New release from Nothing Concrete, ‘The Imperfectionist’ is the fourth studio album by the worldly jazz collective, recorded at their eco-friendly hideaway far away from urban crowds in the south of France. It’s a record that’s global in the roots it grew from yet local in the space it occupied to take shape. The song structures carry the weight of travel – Afrobeat grooves bump shoulders with moody blues and quick tango asides. Every beat of the project bears the fingerprint of the band’s multiculturalism; rich horn sections, vocal harmonies that cut as clear or as close as you want them to, and a record that, thanks to the touch of New York producer Keith Witty, carries a sheen of polish that only serves to shine brighter through the unrefined edges it contains. It’s all given an emotional backbone with “The Boats”, an opening track that carries the emotional punch of a tearful hug from a friend, sung into your ear over warming swells of sound.
A slow-burn lament of a song, “Broken Bird” follows, a sparse composition of brushed percussion and haunting vocals that sound like a warning from a faraway place. “Cometh the Hour” chugs along on its own two feet, its muscular groove composed of tight yet staccato percussion and melodic instrumentation that drives the tune forward with an understated urgency. If “Broken Bird” is their haunting, “Empty Whiskey Bottle Mariachi Blues” is their swagger. A musical bro with a big heart, a dusty voice and loose-limbed and lazy, the song practically stomps with character. “He Don’t Do Much of That Now” returns to the slow-burn motif, this time sultry and soaked in regret. The title track, “The Imperfectionist”, towers in the centre of the album. The band cut their teeth on theme songs, and here they round up the record’s central message – that embracing your imperfections, owning them, and leaning into the wonderful imperfection that is you and your own lived experience – can make all the difference. It’s groovy and loose and moves with deliberate slowness, but the emotion at the centre of it remains unsentimental.
All this weight and it wears no crown, the band offer in the hook of “John Henry Lee”, a song that cuts deep with its dusty folk-blues charm. “No Force” bursts wide open on another infectious groove while lyrics comment on the band’s climate-conscious and timely home. The Afrobeat march of “S.O.S – Save Our Souls” offers a taste of subtlety-free funk that very much needs no subtlety. Bookended with quaking yet spacious percussion, “The Western” closes the album, cinematic in scope and on the border of surreal. A soundscape rolling across dry plains and rolling in slow thunder, it lingers. ‘The Imperfectionist’ is not perfect, but it doesn’t try to be. As a collection, it’s as lived-in as a record can be, thick with dust and the sound of bandmates sweating and breathing during every long silence. It’s an album that doesn’t have to shout to be heard, or strain to tug at your heartstrings. The musicians in Nothing Concrete aren’t just playing notes, they mean it.
English