtaposed with chiming piano chords. It immediately sets out the stall for the album. Whereas power and bombast in some parts, and smooth balladry in others, were previously Neil Cowley Trio’s stock in trade, this time, there is an almost concert-hall feel to the work. These nine pieces are symphonic without being grandiose, a contrast again to the previous album, The Face of Mount Molehill, which employed a string section to add orchestral flourishes. This time, the synergy between Cowley, drummer Evan Jenkins and Rex Horan is all that is required to make these songs soar.

Noticeably absent here are the, for the want of a better phrase, faster and louder songs. That is not to say that the album lacks intensity by any means, but it is symptomatic of the increasing maturity in Cowley’s writing that he never resorts to ivory-thumping. Instead, as on Winterlude, a groove builds and builds without ever reaching an expected crescendo, Sparkling, well, sparkles, as major and minor chords intertwine and compete, all adorned by trademark flowing arpeggios. Gang Of One, again, twists and turns all over the place, simmering with buried angst, before resolving into the kind of funk groove that makes me want to walk like an Egyptian (unlikely in my case). It’s great. A high point of the album. It is followed by another, as Couch Slouch’s staccato rhythm slinks into play. By this point, mid way through the album, the listener already knows this is a different kind of listen. Heads are nodding, feet are tapping, subtle air drums are being played (if they’d only stop being so clever and changing time signature all the time and catching me out). Bryce is a mournful, almost cinematic piece, which, yet again, begins in a kind of “all come apart” fashion before finding itself around some beautiful Horan picking. Always feeling like it could devolve in to a Bad Plus, Nirvana-covering hullabaloo, it never does, instead opting for beauty and substance, allied with style. As with the rest of the album, the mix-positioning of the rhythm section, making you feel like the players are in the room with you as they play, really enables you to feel every cymbal splash, every time Rex leans in to a note. It’s as close to having them play in your living room as any of us are ever likely to get.

Never ones to be pigeonholed, the band then unveil Mission,a song pushed along by what sounds like a toy organ. While the song is good in and of itself, it works best as an introduction to the majestic Queen, “Touch and Flee”‘s high point and defining moment. Beginning with the hushed brushes of Evan Jenkins, what develops in the next six minutes or so is the kind of song that musicians dream of writing, playing, sharing in with an audience. It is perfect. Each section builds on the last, at once both taking the song to places you can’t imagine it would go and also satisfying that inner sense we all have when listening to the greatest music of “it’d be great if they did this now”. This is the song on the album that not only sounds the most like Neil Cowley Trio of old, it is the song that sets the course to the Neil Cowley Trio of the future. The section which begins at 2.27 is the kind which renders all other music totally irrelevant. You can already imagine crowds sitting, eyes closed, at one with the band as they sway in gloriously intense concentration as something transcendent is brought to live. This band do gradual builds better than any I have ever heard, and Queen is the greatest of them all. I cannot wait, I cannot WAIT to hear this song live. Best of all, it doesn’t go crazy, everything is under control, but it’s also the most intense and invigorating six minutes of music you’ll hear this year. I promise.

As the album concludes with The Art, a largely Cowley-focused legato end-credits, one is left to marvel at having sat through something truly special. For a relatively short album, so many ideas are packed in that it feels like hours have passed. Anyone who thinks they can write songs should listen to this band. This (ironically for guys who seem much more interested in beards than the divine) is music which has touched something of the divine. Neil Cowley Trio have made their jazz album and it is damn near perfect.

And to think I didn’t like it to start with.

You can stream Mission from the album here