Festive Greetings from This Is Not Happening and welcome to our year-end, 2025 wrap-up episode. As always we split the pod into Part 1 and Part 2.Part 1 features our Top 10 favourite albums of 2025. We use a proprietary algorithm to create our list our collective favourite albums, we're talking nascent data-science excellence! Every year it throws up some surprises as our tastes are so different (and in some ways so similar.Part 2 features a festive Spin It or Bin It. We each bring a candidate for track of the year and ask the age old question 'Spin It or Bin It' … will anyone really bin anyone elses Track of the Year? Probably.To retain the tension, I won't share any spoilers here … other than to share a 40 track playlist of some of our favourite 2025 tracks … here.Whatever you do at this time of year, who ever you do it with … have a good one.Please join us in January where we will go back to the usual format of Album of the Month + Spin It or Bin It.We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/
We are officially 62 months old. Welcome to the latest episode of This Is Not Happening, an album of the month podcast.
In Part 1, we review and Album of the Month. This month Guy brings back an artist that we first featured in early 2022, Joy Crookes. Joy is tackling the tricky 2nd album syndrome with her latest release ‘Juniper’.
In Part 2, we play Spin It or Bin It, we pick a theme and all pick songs that represent that theme. This month, we stick with theme of ‘Joy’ and ask each other to brings tracks that bring us joy and happiness.
—–Part 1 | Joy Crookes | Juniper —–
In January 2022 we reviewed Joy’s debut Skin. The consensus was that we loved it and it became a very important and deeply album for some of us. In terms of expectations, the bar was raised when Joy released the single ‘Pass the Salt’ in January of this year.
So what did we get with this sophomore release? Well, a lot is the simple answer! Perhaps not a big leap stylistically but a massive long-jump forwards in terms of song writing and performance. Will that be enough for the pod … have a listen and tell us what you think.
Watch a great reaction video from Jakar right … HERE
Read a great interview with Joy in Glamour magazine … HERE
Listen to a deeply personal and revealing interview … HERE
—–Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | ‘Joy’ —–
Songs that bring us ‘Joy and Happiness’ sounds like a simple theme to find music for … well, not for one of us who revels in the dark and miserable side of music. The selections are predictably brilliant!
Yes, Joy is back, and isn’t that a good thing to say?
It was way back in January 2022 in Episode 19 that we first welcomed the south Londoner to the podcast, and I’ve been anticipating her next move ever since her brilliant debut, Skin, found its way into my life. That album – Crookes was already hyped and was nominated for the Brit Rising Star award in 2020 – truly put Crookes on the map, a heady mix of twenty-something south London life as a mixed-race women – growing up with an Irish father and Bangladeshi mother – painting nights out wrapped in cigarette smoke and JD and cokes, the 35 bus, parties, family, flirting and love, all set against deeper topics of mental health struggles, identity and nods to the good and bad of multicultural Britain. Trading on smoky soul, r’n’b, 60s pop, dancehall, as much of a melting pot as the city she calls home. It won the then 22 year old plaudits and a Mercury prize nomination.
It was a firm favourite in Hornsby towers; songs are still on my daughter’s playlist. It has been in my life ever since, a post-Covid breath of fresh air that seemed to have London as a backing singer, reminding me fondly of the place I called home for over two decades. The album was toured relentlessly over the next two years, with talk of new material in the studio, as well as Crookes’ appearance at fashion shows, festivals and even a Lexus advert, enjoying her new-found fame and bringing her own down-to-earth energy wherever she was. It was hard not to see her having the time of her life and not be there vicariously with her. And I wasn’t begrudging one single moment. She was the star we could all get behind.
But where was the new music I hoped for? It took until January of this year when Pass The Salt dropped: a new single, as yet decoupled from any expectation of a new album. And it felt fresh. Tricking us with a filtered soul intro, before dropping into heavy-drummed and bass-driven verse which felt like a statement of intent: “listen to this / I’ve got plenty to get off my chest.” Joy was back, but where had she been? This was a different tip to her smoky, ballsy, fun-filled sound of 2022. This was more weighty, direct, and pointed to a hardening of the now 26 years old artist: “I got thick skin on these bones, ah / When a bitch don’t rise to rumour / Get the words stuck in your throat, throat, throat”. It also featured a rasping verse from Compton native Vince Staples, elevating it and nudging away from expectations in under three minutes. As a comeback, it asked questions: what was next, what did Joy have to say this time, and was there an album coming soon too?
