Album Review: Odyssey by Nubya Garcia

Gliding effortlessly and with faultless logic and unifying inspiration across genre barriers, moods and styles, Odyssey takes the listener on a genuinely epic and exciting journey of musical discovery, firmly rooted in jazz but blissfully unbound by genre conventions. The follow-up to Garcia's 2020 debut Source is propelled by a particularly potent key ingredient in the form of Garcia's string orchestrations. Performed by the Chineke! Orchestra (the first professional orchestra in Europe comprised of predominantly black and ethnically diverse musicians), the subtle yet suitably soaring strings that infuse tracks like the weightlessly floating, beautifully swelling opener "Dawn" (featuring the vocals of esperanza spalding) with a majestic widescreen grandeur that hints at the string-infused swirls of Alice Coltrane's World Galaxy, even if Odyssey is generally a considerably more controlled and composed undertaking than that free jazz-leaning 1972 album.

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Following success after success, it's no surprise that the energy that buzzed around Nubya Garcia's new album 'Odyssey' was one of impatience and excitement. After her 2020 album 'Source' earned her a Mercury nomination , our expectations were high, and only increased when she welcomed 'The Seer' into the world. The single is cinematic, explorative and shakes free the notion that Garcia's notable success could ever see her relinquish her creative freedom in favour of becoming remotely mainstream.

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