At once joyous and soothing, the long-awaited debut album by London jazz collective Kokoroko arrives sounding notes of humid equanimity. That isn’t to say that this eight-strong collective aren’t alive to strife. Sounds of unrest are woven into this 15-track record. The staccato horn blasts and electric guitar solo of War Dance find Kokoroko at their most pointed. On Something’s Going On, a track that nods at both Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, the band’s massed vocals assure the listener that “something’s happening now”; it sounds like a set-closing anthem-in-waiting. Led by trumpeter Sheila Maurice-Grey, Kokoroko make borderlessness their business: the band’s source materials – Nigerian highlife, Afrobeat and Afrobeats – reflect their restless, diasporic makeup.
But there’s an easy-going beauty to this music that is more redolent of succour than anger. Some might find this record a little too pretty. Tojo opens the album with a big soul fanfare, and spacey electronics add more 70s echoes. Kokoroko’s transitions between London and Lagos are seamless and, on Dide O, unabashedly lovely; the brass mood is dreamy, rather than fervent. Kokoroko’s foundational track, 2018’s Abusey Junction, established the band as a pensive, elegant force and these strengths are reflected here on songs such as the guitar-led Home and lyrical album standout Age of Ascent.
Three stars