A second single followed soon after, again with a big name verse to shift thinking further: this time enlisting grime superstar and actor Kano for his verse in Mathematics. A more soul standard track this time, but with the grime OG’s vulnerable words standing out with power and poignancy alongside Crookes’ lyrics and pushing things forward (as well as starring in a memorable video for the release, below). On the surface, it felt like a song about unrequited love, but it also felt like something heavier loomed in the background. It raised the interest of both new directions, and what lay behind Crookes’ next step. After third single – the up-tempo pop of ‘I Know You’d Kill‘ in March – I finally got the news I was hoping for: a new album, Juniper, was due in September, almost four years to the day from her debut. It felt a long time, and as the media rounds started for that release, things became clear that it hadn’t been a simple ride for Crookes since she got on the hamster wheel.
For all the joy of the new record – to which we’ll come – there’s significant context to Juniper’s journey from studio to airwaves. In the middle of her rush of fame, things fell apart. The late nights and VIP rooms had been fun as she found her way up through the next tiers of the industry, but it all felt disconnected, causing Crookes to step away and question what was important to her. Talking to Grace Dent in her Comfort Eating podcast, she laid bare how hard it had hit her: “.…it was a very dark time. I was extremely unwell. Not in a good place. I had to face those mental health issues: after the high, I flew down. I was lonely and isolated, like I had no connection to anyone.” If it all sounds bleak, it was. Right at the point where she should be releasing a second album, there was questions around her own health, and whether it would actually happen.
While plainly laid out in its lyrics – opener Brave is an early statement: “I’m so sick, I’m so tired I can’t keep losing my mind / I want to be brave, I want to be in love / It’s time I stopped running away. I should stay” – Crookes had to contemplate confronting the reality of where her head was at to even get to the studio. Telling DIY mag: “Touring and everything is a great distraction but I obviously had something bubbling up for years in the background I’d decided not to deal with, mentally.” Sparked by coming out of a relationship, she realised her behaviours “were actually traits of someone with very specific traumas”. She had to choose between the party and her soul, and it came down to an easy choice, but a harder road: “you can fuck around, but the play time’s gonna end at some point. No more Alaïas or Tabis, you’re gonna have to put on your fuckin’ Salomons and go on the hike!” It’s what makes the joy of Juniper even greater, given what was overcome.
I’d already been playing the singles to death through the summer – the fast-paced 60s pop of I Know You’d Kill (penned about her love for her brilliant female manager) and the sultry Carmen, eschewing the simple love and loss for the myth of unattainable beauty – and they continued to come thick and fast. The modern trait of releasing half the album in tracks that’ll get the airplay and streaming numbers does dilute the mystery of the long player. But what was revealed early didn’t remove too much from the final product. It was so good to see Crookes back, and I was ready to play Juniper on repeat on day one, enjoying how much the singles change feeling as part of a greater whole.
It was such a bright, accessible listen. Crookes always had a skill for enveloping, classy soul and pop that – whatever the subject matter – you could tap and dance too, and her own vibrancy came through in every line. Brave’s dusky overtones were classic Crookes, but it felt laced with sadness: “Sometimes it’s hard to smile / When no hurt feels against us”, the vocals as rich and heady as ever, with its tales of love and the fear laying yourself open to someone else. Her wider palette of influences – not just Nina Simone or Sarah Vaughan, but also the first wave of Bristol’s trip-hop scene and Joy Division – seep into the album, and the first half of singles-heavy tracks, reward with layers. Flying through Pass The Salt – a track that sees Crookes call out an ‘arsehole woman’ who’d spread rumours about her – and Carmen‘s playful musings on beauty and expectation. Flitting effortlessly between genres and styles that revolve around her London soul and street sounds, she plays on her heritage – Perfect Crime’s video was shot in her mother’s homeland of Bangladesh, with Crookes goofing around on the river and the back of motorbikes, seemingly happy to be out of the other side of her trauma – and confidently wears it on her sleeve.
