“In 18 years of releasing music and being an artist, I realised that there were a fair few tracks that had kind of slipped through the net. I guess this is inevitable given how many albums and projects I've been a part of over the years. Either the tracks in question haven't been released, or they didn't get the proper release that they deserved at the time.”
One of those tracks is ‘Summer Nights’, a blissed-out instrumental with trademark, cinematic swirls and tight grooves that wouldn’t sound out of place on a beach in Ibiza with the sun setting overhead. Originally written around the time of his critically acclaimed debut album ‘Press On’ in 2007, the track came about shortly after Lack of Afro (aka Adam Gibbons) had burst onto the scene with the ferocious cut & paste funk of ‘Wait A Minute’, his debut single that was one of the hottest 12” singles on the UK funk scene at the time.
Since then, he has gone onto release eight albums as Lack of Afro, expanding on his early influences to incorporate jazz, hip hop, rock, disco and beyond, as well collaborating with musicians like Joss Stone, Wax & Herbal T, Mica Miller, DJ Yoda, Too Many T’s and many more.
A repeat collaborator Elliott Cole appears on this collection on the track ‘Lost in a Friend’s Eye’. Originally released in 2015, the track went on to feature in the BBC Drama Doctor Foster, but has been unavailable online since then.
“With a beautiful, almost wistful vocal by Elliott Cole (aka Leigh Coleman), it also features what I believe is one of George Cooper’s best Hammond solos on a Lack of Afro track. The fact that the Hammond L100 in question blew up shortly after this track was recorded is probably just as well as I don’t think it could’ve been bettered!”
Another previously unreleased track on this collection is Lack of Afro’s gorgeous, instrumental take on The Kinks’ classic, ‘Waterloo Sunset’. A rare cover by Lack of Afro, the track was recorded in 2015 for an exhibition for the artist Alex Echo.
“The Kinks are one of my favourite ever bands, with Ray Davies right up there in my top 10 songwriters of all time. So many classic songs came from him, and none more so than this. Instantly recognisable, it was a real challenge to come up with something listenable that did justice to the genius of the original.”
Last year saw Lack of Afro return triumphantly with his eighth album ‘Square One’, with the lead single, ‘Loving Arms’, finding it’s place on the BBC Radio 6 Music playlist. Off the back of that success, Lack of Afro is set to return to the stage, with his first UK tour in five years kicking off this November.
Tracklist:
1. The Outsider, Pt. 2
2. Lost in a Friend's Eye
3. Summer Nights
4. The Love You Gave
5. Waterloo Sunset
6. On My Way
7. Fugazi
8. Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances
9. Broken Samba
10. Dance of the Scorpions
11. Passive Aggressive
