Chasing Shadows

Prior to Covid there was a wonderfully rich uprising of UK, and especially London based jazz, drawing on the UK’s bass music/sound system culture of Grime, UKG, dub, drum & bass, Afrobeat and more, and 12 piece fusion funkateers Nubiyan Twist were at the vanguard. This, their sixth album since their 2015 debut, continues their jazz/sound system aesthetic, with joyous hip hop/brass ensemble hybrids, churning, intricate Afrobeat jams, irresistible jazz dance head-nodders, while also branching out into more sweet, stepping soul-jazz too. The mood is almost entirely joyous, warm, inviting and involving, and mostly dance floor targeted, but Chasing Shadows’ danceability doesn’t make it throwaway, there’s acres of top quality playing and really clever genre hybridising on show here. Ten years into their recording careers, and Chasing Shadows is Nubiyan Twist’s most accomplished, sophisticated and perhaps most listenable album to date.