There are more musical departures that nod to a widening of horizons, too. For all of some reviewers seeing First Last Dance as a more derivative dance/pop track, it’s a firm favourite of mine already, and shows a willingness to move away from the template (and features one of my favourite lyrics on the album – ‘Feel like Travolta / Each time I hold ya’. And far from a breezy theme, like much of the album, it had a deeper narrative, relaying the anxiety felt during the recording process. As she told DIY Mag,“I was like, ‘my chest at the moment, you know that scene where they stab [Mia Wallace] with the needle because she’s taken way too much cocaine?’ They were like ‘yeah?’ and I was like, ‘well, that’s how it feels’.” She grins. “They were like ‘well, that’s a lyric!’”.
The production on the album really worked too. It was – to me – a bit more varied, but warm, full of layers, and above all, sat back to let Crookes’ voice shine through. The two work in harmony, and there feels like an added richness to her voice too, with a few years (and a few cigarettes) more, it’s so full of character. The album was a blend of studio talent: Blue May, her most regular partner, producing Skin before this record, was back. Harvey Grant also returned, having worked with Arlo Parks previously too. Tev’n – a collaborator with Stormzy – debuted, as did Chrome Sparks. With Crookes finding a way to blend al of this together, it sounds fantastic, but never overdone.
Of all the tracks that have found their way into my head, Somebody To You is the album’s zenith to me. Perhaps the simplest song on the record, it just aches with sadness and thoughtfulness (and features a sublime Sam Fender on backing vocals). Alongside the companion video, it feels like a classic love song, but once again the truth is more uncomfortable than that. Talking to Glamour magazine, she told how it actually hints at a familial relationship that had broken down in the interim and caused Joy to rethink what her life looks like without her reliance on that relative. And that also points to a bigger narrative about being a woman: “It’s such an important question for women trying to define their full adult selves outside of relationships that no longer serve them,” Crookes said, nodding to the line “‘Who am I when I’m out of your sight? I want to see how we look apart”, as “what the album really is about.”
The themes may more broadly always bring in love in all its raw detail – Perfect Crime’s title nods to the joy love after heartbreak – and Mathematics tells of unrequited love, with its verse recorded secretly by Kano, so moved was he by the song, and A House With A Pool, a tale of an abusive ex-partner and for Crookes “a shit year when I ground myself down into the smallest version of myself”. At each turn, there is something deeper running through Juniper than simple heartbreak. Where Skin was as much about love, identity, family and a love letter to her south London homeland, Juniper feels closer, more introspective.
It’s the sound of an artist that has grown up in the spotlight, suffered and questioned the outcomes of the very thing she loves, and come back to her centre of family and friends, to find connection and a way out of the trough. She is willing to put it all out there, and there’s a bravery and determination that makes Juniper rise above the simple follow-up on the same template and marks a step forward. Closer Paris muses on the effect of a relationship with another woman, Crookes calling out “one of the best songs I’ve ever done.” There’s a freedom to her admission that it didn’t matter to her being with someone rather than worrying about her internal voice’s worries: “Kinda wanted you to be my girlfriend / Didn’t wanna fuck with no more Catholic guilt / When it comes to pride / I’d raise my heart to a girl or guy”. It feels a distance from the person she was then, a willingness to embrace the emotion. I was stood in the crowd at Glastonbury in 2022 when she wept tears of joy at where she’d come to, and I think of that now and where this album will take her, a smile on my face.
Despite so much of the record being underpinned her exposure to fame and its pitfalls, it’s never painted in a morose or self-involved way. She is willing to reveal warts and all, and call out her own failings as much as her struggles. The tunes soar so well, and her lyrics are so sharp, clever, and zippy, that you feel you are always on Crookes’ side, even as she’s telling you her darkness of the past few years, while asking you not to pity her. She values her ‘reset’, and the people around her, from her family and pre-fame friends, to her manager Charlotte Owen, for whom I Know You’d Kill is a celebration of. There’s something beautiful about the fierce independence of two women, fighting back in an industry built on the male gaze.
