Events

The debut album by Emma-Jean Thackray feels exactly like the sort of thing we’ve been longing for over the last 12 months: a transcendent, human, shared experience. Across its 47 minutes, Yellow draws glowing lines between ‘70s jazz fusion and P-funk, the cosmic invocations of Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane and the gorgeous orchestration of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. “I wanted the whole thing to sound like a psychedelic trip,” explains Thackray. “You put on the first track, it takes you through this intense thing for almost an hour, and then you emerge on the other side transformed.”

Bandleader, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Emma-Jean Thackray was born and raised in Yorkshire but is today a resident of Catford, south-east London. Her 2020 EPs Um Yang 음 양 and Rain Dance marked Thackray out as standard-bearer of a spiritually-minded, dancefloor-angled take on jazz that stood at a slight remove from the broader UK scene. But Yellow – released on Thackray’s own Warp Records-affiliated imprint, Movementt – feels like a further step into a fresh and distinct space. Its 14 tracks bloom with brass and strings, choral segments and ecstatic chants. But this deeper, richer sound is not at the expense of immediacy. “The groove is the most important thing,” says Thackray. “Even if it’s a tune that’s really mad and free, all kinds of crazy shit happening, there’s usually a groove there – an anchor, locking it down.”

If Yellow sounds like an ecstatic live experience, that is intentional. Still, it conceals much about the way it was created. It features performances from Thackray’s long-term band – drummer Dougal Taylor, pianist Lyle Barton and tuba player Ben Kelly – caught in sessions between London and Margate. But it was in large part concocted in her home studio, Thackray cutting, splicing and multitracking vocal and instrumental takes until the finished compositions bore little resemblance to what went down in the studio. Take a track like “About That”. Its jockeying horns and licks of Rhodes give it the feel of an improv jam, but besides sampling from her drummer, it’s Thackray playing all the parts and lacing them together. Really, you might best understand what Thackray does through reference to auteur figures like Brian Wilson or Madlib, who straddle instrumentation, arrangement and production in order to bring the sound in their head to fruition. “My band don’t really get an opinion,” she laughs. “It’s kind of like, ‘Thank you for this bit, I’m gonna take that away now.’ And then they don’t see me for months. But there’s a love, and a trust, there.”