Stream Adult Jazz’s Excellent Debut LP ‘Gist Is’

July 28th, 2014

Nina Corcoran

Leeds four-piece Adult Jazz shared a video titled “Community Rhythms” two weeks ago that got our attention from its first few seconds. After watching a pile of humans tumble out of a white van, gather round in a school gym, and bust out a drum circle while frontman Harry Burgess ropes around them singing, we couldn’t help but obsess over what we just saw. Was this group therapy? A brilliant combo of folk, roots, and pop? A cult disguised as a band? After a lot of deliberation and even more online stalking, we found the answer: it was the exact type of introduction we needed for a band as complex as Adult Jazz.

Adult Jazz will see their debut LP, Gist Is, drop on August 4 via Spare Thought. The four men have carefully constructed an album that manages to kick off with drone, wallow in somber vocals, pulse with traditional drums, and raise its index finger as trombones, like a surge of clean inspiration, come in with a bright confidence. “Community Rhythms” showed us our need for human connection, through words or through rhythms. Gist Is carries that message out, only this time stressing the importance of not putting up a fight to control the pace of both music and life.

Give the album a listen over at NPR.