As much as the subject matter weighs – and rightly so – on Juniper, it doesn’t flatten the melodies, and it’s also possible to let the album wash over you, dancing to the sound, as much as deep listening, headphones on, and taking in all of its majesty under the surface. And albums working on two levels are what we all love, right?
What Juniper gives me is a follow-up from a British songwriter of class, wit and honesty that feels every bit as good as the debut, with four more years of life, emotion, understanding and recovery poured into it. For all the struggles that Crookes has gone through, her determination to come out of the other side and bring that through to us in her music is a gift for all of us. In her early releases, there may have been lazy ‘next Winehouse’ comparisons, but I can’t think of another artist like her around, so steeped in London, and the clash of cultures that have made her who she is. We are lucky to have her and I hope you’ll see some of what I feel about Juniper in your own experience.
It doesn’t really feel right to say, but Andrew Weatherall’s gone. Perhaps as we get older, we have to start getting used to this sort of thing. But I’m not sure I’m ready yet. It was only a week or two ago I was flicking through tracks and stopped on a whole folder of his stuff and went down another musical rabbit hole. He was down to play at a friend’s party in a few weeks. So none of today’s news seems to make much sense.
‘Iconic’ and ‘genius’ are thrown around liberally these days of course, but both words definitely fit this rockabilly kid from Berkshire that never sat still and never stopped making incredible music and playing it the best way imaginable. It’s also hard to think of a guy that’s not changed himself a lot, or sold out, nor stopped experimenting with interesting people because they’ve never got into a rut or satisfied with what they’re making. I don’t think anyone would have expected Weatherall to end up playing Creamfields, or Vegas, or headlining Lost Village. Because it wouldn’t have made sense. Why do that when you can create your own festival in a castle in France, or run your own night in distinctly not cool Elephant and Castle or a basement in Stoke Newington, or run your own studio so you can resolutely do it your way? Because that’s one thing he always did. Got too close to safe? Risk being confirmed as part of a scene? Go make something weird, throw them off the scent. And start afresh.
Yes, Prince and Bowie were absolute gods, and their influence so big that it seemed impossible they’d ever actually die. But they were of another world. You’d never bump into them in the street, or get to shake their hand at the end of a night. They existed mostly in older records, or hailed touring memories. Weatherall was tangible, he was here. He was around. You could see him play. You could see him often. You could go and say hi. You could listen to dozens of his mixes (or indeed, 900). Despite his fearsome appearance (back in the 90s/early 00s) he was a lovely guy, and back then i was one of many that doorstepped him – in this case in the back room at Turnmills at a friend’s techno night, Split – but I never knew anyone that had a bad word against him. He lived in east London still. He was part of the furniture. So it seems ridiculous that he’s not around, but that he was yesterday. He felt like he was one of us, really. And now he’s not.
I may be a little younger, but it’s hard not to see the impact from Screamadelica onwards on a skinny, clueless lad from Surrey, through a dance music epiphany, meandering through some questionable (but enjoyable) choices, to my middle age, and nodding with delight on the dancefloor at A Love From Outer Space, or catching him at one of the more interesting tents at a festival. That club night – so lovingly curated with Sean Johnston – reaffirmed and refreshed my dwindling attachment to clubs. I wasn’t fully retired, having spent the best part of my last two decades dancing, writing, playing records and hanging around the edges of London’s nightlife as a not-quite-proper member of the industry. But I happily assumed a slow cycle of diminishing returns, having good nights, but never really finding anything that was as good as it always was, because, well, that’s getting old isn’t it? It’s not a cliche to say that, but you never feel the same about something in your 40s as your 20s. And yet…. ALFOS was a revelation: musically perfect, reassuringly lacking in competitiveness, or black t-shirts, or overpriced, over busy bars. It was, as Andrew often said “a good room, 2-300 people, a good sound system, some lights worked by someone that knows what they’re doing, and some good people”. And it really did light something back up in me. And for that I’ll forever be grateful, and also forever sad, because I always felt there was another night to get down to, however more difficult it is living further from where’s familiar.
