PARTISAN RECORDS 27th Sept 2024
This is an absolutely joyous album, even more uplifting than their last – the Mercury Award winning ‘Where I’m Meant To Be’. Having honed their dance floor skills with regular touring, they know what makes people dance like no-one’s watching. The tunes, developed over 2023’s live shows are focussed on moving feet and you know, moving feet moves hearts too.
There are three singles included here – ‘Streets Is Calling’, full of blasting horns and big hi-stepping dance rhythms, the previous gorgeous Highlife sound of ‘God Gave Me Feet For Dancing’ and ‘Ajala’, where Hip-Hop meets Dub. The set has a live energy and is not one to sit down to. It’s as tight as the last album but more zoomed in on dance, sometimes going deep into a trancey grove on The Traveller or N29. Beats lean towards Highlife and groovy funk but the band seems happy to shift and meld in a tasty way, which is a credit to everyone from Femi Koleoso on drums onwards.
The mood is absolutely key with some pieces soaring with joy and happiness – sample ‘Hear My Cry’ or ‘Everybody’ for that uplifting jumping feel where horn hook meets groove.
Bands that combine artistic integrity, accessibility and radio play on stations like Radio 1 are relatively rare and special. Ezra Collective have hit that special place where it just feels right, warms the soul and makes feet want to dance. The first time I saw the band play, I noted that the rhythm section got everything started and in the pocket musically before the melodic instruments came in onstage and here, too, it is obvious the band is a marriage of equals with no part backing the other; all making the whole.
We were lucky enough to catch the band in late 2022:
Ezra Collective – Live in Leeds 2022 – “everyone a soloist, everyone tighter than tight”