Electronic music producer Will “Quantic” Holland has his hands in so many pies these days that it’s a wonder he can taste any gravy. Producin’, composin’ and remodellin music all over the show. His last drop, Magnetica, was a move from the studio towards the real thing, kickin’ with a truckload of genuine Latin musicians and the passport stamps from South America to prove it. This time the adventures have produced a set of new jazz compositions that tip the cap to the rich, intimate qualities of the recordings of the golden era.
He’s pulled in a crack team of musicians, The Western Transient, to make brilliant café music – Django guitars, Oscar Peterson keys and a tad of Latin funk, trumpets and horns in reserve. The stuff is well executed but given Quantic’s a man of many colours, especially in the alternative dance music it’s hard to see why reproducing your Dad’s old Harry James records.
‘Latitude’ kicks off the manifesto with a cruisey stance, and coupled with ‘Jumble Scale’, the title ‘A New Constellation’ and ‘Requiescene’ there’s a definite theme toward cocktail tunes and background fillers from ‘Mad Men’. Trouble is, without any show of a vocalist none of these tunes aren’t anything more than a flash on the turntable. Even the closer “The Orchard” really doesn’t fire. It’s lounge Jim, as we know it. But so what?
freshthinking 