Jacob Collier Reimagined Discovery For People Who Need To Really Relax But Who Hate New Age Instrumental Music

For the last few years, when I've looked at Best Of album lists, or which albums have won grammys, I kept seeing the name Jacob Collier, and thinking, I should probably check him out. And by the time I did, I realized he was someone I was quasi-familiar with for his split screen Youtube covers. They're impressive from an arragement perspective. It clearly takes a lot of talent and time to do what he did, and he has a pleasing croony voice, but split screen covers aren't really a genre I enjoy. At some point, I saw him doing live          sing-along covers where he did a different song every night of a tour, and, again, I thought it was an impressive concept, and he clearly has legions of devoted fans, but it's not the type of thing I seek out.

So when his fourth consecutive album came out on the fourth consecutive Best Of The Year list, I did more research and kept seeing him listed as a songwriter. Not just an arranger. Ok. I bought each of his albums, and decided to give them all a proper listen to and see if any of it appealed to me.

It's not necessarily music I'm going to play frequently. He does have a calming tone and a rich voice. He hovers around several music styles, usually with a jazz/chill bent. You can hear the acapella kid in every track, nor matter how many instruments there are. And while, again, it's not necessarily something I seek out to listen to, it does fill me with nostalgia for my own time in acapella groups and doing musical theater. Even if it's not something I'm currently invested in, there's no denying that Jacob Collier is one of the best at what he does, and that alone means I'm going to keep going back from time to time to see what he's up to.

This reimagined album is mostly made up of the Djesse Sequence, which comprise his second, third, and fourth albums. 

1. Percussion is almost as important to this album as close harmonies, so we start with a drum beat, some tinkling chimes, and then the scat harmonies. The first lead singer on the album is actually Lianne La Havas who has a bit of an early Alicia Keys vibe as she breathily leads Feel, occasionally blanketed by Collier's multiple harmonies, as well as her own multiplied voice. It is a gorgeous effect. It surrounds such a simplistic, generic, easily rhyming song about first love that has an almost tropically soothing melt.

2. Rising out of the repeated vocals of the previous track is a single flute, eventually joined by multiple woodwinds and then, of course, close harmonies. Calling a song called Sky Above ethereal is kind of a no brainer, but it is. This is a children's lullaby/folk song with additional harmonies from MARO and Becca Stevens. 

3. In Too Deep comes in like a soft rain before the main vocals hit, at which point it gets as close to modern R&B as Collier seems likely to get. The instruments are pure soft jazz, as opposed to R&B but Kiana Ledé's vocals have an R&B tonality that plays perfctly against Collier's layered croon. The chorus mantra is hypnotic, especially the way it's buried in the mix.

4. We're back to intense percussion with Dun Dun Ba Ba. Fuck this song is infectious. This song is an example of Collier's genius at arrangement. The lead vocals have him sped up at an unrecognizable but not unbelievable tone. The Cuban drumming is efuckenlectric. 

5. There is another rise of layered vocals to bring us into the only cover I included on the album, Moon River is a song I've heard from so many different artists that I don't associate it with anyone. I will now associate it with Jacob Collier. He goes through an entire verse of the song with just harmonized humming. It sounds like a mimd-twentieth century Disney cartoon arrangement.  The second verse starts with chiming acapella percussion before the lyrics kick in. The final verse ascends from chromatic mantra to a seemingly infinitely layered choir. Like twenty Pentatonixes performing at once. It's nearly overwhelming.

6. From the absurd crescendo of the previous track, we drop into stringed instruments and a very Beatles with Beach Boy backing vocals vibe. It makes you realize just how much of a Brian Wilson influence is in much of Collier's work.  Make Me Cry is a soft rock pop future classic.

7. The title track to this imagined album, and the four album sequence it pulls from, Djesse is a self reflection and a romantic myth wrapped in one musical theater opener. Metropole Orkest is a perfect accompaniment here. 

8. With The Love In My Heart is more madness with The Metropole Orkest. It's tough to categorize this. It blends so many genres that it falls into the worrying category of "World" which is one of those genres that eans nothing to me, as it could be anything from anywhere.  It's usually the musical equivalent of colonialism and appropriation. But that's not the case here. This is a blending of so many influences that it becomes a new thing. It's almost Beckish in the best possible way. It then deflates into nautical bells and another chant mantra chorus.

9. Ty Dolla $ign and Mala join in the fun in the 1970s groovefest, All I Need. I love this track but don't have a lot to say about it.

10. Daniel Caesar and some cool effects are the highlight of Time Alone With You. We have more sped up vocals slipping around Caesar's chill delivery. It's almost Prince's Camille but with better technology. 

11. Do You Feel Love hits Much Heavier than any other track on this album. But it goes from its explosive beginning to a Michael Jacksonesque pop track. You know, heavy guitar riffs by a legend of hard rock (in this case, Steve Vai) over pop music that is somehow not incogruous. It also has lyrics about being dangerous, and, like Jackson, you like the song but think "Aw, honey, nobody is ever going to be afraid of your badassery." There is a nice moment of Freddy Mercuryesque background vocals just before we hit the obligatory chant mantra portion at the end of the song. Unlike previous songs, I think the chant mantra well overstays its welcome on this track, and I thought about cutting it, but I like this song as a loud outlier.

12. Thunder rolls us into a soft woodwind vibe before we pop back into the Jason Mrazy acapella style pop of It Don't Matter, complete with hand claps and snaps. Jojo's presence on this track is delightfully playful, as are the trilling keyboards.

13. Tori Kelly absolutely drives Running Outta Love, a straight up R&B pop song that wouldn't feel out of place in the early 90s or the early 2000s. 

14. Lizzy McAlpine takes over the lead vocals for Never Gonna Be Alone, with John Mayer on cosmic, echoey, guitar. This really feels like the end of a trilogy of songs that started with "It Don't Matter". I'm not sure if it's the three female lead vocalists, or if it's that Collier has a limited lyrical style, so it sounds like these songs are calling back to each other, though I'm pretty sure it's unintentional. 

15. Closing out the album is the first song I heard when I started this project, He Won't Hold You. It's pure Collier. He comes back to helm the song as lead vocalist until the halfway mark when Rapsody enters to provide the inspirational rap breakdown. The album ends, of course, on a chant mantra with layered harmonies. As it should.