And going full circle, there he was, still ploughing his own furrow through these later years, just as vital as he ever was, yet more informed, more canny, more content, making interesting – and sometimes challenging – music, and talking about it in a way that was so much more vibrant than the majority of the industry, especially in an age of 280 characters, soundbites, insta-stories and paid-for content. Because Weatherall was much more than just a great DJ and selector: he was ridiculously well-read, a devourer of culture, and wanted anyone in his orbit to get some of the good stuff he was so enamoured with, and so committed to sharing. There was never any protectionism (ok, perhaps those white labels).
His skills and ability to hear music that was just off the middle lane, and seek out unusual musicians, producers and general creatives to not just work with, but feed off and listen to, was unrivalled. He made us take notice of people we’d never heard of: Timothy Fairplay, Nina Walsh, Keith Tenniswood, and so many more, who we of course became disciples of, like we did of him. Whether hearing that fragment of a track that no one else did, and turning it into a ten-minute epic 4am chugger, or calving off into another collaboration with a new name to dive into discogs from. You always knew it was one of his, but yet nothing was ever quite nailed down.
He never seemed willing to rest on what he had, and that dry wit, and glint in the eye always made you think he was one step ahead. A man that was at the epicentre of so many of dance music’s eras, but that neither wanted its full glare (and when he got it, it burned him until he withdrew) nor was blinded by its reflection, always willing to state its fleeting resilience, knowing no one was ever really at the top for long and ensuring he was in the dark edges, where it was always more intriguing. As part of the mischief-making Boy’s Own crew, or later on in his own studio, a sort of king of Shoreditch, on his own terms, never really seen out with his crown. It just wouldn’t have been his style.
I only ever met him fleetingly, but he was a person you’d have happily wanted to spend a day with, asking him about everything he’d done, and the conversation never would’ve ended up where you’d expected. I was never a neck-deep fanboy (even he saw the funny side of that cadre, though), but perhaps I just wasn’t trying hard enough. But it was hard not to be mesmerised by what he did. And I’ve had only a handful of moments better than lost on the dancefloor hours into one of his mammoth sets. He was never boring to listen to, never a poster boy in the way his contemporaries were (or sought to be) and he always felt more content on the outside, just where he wanted to be. But more than anything, it felt like he was keeping us in suspense for the next stage of a career that had much more to give, and because he meant so much to many people. That’s why the gigantic hole he leaves will be so hard to fill, and why he’ll be so missed.
Yes, brothers, it’s a bit late, but my god, it’s worth the wait. What can you say about Michael Kiwanuka that’s not already been said? Let’s get the cliches out of the way first: he harks back to the best soul musicians of the 60s and 70s, be it Bill Withers, The Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye, with a twinge of the jazz he so adores, but he brings that soul, that classic guitar into the modern age, (with a little help from the talents of Danger Mouse and Inflo) with electronic touches and flourishes. Oh, and I think we forgot that it’s easy listening, middle-class soul that belies a depth and richness, and a self-criticism that shows underneath the wizadry, there’s real doubt, loss and sadness.
Now that’s over with, let’s talk about what goes outside the usual tick-box talking points. Because in Michael Kiwanuka we have an artist that could be set to ascend to the heights of a modern great, at a time when the music he makes feels beautifully out of step with everything else on show: tracks that you expect to crackle with the fizz of vinyl, that don’t adhere to radio-friendly lengths or structures, (yet get picked up by globally renowned TV shows) however simple they may seem at first sight. Yes, you may say he should’ve been born 30 years earlier, but in some ways, that would’ve meant he’d perhaps sunk back into the ‘really good’ with so many legends around him. Truth be told, we’re lucky he’s around now, because that means he stands out, and – for those of us of a certain age – he beautifully espouses the virtues of proper songwriting.
And yet, it could’ve been so different. In many ways Kiwanuka is an anachronism. An immigrant kid, growing up in a white, middle-class suburb in north London, stripped of some of the struggles that peers may have encountered. Growing up immersed in jazz and soul, rather than hip-hop or r’n’b, a skater (but really, not that good), and dropping out of his dream course at the Royal Academy to write some songs, play them in a pub, and see where it went, assuming it’d be respected session musician, and never Glastonbury headliner, and singer-songwriter that spent years both convinced his own voice wasn’t up to the mark, then when fame finally hit, wracked with self-doubt, a self-labelled impostor that walked out of sessions with Kanye and struggled singing songs about the bleak side of love as he was getting married himself.
