Picture a jazz club: filled with cigarette smoke and sweaty, buttoned down players, trying to outdo each other on a time signature that starts with a number that isn’t 4. On his debut EP Jazzclub, heartholder brings that idea into the current century; a drenched twenty something sneaking in a puff of icy strawberry against a backdrop of electronic textures.
Jazz has always been influenced by other genres, and Jazzclub continues that. It’s an amalgamation, not just a subtle reference, blending grime vocals and programmed trap drums against soothing saxophone licks and classic jazz motifs.
“I'm playing sax on my own terms now. I'm not being forced to play a jazz standard or anything like that.”
heartholder takes cues from modern jazz artists like Kamasi Washington and Takuya Nakamura, whilst moving beyond them. The iconic DnB amen break on ‘Silencer’ smoothly flows into a Yussef Dayes type of drumming, contrasting heartholder’s lustrous saxophone passages. ‘Overpass’ holds nothing back, with a grime vocal under a jazzy passage, interrupted by some deep 808s, sharp hi-hats and succinct claps. Finally, ‘Skim’ repositions influences as live drum samples, mimicking the progression of a midi hip-hop drum sequence.
“Making moments that feel a little bit out of time, or like they're pulling or dragging or bringing in sounds that you wouldn't expect to hear, or things that have a distinct groove, that you may perhaps wouldn't hear in electronic sounds, usually is what I've been trying to do.”
Words by Rafael Enriquez