Super review by Cal Gibson, of The Secret Soul Society.

Emil Jonathan‘s Copenhagen-based group of musicians tread lightly on their third longplayer, channeling Miles and Teo, Chick and Zawinul: all warm textures and sweetened, straight-lined melodies, moods conjured up and memories re-flickered, moments of solace for those of you scrambling for footholds amongst the madness.

It’s not a million miles away from London’s equally brilliant Lophae and it’s a lush brew of symphonic salvation that flows to the heart and back, to the heart and back. Opener The Sun is a phuture slow-burn banger: an ode to the huge lifegiver that works so well by keeping it lean and mean, Nicolai Land‘s bass gently pulsing, Jonathan’s clean guitar tones popping blithely above: a studied lesson in restraint, less is more-ish grooves that breathe through Rasmus Kjaersgaard‘s flute lines. A quiet solar storm.

The title cut let’s fly with melodic abandon: straight out of the blocks and dropping into Mai Lan Doky and Carla Zoe Vyff Soegaard‘s wonderful vocalisms, chanting down babylon, stretching out into the ineffable, rumbling and tumbling, burning down the house, sax and singers side by side, bringing it on home for eternity. Hotter than hell and a hymn for the dispossessed: superb.

Metamorphosis summons up the spirit of Kafka for a warm, sunny stroll through a relaxed boogie boulevard that, wait for it, is juxtaposed with the darker interludes that give the track it’s title: Gregor Samsa waking up and being drawn into a world of pain and mindfuckery. It’s a neat musical trick and works a treat.

Deep Woods plays us out, a gentle examination of the power of the trees, the solace of the leaves, the retreat into a greener, fairer, more loving landscape. Walk in the woods, follow the drums, lock into the bass: music and memory and mystical manouevres perfectly conjured up by Johnathan and his band of merry musicians. Rhodes lines echoing the sun falling through the leaves, the flute taking the bird calls, a holistic summation of a better life prior to the arrival of industry and machines and capitalistic endeavour.

All in all then an absolutely delightful eight tracks that are suffused with warmth and soul and love and poetry and all the things that make life worthwhile. Blessed are the music-makers: we come in peace for all (wo)mankind.

Jiyu’s Wild Things can be ordered directly from Dubsoul Records.