Nubiyan Twist
Nubiyan Twist has been around for a while now. Very much from the UK jazz revival scene, which includes bands like Ezra Collective and Kokoroko amongst a good few others, these are young musicians carving themselves a new path in what is clearly an evolution of experimental poloneck-wearing oldsters looking for jollies in post-trad jazz bands!
A shared characteristic with their peers shines through, with dynamic playing and a heavy lean towards Africa as opposed to middle-class city-dwelling music.
Azimuth comes from the new album Chasing Shadows and will definitely give your car audio system a serious shake down!
As always, I listened to a Qobuz Hi-Res rendering(24bit 44.1kHz), streamed via LDAC from my phone to an Audison bit B-con LDAC-equipped Bluetooth receiver. This ensures a clean digital signal all the way to the amplifier, bypassing the standard head unit completely.
The track begins with drums featuring a side-stick snare drum and a deep kick drum, along with many other percussive sounds. A tinkling piano enters, and the whole ensemble begins to give your upper mids and tweeters a challenge. I have to say all elements were easy to unpick on my Audison Forza-driven Voce, II system. At 8 seconds, a really together low bass guitar enters, which gives my Prima APBX 8AS something to think about.
The bass notes are low, strong, and powerful, leaving a good deal of space in the lower midrange for colour and contrast. At 20 seconds, what sounds like a Tuareg nomad calling his camel heralds the arrival of a very tight brass section playing, what becomes a recurring theme for the listener to hang their hat on!
Vocalist Eniola starts singing, accompanied by layers of backing vocals and tremolo guitar, join the keyboard to create full and interesting chordal voicings. At 54 seconds, percussion is left alone like a Samba street band. There is even a whistle! Vocals return with bass, guitar and keys. The bass is still solid as a rock, holding the whole track together!
At 2m2s, the vocals end, and the brass takes over, developing the main theme into a cleverly contrived instrumental section. Job done, they hand over to the piano player, who takes a well-deserved solo before the brass section returns with the main theme again. At 3m50s, the track breaks down, leaving just piano and vocal with what sounds like wind high up in a jungle canopy with bird song. Piano and vocals resolve by going up a tone, which is quite a pleasing take on a suspended cadence, leaving just the wind and the birds, which gently fade away.
This track makes it straight to my audition playlist. It is very busy in the high mids, where most factory-standard audio suffers, and it proves to be very revealing!
Give it a listen and tell us what you think!
Image Credits: @nubiyantwist on Instagram