Yellow (Gatefold LP)

In the ever bright constellation of UK jazz players, Yorkshire-born Emma-Jean Thackray is a supernova. She's not only a trumpeter but a beat maker, composer, multi-instrumentalist, radio host and now a label head, with her own imprint Movementt - through Warp Records.
Thackray occupies a unique space within the electrifying rejuvenated UK jazz scene - one with a skywards gaze towards the psychedelia-tinged exploratory pioneers of the wider US movement of the sixties and seventies, and an eagerness to blend these with myriad other sounds.

Thackray's compositions are of a 70s jazz fusion and spiritual persuasion, and yet they are often aimed at the dance floor - nourishing late night heaters that bring the restless freneticism of broken beat and house into the fray. "Everything I release is based around the mantra 'Music to move the mind, move the body, move the soul'," she has said.

The release of her brilliantly vibrant debut album, Yellow, is the long-form, sonic accomplishment of this experimentation.

"I wanted the whole thing to sound like a psychedelic trip," explains Thackray. "You put on the first track, it takes you through this intense experience for almost an hour, and then you emerge on the other side transformed."

The result is an album that speaks the language of positivity, as rich lyrically as it is musically. You might best understand what Thackray does through reference to auteur figures like Brian Wilson or Madlib, who straddle arrangement, instrumentation and production in order to bring the sound in their head to fruition.

Bursting with innovation, musicality and a pure, binding sense of positivity, fans from across the spectrum of everything from the Coltranes and Sun Ra to J Dilla and Kaidi Tatham will form a strong connection with this stunning record.
Inspired collaborations include Squid, beat scientist Makaya McCraven as well as verses from Blu and Pinty.

Yellow feels exactly like the sort of thing we've been longing for over the last 12 months: a human, shared, transcendent experience.