Drawing on UK dance music, experimental R&B, and hip-hop, this remix album to the London saxophonist’s kaleidoscopic jazz record expands on the eclectic universe of the original.
After years of dance music borrowing from jazz, in the late 2010s UK jazz musicians decided to return the favor, with albums from Kamaal Williams, Moses Boyd et al. drawing from UK garage, jungle, broken beat, house, R&B, afrobeats and more in search of a new jazz swing. In this context, Source ⧺ We Move feels like a logical next step for London saxophonist Nubya Garcia after the success of her 2020 debut album Source, a modern jazz record of kaleidoscopic musical ambition. Garcia called Source “a definite ode to musical history,” with the album taking in influences from Colombian cumbia, reggae, calypso, and modern dance music to create a vision of jazz that was both historic in scope and modern in feel.
On Source ⧺ We Move, Garcia has invited musicians from the worlds of hip hop (DJ Harrison), experimental R&B (KeiyaA, Georgia Anne Muldrow), broken beat (Kaidi Tatham), house (Suricata) and South American fusion (Dengue Dengue Dengue) to remix tracks from her debut, alongside jazz musicians Nala Sinephro and Moses Boyd, with the “We Move” suffix reflecting the new album’s embrace of dance beats. And yet, on the whole, Source ⧺ We Move is less an overhaul of Garcia’s work than a spotlight on existing musical ideas. Dengue Dengue Dengue’s take on “Source,” for example, lasers in on the reggae groove that pins down the album version, while DJ Harrison teases out the hip hop cadence that underlies “The Message Continues”.
Source ⧺ We Move’s weaker tracks can feel rather reductive when compared to the original album’s cornucopia of ideas. Georgia Anne Muldrow’s remix of “Boundless Beings” is pretty fine, in and of itself, but the decision to decimate Akenya’s bewitching vocal leaves the remix looking underfed. Suricata’s late-night house remake of “La cumbia me está llamando” (ft. La Perla), meanwhile, is too strait-laced compared to the original’s spirited and rather raw Afro-Caribbean slink. A couple of other songs—the Blvck Spvde remix of “Inner Game” and Nala Sinephro’s take on “Together Is a Beautiful Place To Be”—go too far the other way in their search for answers. Both are captivating and very inventive pieces of music but it is hard to see what, exactly, they have taken from their Source material.
Between these extremes, Source ⧺ We Move really takes off when the remixers match Source’s wild inspiration with metamorphic insight of their own. Two of the best remixes come from artists close to the UK jazz scene: Kaidi Tatham, a legend of the West London broken beat sound, with its syncopated rhythms and heavy jazz influences, transforms “La cumbia me está llamando” into an idiosyncratic dance-floor bomb, adding ductile bass, Roy Ayers chords, and a wonderfully sharp drum rhythm; while Moses Boyd makes “Pace” into a live drum & bass beast, like Roni Size & Reprazent with added creases ironed in. Chicago songwriter KeiyaA’s “Stand With Each Other” is another highlight, rearranging the original song according to a new internal logic, where R&B, rough electronica and jazz collide, the three pillars eventually dovetailing in a gorgeous chord sequence that breezes down halfway in.
More than a remix album, then, Source ⧺ We Move is like an expansion pack to Source’s electric, eclectic universe, opening up paths and byways that shed new light on Garcia’s work while staying true to her vision; a modular musical adventure that is best enjoyed in context.
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