James E Burton - The Quiet Rush (2025)

Based in Bournemouth, on Britains beautiful south coast, multi-instrumentalist and producer James E Burton has been quietly amassing an impressive catalogue of sun-kissed, self-released music immersive, colourful and imaginative musical sketches that defy easy categorisation. Burtons career is set to take a few significant steps forward with The Quiet Rush, his third full-length version and the first to be released by a record label specifically Phil Coopers Balearic-minded NuNorthern Soul outlet. Burton came to the attention of cooper via the recommendation of former Bent member Simon Mills, a long-serving artist who knows a thing or two about crafting beautiful, boundary-blurring downtempo music. Landing five years after his lockdown-produced debut album, the immersive and atmospheric The Star Rover, and two years on from its vivid and dreamy sequel, Where Do We Go From Here, The Quiet Rush sees Burton deliver his most imaginative, organic-sounding excursion yet. Cannily combining live instrumentation with synths, samples and electronics, the sets nine tracks bristle with brilliant ideas, memorable melodies, and the persistent sense of a confident artist finding his feet after years of instrumentation. For proof, check gorgeous opener Memories in the Dust, where stretched-out electric guitar solos and enveloping pads recline across loose and languid jazz drums, and the sub-heavy, samba-soaked shuffle that follows, The Bullet You Dont Hear all sun-splashed tropical guitar licks, bubbly keyboard motifs and select spoken word snippets. The album continues in this vein throughout, with the exotic Indian synth-strings, dubbed-out bass and morning-fresh synth sounds of Out of Time being followed by the squelchy bass-propelled yearning of the bright, dreamy and life-affirming Between The Waves. Burton pauses contemplatively on Solitude and Connection, where a dub influenced bass-line and hot-stepping drums come wrapped in leisurely guitar licks and meandering electronic solos, before serving up a slice of pure musical joy on the Rhodes-heavy headiness of Golden (Rise and Fall). To round off his most assured album to date, Burton offers up a trio of ear-catching cuts, with the bluesy, dancefloor-ready dub disco-goes-Balearic flex of Smoke being followed by the break-driven, mood-enhancing surge of The Quiet Rush where mangled electronic bass, leaping electronics, tactile pads, squelchy synths and gorgeous guitars combine to impressive effect and the jazzy, slow-burn Balearic brilliance of inspired closing cut Birds and Jets. Its easy to see why both Mills and Cooper were impressed; as an album, Burtons third full length is as imaginative and unusual as it is ear-pleasing and picturesque.