Before a giant screen displaying fuzzy static-then-text art (”How long does silence last in your world?”) then computer-generated 3D swirls, dressed in the natty bespoke textiles of Jamaican-Scottish fashion designer Nicholas Daley, the evening's co-curator, Croker leaned over a mixing desk, tapped at a computer and triggered a flurry of electronic birdsong.
Beatmaker/rapper Kassa Overall, Croker's longtime friend and collaborator, swaggered onstage to spit conscious bars and – as he tells us after his fierce drum wig-out on 'The Fundamentals' – pull a groin muscle, and the intensity ramped up.
A new song, the hymnal 64 Joints, revealed Croker's voice to be just as resonant, and the laidback vibe was reclined further by the louche utterances of Lewisham's Cobey Sey, the first of several Daley-fitted, shades-wearing guests.
An early glitch – a missing click track was smoothly navigated with a burst of band-led improv, with Croker's soft, subdued trumpet tones, all long notes and simple melodies, as Davis-like as the comparisons.
Love Quantum, its 2022 follow-up, reframed modern African American music with a futuristic aesthetic, soaring from neo-soul, hip-hop, R&B and electro-grooves into its own space jazz atmosphere.
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