The Nostalgia 77 Octet: Weapons of Jazz Destruction

With the third album from the classy Nostalgia 77 Octet, Benedic Lamdin has proven himself to be not just one of Tru Thoughts’ brightest stars, but one of Britain’s future knights. The improvement of skill as a musical mastermind from his first comparatively synthetic album as Nostalgia 77, to this glowing work of elegant, old school jazz is as obvious as Mike Huckabee’s fascist agenda. Gawd bless the 2004 cover of “Seven Nation Army” Ben made with Alice Russell, but these Weapons Of Jazz Destruction blow it away with every single orchestration of poetry café, cat on a table, finger-snapping charm. It’s like a soundtrack to a long lost Steve McQueen detective flick. This album is so addictive, it could’ve got Miles Davis in his prime off the junk. When house producer and Tru boss Will “Quantic” Holland founded the Quantic Soul Orchestra, he did so to “put something back” after years of greedy sampling. With just this one album, Benedic has himself covered for years in that regard. He can do no wrong.