Album Review: Everything Is Nothing by Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart

His longtime band consists of drummer Marc Layton-Bennett, acoustic pianist George King, guitarist Martin Chung, and Michael Rendall on Rhodes, vibes, synths, and strings, appended by sax players Chet Doxus, Alex Ward, and Hawkwind's Nik Turner, and trumpeter Sean Corby. Legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen also lends a hand selectively, adding physical heft and drive. "Cosmic Blueprint" melds Stanley Cowell-esque modalism, colossally funky Afrobeat, wonky electronics, and insane breaks topped off by King's sparkling piano solo.

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If there’s one thing his recent career anthology Redux made abundantly clear, it’s that Jah Wobble has always relished a challenge. As that singular, multi-disc retrospective demonstrated, Wobble’s nimble, dub-infused basslines have credibly underpinned everything from jazz to world music and even TV themes in the 35 years since he quit PiL; a nomadic spirit that has ensured he’s never been easy to pin down. Wobble flirted with disco and ambient music respectively on his last two studio sets, Psychic Life (2011) and 2013’s Anomic.

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English bassist John Wardle has devoted more than thirty years of his life to ducking and diving through various corners of fringe music. The closest he ever came to the mainstream was his brief involvement with Public Image Ltd, a band that carried much weight in the early ‘80s thanks to one former Sex Pistol frontman equipped with a knack for flamboyance. After the initial PiL lineup went their separate ways, Wardle wandered between bands and genres, one of which being his own funk-meets-dub-meets-worldbeat project known as the Invaders of the Heart.

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