Matt Bianco New Cool Collective HIGH ANXIETY. Dox Records

In 2015 a string of inspirational encounters led Matt Bianco founder and singer Mark Reilly to combine forces with Amsterdam based jazz pioneers New Cool Collective for a collaboration that resulted in an album entitled ‘The Things You Love’. Reilly subsequently released another successful Matt Bianco album in 2017 entitled ‘Gravity’ and toured around the world to promote it. Fast forward to early 2020, and both parties found themselves recording together again in Amsterdam, adding the South American cumbia and other new sounds to their joint fascination with Latin, jazz, soul and R&B.

“Although I attended some rehearsals in Amsterdam to work on arrangements of song ideas NCC had put together, I deliberately didn’t present many song ideas myself. For me it would be an interesting challenge as the essence of collaboration is that creatively you arrive at a piece of work you wouldn’t have thought of if you had written everything yourself,” explains Mark Reilly.

The coronavirus pandemic struck in the middle of the sessions, resulting in further recordings having to be made from a distance.

Continues Reilly: “It was quite daunting at first when NCC sent me ten backing tracks from their live recording sessions to work on in my studio in the UK, but I soon got into it, sending rough mixes back to them for comments as the tunes became complete with melodies, vocals, lyrics and sometimes rearrangements of the tracks.”

After a period of intense online collaboration, the album began to take shape.

“I started doing the mixes and sending them over to NCC for comments and after making a series of adjustments back and forth we arrived with an album we were all really excited about,” Reilly recalls.

The result is HIGH ANXIETY, a record that sees both parties taking a giant step forward from their first project together and one that ranges from brisk uptempo numbers such as the title track to the mysterious cumbia-influenced ‘When the Ghosts Come Out to Play’.

http://www.mattbianco.com/

Review

I still possess and play 1984’s WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON by Matt Bianco which caused such a worldwide stir back then, and has even been reissued in a special form in 2016. The combination of jazz and Latino sounds brought the genre into the mainstream like few other releases. HIGH ANXIETY follows a similar path albeit with a much greater Mexican/Latino ingredient. Mark Reilly takes the lead vocal role throughout, starting with the breakneck speed of title track ‘High Anxiety’ with its heavy brass and powerful rhythmic backdrop. The melody comes in truckloads - it’s a throbbing, exciting opening line.

The heavy Latin tones of ‘The Big Mouth’ comes next and with it the need to get those Latin dance legs motivated. Superb. ‘When The Ghosts Come out To Play’ has a cinematic feel as it winds its scary way through its Middle Eastern influence (you can imagine the belly dancers winding their way around the dance floor to this one…). ‘The Spice Of Life’ is an audiophile beauty with its opening ocean-deep bass line and continuing rhythmic underbelly. The sound clarity is nothing short of stunning.

‘I Won’t Be Sad To See You Go’ has a disticnt basa nova flavour, driving rhythm and strong melody. Instrumental performances so far are masterful and this is no exception including some wonderful jass sax moments. It’s one of my record highlights. ‘Unconditional’ is slow, calculating lounge jazz and noptable also for Reilly’s relaxed and smooth vocal performance. ‘Grain Of Sand’ ups the pace a little in what is another smooth jazz ballad with meaningful romantic lyrics: “The time has come for me to say it’s over, it’s over/I thought our love would be like grains of sand running through my hands.”

‘It’s The Same Old Story’ Reilly returns with another liquid vocal with snatches of trumpet punctuating the song. ‘If You Feel Like Dancing’ is made for the dance floor and fast rotating Latin hips. This is an album for our times: It’s joyous, exhuberant with subtle changes of mood. The instrumental performances are superb, while vocals are tailormade and excellent. If you like jazz with a distinctly Latin flavour and do a little ’strictly’ in your lounge, this is for you.

4/5