The 5th Exotic

The debut album from British DJ, multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader and producer Will Holland was entirely written, produced and arranged by Holland in his bedroom studio, at the age of 21. Appearing during what you could call the ‘second wave of chill out’ in the early 2000s with acts like Groove Armada and Zero 7 achieving big cross-over success, The Fifth Exotic mines a similar seam of laid-back, sample-based, club-adjacent music, drawing on jazz, soul, funk, dub and Latin with a selection of supa-tight, rock-solid beats at the very heart of each tune. Holland, who also played guitar and double bass on the album, expertly combines samples of acoustic instrumentation, fresh recordings and sequenced elements, constantly mixing up his genres. Long Road took the instrumental hip hop template and gave it a lo-fi, library music, sub-jazz feel, the gloomy piano samples, heavily processed drum breaks and general brooding intensity of Time Is The Enemy could be a tribute to DJ Shadow, and In The Key Of Blue is similarly emotive, a percussive, abstract, trip-hop mini-epic that gradually unfurls without ever making any kind of big statement. A highly accomplished debut that is continually involving and evolving, one of the best of its type at the time.