But to stick with Kiwanuka is an experience that rewards you, continually. Even the breakout Home Again, and the BBC Sound of 2012 – which seems so incredibly long ago – didn’t seem to quite bring him the expected success he’d been talked up for. It wasn’t until Love And Hate, four years later, that the it felt like the world caught up. It debuted at No.1 in the UK, and was an album that improved with every listen, his voice just drifting into gravelly, lovelorn ennui, cloaked in sadness. It was hard enough to listen to sometimes in good days, let alone when you’d gone through a break-up, or suffered loss. Every track dripped with sadness, with subtle, careworn character that settled like winter snow. And when he found his voice as a black man in the modern world, it gave us musical glory.
So where do you go from here? Radical reinvention? Pastiche? In this case, a bit of that, but mostly taking what made you so loved, and adding layers. But as with his own character, it’s not a brash statement, but something enveloped in a sound so pure, rich and powerful, that it reveals itself slowly. And shows that along with musical growth, Kiwanuka is also starting to feel more at home with himself. The first single, You Ain’t The Problem, finds him coming to the realisation that, whatever tribulations and doubt there is, it’s not himself that’s at the centre of it. Hero is self-questioning, with a video that puts his own contradictions at its heart, but doesn’t put the blame at his own door, and throughout the album, there are songs whose first impact is ‘that’s nice’, but as you delve deeper and let the music wash over you, and the lyrics sink in, you get to enjoy the slow-burning, blossoming joy as the album slowly shifts under your feet, and you just want to listen again, and again, and again.
Not everything, it seems has to be accessible and obvious from the off, and so this gentle but powerful anachronism, at odds with a fast-paced, condensed, over-saturated world, is everything it should be: a current classic, a future classic, and one of the albums of the year. Amen, Michael.
So, I don’t think I need any disclosure here: this feels a little obvious as a ‘Guy Album Of The Month’. Yes, I love Hot Chip (and LCD, and Joe and Al and Felix and Owen and Alexis and New Build and 2 Bears and…) as much as any other band that’s been around in the last two decades, but this doesn’t make it a throwaway choice. In fact, it’s one of the most listenable albums of the year so far for me, but it’s also much more than ‘oh, that bloke from Hot Chip’s made a solo album of dancefloor bangers’. It’s actually pleasingly more subtle than that, and it’s an LP that you should give a chance, because in many ways, it talks about what music means to me and tries to grab bits of all those *moments* that you have, whether it’s in a club, on the way to work, at a festival, at a gig. It may be ‘dancey’, but it’s not just a dance album. Stick with it and hopefully you’ll end up as rewarded as I do.
Joe’s a proper, unashamed, music geek. He loves disco and Salsoul (more of that later), but also dancehall and dub (just look at The 2 Bears influences). He loves techno and rave, and he loves pop music. But until now, his songs have often been twinned with others – Alexis Taylor in Hot Chip, Raf Rundell in The 2 Bears, as well as his Greco-Roman collective (label and releases-wise) – but while the solo stuff he’s done goes back to 2009, and there’s been some memorable stuff, this feels like a long time coming, and a bit of a new chapter for Goddard. He’s spoken about having a load of new kit, and wanting to make a record that gets the most out of it, and to push himself in a way that perhaps he doesn’t get when operating within the strictures of a band. But even with the newer sounds he’s created, what his music always sounds is joyous, vibrant, and throbbingly alive. And it takes someone with a cold heart to feel there’s nothing in Electric Lines for them.
So, what’s it like? There’s a myriad of influences, but instead of wrapping them in knowing subtlety, they’re out there front and centre, whether it’s the famous Celeda sample in tribute-heavy and vibes-laden Music Is The Answer, or the Salsoul sample – Brainstorm’s We’re On Our Way Home – in the paen to late-night wobbly post-club treks Home (with its brilliant Pete Fowler cartoons), Joe’s celebrating the music that is important to him, framed in his own template. The album flits around, from Ordinary Madness’ restrained modern soul openings, to shimmering, wide-angle pain of Human Heart, via balls-out 6am sweatbox Lasers, but there is a traceable line, and changes in tempo and feel that works across the length. You don’t make half a dozen albums without knowing how to structure an LP. Above all though, sonically and stylistically, the album shouts ‘HAVE FUN’, and it’s hard not to just let it wash over you and bounce down the road. It’s definitely made for summer and shades.
