Variables

Album review

The symbiotic relationship between hip-hop and jazz has such deep roots at this point that we've seen multiple evolutions of this hybridization: the live bands who emulate and elaborate on the break-looping structures of the beat, the producers who use sample-based beats to imitate an ensemble of musicians, and the composers who take the technologically derived mechanical reproductions of hip-hop production and transmute them into malleable improvisational structures. East London-rooted pianist/rapper/composer Alfa Mist's sound seems to acknowledge the moves his precursors made in all these modes (even when he doesn't always use them himself) and the ensuing work he's made synthesizes those disparate approaches into a form of soul-jazz that's in constant recursive communication with this relationship. If that means Variables simultaneously evokes the '60s and '70s jazz records beloved by Golden Era producers and the beats those producers made from those records in the '80s and '90s, it does so without freezing itself in either of those eras—or even in the super-mellow post-Dilla/Nujabes "lo-fi beats" atmosphere these hybrids usually result in. His range is broad but links up ideas in a way that flows logically; the way "Foreword" presents a traditional bop-rooted charge out the gate and then switches up its rhythm to a swing-heavy take on trap drums is only the most audacious example. "The Gist" pulls off a subtler trick to stirring effect, with the rhythm's cymbal-stuttering fluidity egging on Alfa's electric piano until its glimmering tone starts radiating volcanic heat. And "BC" hits a sweet spot of drum'n'bass freneticism and Eddie Henderson-ian cosmic-fusion atmospherics that quickly unfurls into a spectacularly dynamic succession of intense solos. But Variables is never content to remain in one mode, and tracks like the boom-bap Rhodes-and-vibes loner rumination raps "Borderline" and "4th Feb (Stay Awake)," the highlife-inflected warm drones of Bongeziwe Mabandla feature "Apho," and Kaya Thomas-Dyke's airy yearning on the folky R&B of "Aged Eyes" show another way into this world—one where you don't need to be a crate digger to find new genres to stretch your wings in. © Nate Patrin/Qobuz