Following up from 22a affiliate Reginald Omas Mamode IV’s 8-track Dilla-esque hip-hop vocal scat release All Together, Intimate Friends boss Marcel Vogel offers up the label’s seventh release himself with a groove heavy excursions record shaded with dusty blues notes that the label has grown synonymously with. Remixes come from one half of Juju & Jordash (Jordan Czamanski), Dear Earth and Reginald himself, and with praises flooding in from musical kingpins Gilles Peterson and Hunee, the LP doesn’t disappoint.
Although picking one highlight was rather tricky, ‘Human Being’ shines through from the rest for us. A series of seemingly improvised sections and cleverly layered vocals come together to produce a track that has a real R&B feel. Although the release was long in the making, with it’s slightly off-beat arpeggiated bassline ‘Human Being’ sounds almost spontaneous.