And with Al’s away with LCD, and Alexis releases piano-based albums, it’s a deserved chance for Joe to get some more limelight. No, it’s not a huge departure from other work he’s done, but why need it be? Alexis joins on the title track to sublime and familiar effect, and there’s some shades of Hot Chip around a few turns, particularly the cascading synth lines of Truth Is Light. But it’s very much Joe’s own project, and an album that shows that solo work doesn’t have to be any more complicated than putting together a load of music that shows who you are, and if that’s about good times, then where’s the evil in that? Despite being the wrong side of 35, he’s not a man that appears to be growing respectable with age (his comments about simply tearing out into Shangri-La and hanging on for the next 4 days made me chuckle), and if you saw his Glastonbury set on the Sunday, it’s a pretty impressive knowing what he probably got up to before that point!
Sometimes albums that are instantly accessible fade quickly, and feel disposable, but this isn’t one. Also, it’s hard to say what you’ll connect with in music. Even something you think you’ll like, it just doesn’t happen. But I’ve listened to it a couple of dozen times, and all I’ve done is feel it speaks to me and those moments you have when you’re out (we’ve all been in that fuzzy cab ride home). And you feel the connection was there from the start. I can’t make you like it, but I can make you listen, and just hope you do.
I first heard Sampha’s “who IS this?!” talents on this very blog, back in 2014, on “Wonder Where We Land?”. It wasn’t an album I really thought was my thing, and even on fifth listen, let alone first, it felt too odd, too patchwork, to take hold. But it did, and it was the incredible “Gon Stay” that pulled me in. But that, despite coming back to the album over the next two years, was all I encountered of the South Londoner until now. Having encountered “Process”, I feel a little foolish for this now.
But if it’s a debut album that’s taken a while to land, then it’s every bit the reward for being teased out. And while it’s a cliche, it’s more than just about the music here, as mesmerising as it is. These days we crave ‘story’, but the tale behind a work for an artist that’s worked with the likes of Drake, Solange, Frank Ocean and Kanye is one worth touching on, because it frames the album like an unseen assistant, a shadow over the lyrics and music that can’t be ignored. The Morden resident was a nascent musician as a child, but his adult life has been pockmarked by tragedy, his existence moving from single parent – his father Joe died of lung cancer in 1998 – to orphaned son, as his mother passed away from the same disease in 2015 in between his second EP and the album’s release.
It’s easy to talk of emotion and candour in music, such is the ubiquity of artists on social media, baring their souls (in 140 characters at a time) but Process feels exactly as that single word befits: a young man coming to terms with his place in the world as he comes to terms with love, life and loss in modern, isolating city life. His own health scares also sit behind the words of the record, and time and again the emotions are front and centre, with that incredible voice not slotting into others’ productions, but acting as another instrument in itself, and sounding the most powerful and piercing that it has yet. “Blood On Me” is a beautiful record, its staccato beats echoing modern hip-hop, but the piano’s chords carry punch, and the words speak of a man spinning close to the edge of control.
In fact, the feeling is one of boundary-free music, with Sampha’s soul pouring out unrestrained, even as the clever time signatures of “Kora Sings” or the simple arrangements of “Take Me Inside” cascade into multi-tracked synth and vox like a burst of of colour, despite the darkness of many of the lyrics. The pace may often be slow, but the energy and heft is always there, and even at first listen it’s a beguiling proposition. And for all the tales of suffering and anguish, the truth is that beneath all of it is a hugely talented musician.
The reviews are stellar, because the album has all the makings of a modern classic. A man whose career has been stop-start, halted by tragic episodes that may be the making of him. From all the heartache often comes the best music, and this is a stunning piece of work from a new British artist we should cherish.
This is dead good. In fact all their stuff is. Check out Power Dance too. But then you’d expect that when it’s Luke Solomon, Nick Mauer (of Greenskeepers fame) and a certain Al Doyle amongst others.
thisisnothappening.net 