Joe Armon-Jones - All The Quiet (Part I) (2025) [Hi-Res]

Joe Armon-Jones is best known as the electric heart of Ezra Collective, the Mercury Prize–winning band that has stretched the shape of British jazz with dub, hip-hop, grime, Afrobeat and a sense of ecstatic possibility. A virtuosic keyboardist with a composer's instinct and a producer's ear, he's spent the past decade collapsing genre lines rather than tiptoeing around them. All The Quiet (Part I), his first solo release in six years and the opening half of a two-part project, serves as both return and recalibration—an artist-led statement that puts his voice, style and intent at the center.

Fully self-written and produced, Part I traverses jazz, funk, dub, hip-hop and soul, and doubles as a kind of community cipher, with appearances from a cross-section of London musicians, including Greentea Peng, Hak Baker and Nubya Garcia. Though largely instrumental, Armon-Jones invites vocalists on two tracks, threading voices into the mix without shifting the spotlight. He folds in Afrobeat arrangements—tight, punchy horn lines that nod to Fela—without slipping into imitation. Reggae and dub-informed bass is the rudder, guiding the tracks with patience while drums and keys move more freely.

"The Citadel" is driven by a stuttering boom-bap snare line that ratatats through the mix like distant gunfire, anchoring a brooding piano motif and sharp, cinematic horns. The groove is taut, almost paranoid, hip-hop in posture but shaded with jazz's harmonic depth and a dub-informed sense of space. Each element moves with off-kilter precision.

"Kingfisher" shares that sense of friction, this time pairing a restless snare pattern with a vocal feature from Asheber, whose refrain, "Where I come from," echoes like a soliloquy and a prayer. Armon-Jones answers with spare, searching piano phrases, tracing the rhythm's shape without softening its edge.

The record's most expansive moment is its final track, "Hurry Up and Wait," which stretches past the seven-minute mark and offers Armon-Jones space to cut loose. It's a slow burn that builds without rushing, giving him room to spiral outward at the keys, less interested in virtuosity than in feel, texture and flow. © Randall Roberts

Tracklist:
1 Lifetones
2 Forgiveness
3 Kingfisher (feat. Asheber)
4 Nothing Noble
5 Eye Swear (feat. Goya Gumbani)
6 Danger Everywhere
7 The Citadel
8 Snakes
9 Show Me
10 Hurry Up & Wait