Bleep

In a world beset by a cavalcade of horrors — AI systems run amok, the unceremonious shattering of human connection, the iron will of tyrannical autocrats, a biosphere on the precipice of environmental destruction — musicians are faced with a conundrum; to shy away from the dystopia, or stare it right in the face. For Jordan Rakei, to do anything but the latter would be tantamount to complicity. Since signing to Ninja Tune in 2017, releasing his label debut Wallflower that same year, Rakei’s has been honing his left-field neo soul craft. Drawing further emphasis to the ‘soul’ component with his third LP Origin, he recaptures the genre’s potential as messenger for the people, and not merely as a set of tunes that are easy on the ears.

That isn’t to say Origin isn’t catchy as all hell: ‘Rolling into One’ strikes an almighty, Chic-shaped disco pose; the irresistible future-funk of ‘Signs’ swaggers with a low-riding sway. Yet the introspective songwriting of previous releases is turned remarkably outward, zooming out from the personal to the political in a way similar to Marvin Gaye’s most daring work. This is a superhuman sense for melody, weaponised. The wickedly catchy refrain of ‘Mad World’ belies its central concern with surviving on a dying planet, while ‘Mind’s Eye’ considers bridging the gulf of experience torn apart by technological dependency.

With Origin, Rakei establishes a rarity in modern music; an album that deals critically in utopianism without being reduced to dogma, not once losing sight of the overarching sensuousness of soul music, even when it has so much more to declare.