Trip hop is everywhere these days. From Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey on down, some of the biggest artists in the world channel a smoky, bluesy, late 90s mood – and in the UK something even more interesting is happening that taps into a longer, deeper continuum.
In the burgeoning soul/jazz underground (and mainstream!) the likes of Jorja Smith, Dave Okumu, Yazmin Lacey are all tapping into a wellspring of uniquely British introspective groove that runs not just through Massive Attack and Nightmares On Wax but back through Sade, Soul II Soul to the years of lovers rock and Cymande.
Squarely in this space sits Rosie Lowe’s third solo album. Over the past decade, she’s shown a great amount of range, bringing experimental indie, post-classical composition and more into the mix – working with maverick talents like Little Simz, Jay Electronica and Duval Timothy – but always with soulful expression at the heart of everything. And on this, produced by Lowe with Harvey Grant and D’Monk, that’s come right to the fore for the most part. The opening salvo of the acapella “Sundown” and hazy, woozy “Mood to Make Love” rolling into the absolutely classic trip hop of “In My Head” is one of the most enticing album openers you’ll hear this year, for starters.
Head-nod tempo and velvety vocals predominate, but it’s not 90s retro by any means. Lowe’s production is done with the scientific precision of the greatest sampler-wranglers, bringing out both micro details of texture and a huge sense of space within her breakbeats and instrumentation. There are distinctly spicy moments too, like the jagged, panicky funk of “Berzerk” and the bittersweet Detroit techno-leaning chant-along “Something” but they’re so well placed in the mix that the underlying flow of the record continues inexorably. This is a record that knows its history, but has an eye on the future too – but most of all, stylistic questions aside it’s an individualist singer-songwriter stepping up to whole new levels of achievement.
Listen to "Mood to Make Love":
