Ezra Collective – ‘Dance, No One’s Watching’ album overview

Ezra Collective need you dance to their new album. Hardly shocking if you happen to’ve ever listened to them earlier than – whether or not it was in 2019 after they dropped their first album as rising stars of the UK jazz underground, or in 2023, when they gained 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 providing you with the liberty to “be who you need to be” and never let “another person steal your pleasure”.

On their third album, the five-piece pivot their model of jazz into onerous funk, dub, neo-soul, Afrobeat and highlife. Lead single ‘Ajala’ is an ode to the latter two genres, its irresistible power maintaining you transferring to the spirit of moped adventurer Olabisi Ajala. The tight stabs and robust horn strains right here function throughout the album, from the marching, joyous ‘Hear My Cry’ to the Fela Kuti vibes of ‘Costly’. You realize this file will sound even higher stay (particularly at OVO Enviornment Wembley, after 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 Highway Studios to file 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 improvement 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 night time bus tribute ‘N29’. Olivia Dean follows that with gorgeous vocals on ‘No One’s Watching Me’. Extra improvement of the strings with the band in ‘Acts 1-4’ would have been welcome to show them into extra than simply interludes, however the remaining three tracks actually present how Ezra Collective don’t all the time depend on the frenetic to get you transferring. ‘Have Endurance’ sees a good looking piano solo from Joe-Armon Jones that builds into the euphoric, celebratory ‘All people’ that exudes the constructive group spirit Ezra Collective champion of their music.

Koleoso instructed NME final month if you happen to give them “Paul McCartney cash, we’ll construct a youth membership”. The group need to convey communities collectively and “cross that baton” of music onto the subsequent era, simply how they had been inspired rising up by their mentors at Tomorrow’s Warriors. Ezra Collective ship on the superb ‘Dance, No One’s Watching’, bringing individuals again collectively on the dancefloor.

Particulars

• Launch Date: September 27, 2024
• File Label: Partisan Data