Jacob Collier

★★★ Djesse Vol. 1

DECCA/GEFFEN. CD/DL/LP Ambitious second album for London soul-jazz auteur.

Judging from this follow-up to his 2016 debut In My Room, Collier, a self-taught but extremely gifted musical polymath mentored by Quincy Jones, doesn’t suffer from writer’s block. Djesse, in fact, is intended as the first part of a forthcoming quartet of LPs, the rest due later in 2019. He projects the image of being a glorified one-man-band, but Collier here uses a bigger sonic canvas, enlisting Metropole Orkest to help create lush panoramic soundscapes. There are notable cameos, too, from soul singer, Laura Mvula, gospel-jazz vocal group Take 6, and Moroccan musician Hamid El Kasri. As well as memorable original material, there are two striking covers in the form of The Police’s Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and Lionel Richie’s All Night Long, both transformed by Collier into epic tone poems.