Returning to Kaya Street For Fuller Soul Sessions

In November last year I was mightily impressed with Bristol soul-reggae producer Kaya Street, and reviewed their EP The Soul Sessions, read it here for there’s no reason to go back through rewriting it, everything I said stands, except for one section….

At the time I praised Kaya Street for the experimental fusions which seemed to switch from four-beat soul and jazz into offbeat reggae, simultaneously evoking sounds of Africa like soukous. I said, “it’s not the ingredients in Kaya Street’s melting pot which makes it prominently interesting and beguiling, rather the way they stir it, the method in the composition and production.”

Despite taking into account albums like Mo Wax’s 1996 Money Mark’s Keyboard Repair Kit, which used short fragments and splinters of ideas deliberately juxtaposed to create a kind of musical mosaic, I did make a slight criticism about The Soul Sessions, and that was that they were underdeveloped and tended to end abruptly and far too soon. I stated at the time,  “If I am to find some niggly, it’s a lack of intro; the songs tend to jerk right in, but I guess it’s because I have the single edits here, and Kaya Street’s impressive lineup is plentiful to convince me they know the formula to extend and polish.” 

I am glad to hear that has now been amended and extended versions of the radio edits have been uploaded to Spotify. Each tunenow runs at an average five to seven minutes, and sounds complete. It’s now time to fully ingest the absolute magic of Kaya Street, in which you’re taken in smoother and played out satisfied by more wholesome versions of their interesting and wonderful fusions, and melting pot of influences, and, in turn, the journey is now complete.

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Brian on FullTone Festival

Our regular historian and Visiting Research Fellow of The Regional History Centre, UWE Bristol, Brian Edwards takes some time to sketch the FullTone Orchestra ahead of next…

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