It probably goes without saying but anyone who's encountered the music of Leeds experimental pop troupe Adult Jazz has probably been eagerly anticipating new music since their debut full length Gist Is dropped in 2014. Fans were given a brief respite in the form of their Earrings Off EP they released back in 2016 but other than that, the band has seemed to be in a perpetual state of creative gestation. And yet every once in awhile a sort of creative listlessness results in a new project or collaboration or cosigning of a new project from fellow Leeds University musicians. First was "Other Life", a disco-fueled dance track crafted by Scottish producer Makeness featuring Adult Jazz's Harry Burgess on vocals, ambient project AEVA helmed by fellow university pal Dan Jacobs who also makes music as Glad Hand, and now Harry Burgess has teamed up with Jack Armitage of Lil Data for a forthcoming full length.
"Day Away", the first track from the duo's newly christened project Offer, is a twelve minute long rhapsody inspired in part by Armitage and Burgess' Internet message-board born friendship and a near decade of frequent improvisations both at Leeds University and beyond with their last session resulting as a framework of sorts for their upcoming album. Burgess' voice - capable of impressive contortions and at times unflinchingly harsh, finds a wonderful sonic match with Armitage as they seem very much over the course of the song's duration to throw more and more things at it and see how Burgess' vocals fair. Burgess' vocals have always had a particularly elastic quality to them but Armitage pushes them more so with the use of a controller though not enough that they splinter from the realm of possibility. It's tension and release but a rather unexpected pacing of such - after much of the bustle and brashness of its beginning, the track gives way to a languorous, introspective quiet which Burgess infuses with virtuosity. It's a track that pretty much transcends the trappings of genre: constructed through electronic means but so sincere and human at it's core, buoyed between maximalist pop Dada and the truth-bearing spirit of folk.
Watch the video for "Day Away" featuring visuals from AEVA.
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