Starting Today cover

Starting Today

Released

Excellent 2018 debut solo outing from keyboardist extraordinaire Joe Armon-Jones following his collab album with DJ/composer Maxwell Owin from the previous year. Starting Today is dense, psychedelic jazz and jazz funk with plenty of dub and soul influence, constructed from live performances and then layers of overdubs, post-production and studio trickery. Four of the six tracks clock in at nine minutes plus, their elongated form allowing plenty of space for individual solos and for the ensemble playing to interact and develop. 

Mollison Dub is a slinky and immersive musical blend, a kind of spiritual dub jazz reggae lounge composite, while composer and guitarist Oscar Jerome steps in for vocals on London’s Face, a genre-less song that, like the rest of the album, draws on many of the UK capital’s musical traditions while making something new out of them.

Harold Heath

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