Released:
Rating:
BADBADNOTGOOD will have potential future collaborators knocking on their door for a good while yet.
Label: Because Music
Released: July 8th 2016
Rating: ★★★
If your only exposure to jazz is through Lisa Simpson’s saxophone playing you might have missed that it’s had a bit of a mainstream renaissance in the last few years. It’s all over Kendrick Lamar’s latest masterpiece and has become a go to sound for all manner of rappers and beatmakers. No one though quite makes bold and exciting jazz beats like Canadians BADBADNOTGOOD.
It’s easy to see why so many in the hip-hop community including legends-in-the-game like Ghostface Killah and legends-in-the-making like Frank Ocean seek out the band’s services. ’IV’, as you might imagine, is their fourth album and it finds them further honing their perfectly crafted sound while adding a few new exciting elements.
The sound is once again dominated by insane tight beats, rhythms, piano and sax but there seems to be an added fluidity and ease with which the band allow the music to flow out on an album that is wonderfully easy to listen to. The key difference is their clever choice of vocalists to round out the music. There are only three tracks featuring vocals but each of them are killer in their own unique way.
Samuel T Herring provides his unmistakable croon on the brooding ’Time Moves Slow’, while rapper Mick Jenkins brings the fire to counterpoint the soulful ‘Hyssop Of Love’. Elsewhere, Charlotte Day Wilson’s gorgeous vocals illuminate the graceful sashay of ’In Your Eyes’. Colin Stetson unfortunately can’t sing but he can sure play the saxophone which he does to tremendous effect on the apocalyptic funk of ’Confessions’.
Depending on your tolerance for instrumental jazz you’ll either find this album dazzling and inspiring or maddeningly indulgent. There’s no doubting the attention to detail and commitment to perfection that the band have though. It’s a gimme that BADBADNOTGOOD will have potential future collaborators knocking on their door for a good while yet. Martyn Young
