- The street soul revivalist sharpens his sound and amps up the romance.
- J. Caesar's Take To The Sky EP immediately stuck with me after I first heard it last year. A collection of modern street soul with jungle influences, it was like a charming bedroom R&B tape discovered in some Manchester attic—effortless in its blend of styles and precocious in its almost stream-of-consciousness songwriting. Now Caesar, with co-producer Mali Baden-Powell in tow, lands on UK house juggernaut Secretsundaze for a slightly more polished and suave EP that brings him closer to contemporary R&B without shedding the street soul spirit that made his last EP so memorable.
Another Day, Another World was preceded by its title track, a tipsy breakbeat number with a worn-sounding keyboard riff and an distant, escapist vocal from J Caesar. His hushed but buttery tone lands somewhere between OVO act dvsn and Sa-Ra's Om'Mas Keith. As the track stumbles its way forward, little trills of squelchy synth dot the sky like shooting stars, reminding us of its '90s UK provenance. Caesar zooms forward to the turn of the millennium with the jumpy "Don't Leave Me," whose chopped guitar riff touches on Y2K pop and R&B, though the pumping chords and housey hand percussion groove are more like something you'd hear in Peckham on a Friday night. This contemporary feel extends to opener "ICON," whose toothsome basslines and bobbing hand percussion frame a delicate house love house song caught between the dance floor and the boudoir.
On the closing track, Caesar floats by the vistas of the "Pacific State." What starts with long, bold strokes of watercolour—and an intricately double-tracked vocal—ends up floating in outer space by the time it hits the breakdown. "Heaven Knows"' heavy use of filters and delicious baritone spoken word brings Caesar back to the throwback realm, but it starts to sounds more like his own syncretic sound coming after the preceding three tracks. On Another Day, Another World, J. Caesar starts to break out from behind his influences, creating something that could please old soul granddads and 19 year-olds at XOYO alike.
Tracklist01. ICON
02. Another World
03. Don't Leave Me
04. Heaven knows