The Balearic Islands meet Detroit on Gala Drop’s first album in six years, after a chance meeting in Lisbon between the Portuguese collective and Motor City expat Jerrald James, aka Jerry The Cat. Primarily a percussionist, the some-time Parliament collaborator leaps into the record’s web of spaced-out afrobeat and disco as a singer. His beaten vocal casts melancholy over the dubby ‘All Things’, but ‘Big City’ is more explicit in expressing his hometown’s rich/poor divide, with a refusal to “be a victim” of controlling powers with “too much money on the brain.” It adds a steely intent to the humidity of instrumental jams ‘Monad’ and ‘Samba da Maconha’, giving ‘II’ a narrative beyond a simple groove addiction.
Simon Jay Catling