Various Artists

Touching Bass presents: Soon Come

Genre: ELECTRONIC

Colour 2LP

Boomkat Product Review:

Touching Bass map South London’s rich hip hop, jazz and psych soul scene, and its rhizomic links to the US, thru crucial nodes such as Wu-Lu, Hejira, AshTreJinkins, Nala Sinephro, DJ Harrison, Clever Austin, and many more

Since 2017’s introductory comp, and over countless dances and NTS shows, Touching Bass has become a leading standard bearer of classic and contemporary Black Atlantic styles. ’Soon Come’ is their celebratory statement of solidarity and intent that acts as a class primer on the label in ’22, with as many tracks spanning interrelated, intercontinental vibes, Split between “day” and “night” sessions, the results imagine something like a glorious day/night out zigzagging wormholes between secret bars and clubs in Peckham, Chicago and NYC.

There’s a whole world to immerse in here. Dawning with the groggy downbeat rap of ROG & Brother Portrait’s ‘The Lighthouse’, it stretches far out from Roy Ayers-ian sunny day soul by Warp’s Wu-Lu, to the lower case folk soul of Hejira and a shimmering vignette by Nala Sinephro x Lyle Barton, with supremely woozy jazz-soul gems by Ego Ella May in ‘Miss U’, and keiyaA’s ‘Camille’s Daughter’, to name a few.

Night follows day with equally high quality on offer. Cowrie’s smudged broken beat soul brings the dusk before Arnheim turns on the deep jazz house flex, and Melo-Zed trade in punk psych funk chops beside a sizzling disco-funk workout by Stones Throw’s DJ Harrison, and AshTreJinkins psychedelic UKG ace ’Sunshine2point0’, with Ben Haucke’s mutant 2000 broken beat wriggler giving way to slower, soul jams by Beaux, Eun & Demae, and the crack of dawn feel to ‘Dïs & Dissolve’ by Molinaro.

Colour 2LP (22)