Why everyone’s mad about Jacob Collier
MEET THE MAN CHRIS MARTIN CALLS MOZART
distinctive backing vocals to Church, Cry Cry Cry and the title track. “Chris is one of the most brilliantly-minded musicians I think I’ve ever encountered, and so, so joyous. To be completely honest with you, I think there are very few musicians nowadays who are making music from the perspective of just being open and joyful.”
Collier would be another one. He’s so excited by it all! I ask him which instrument in his room has come from furthest away and he’s quickly scurrying around showing me all sorts of contraptions, from a guitar-like guembri given to him by the Moroccan Gnawa musician Hamid El Kasri to “a kind of washboard thing” that he found on Reunion island. He claims it’s thanks to him that Apple have upped the number of tracks you can use in a single production in their Logic Pro music-making software, from 256 to 1,000, because he kept hitting
I think very few musicians nowadays are making music from the perspective of just being open and joyful
Collier performed in operas including The Magic Flute before his voice broke. He’s still only getting started
the 256 limit. His record now is 646, on All I Need. On his recorded version of Moon River there are between 100 and 120 voices singing simultaneously.
“We live in a creative infinity age, where you can do everything all the time forever,” he says. “That’s great for someone like myself, who is such a maximalist, to really dig into what I feel is important, to explain it and explore it. If there’s any kind of goal I have, it’s to find a musical language wherein I can continuously explore music on my own terms in my own time. How do I bring Bartók to Coachella? Whatever success I’m finding is a bonus by-product. I’m too fascinated with the music to care about anything else.”
His world of maximalism ranges from his trousers, which are voluminous and multicoloured, to his albums. His 2016 debut, In My Room, won a Grammy (one of four now) for Best Arrangement for a radical rethinking of the Flintstones theme tune. It was somehow unsurprising that he followed that with a four-volume, 50-song collection titled Djesse. Its contents range from an Overture composed for the Metropole Orkest to a cover of The Police’s Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, and contributors include rapper Ty Dolla $ign, prog rock guitarist Steve Vai, soul star Lianne La Havas and Malian singer Oumou Sangaré.
Volume One was released in December 2018 and Volume Three is coming next week. It takes him closer to the pop and R&B worlds, with the funky In My Bones and impressively slick Time Alone With You sounding like he’s been listening to Prince and D’Angelo.
Collier has his own idea of how the four releases fit together: “It’s been an ever expanding sprawl,” he says. “Djesse One was this acoustic space filled with an orchestra. Volume Two was a smaller acoustic space. Volume Three is where all the weird and wonderful goes on and it gets real funky. And Volume Four, which will come hopefully next year, will be a really expansive space where everything explodes.” It’s been a long journey to get here. Raised by his mother Suzie Collier, a violinist, conductor and teacher at the Royal Academy of Music, he attended the Purcell School for Young Musicians and did two years of jazz piano at the Royal Academy. He performed in operas including The Magic Flute before his voice broke. When legendary producer Quincy Jones discovered his videos online and became his mentor, his career really took off.
And he’s still only getting started. Remarkably, he refers to the 50-song project as “the first chapter” and dismisses any idea that he might have bitten off more than he can chew. “I’m constantly trying to find more stuff to bite off! I’m just ravenous for the energy of creating and learning. It’s a cool feeling.”
If only there really were two of him, or six, or 100, he might achieve everything he wants to. He’s going to use every means at his disposal to ensure there’s a lot more music to come.
Djesse Vol.3 is released on August 14 on Hajanga/Decca/Interscope