Jamiroquai - Emergency on Planet Earth (1993 UK Sony Soho Square Original 2LP)

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Jamiroquai - Emergency on Planet Earth | 2 x Vinyl LP - 1993 UK Original (Sony Soho Square 474069 1)

Jay Kay signed to Sony before he had a band. "When You Gonna Learn" had come out on Acid Jazz Records in late 1992, written and sung by Kay alone, Andrew Levy from the Brand New Heavies playing bass, and it worked well enough that Sony offered a major-label deal on the strength of that single. Kay assembled the lineup quickly: Toby Smith on keyboards, Stuart Zender on bass, Nick Van Gelder on drums, Wallis Buchanan on didgeridoo, with a wider circle of guitarists, percussionists and horn players filling out the sessions.

The album sounds like a band that has been playing together for years, which they had not. The rhythm section of Zender and Van Gelder locks hard from "Too Young to Die" onward, Zender's Warwick Streamer and Music Man Stingray giving the low end the weight and responsiveness the songs depend on. "Hooked Up" and "If I Like It, I Do It" run on his basslines as much as on Kay's vocals. The Reggae Philharmonic Strings appear on two tracks, adding orchestral layers without overwhelming the funk underneath. Gary Barnacle on saxophone and flute, John Thirkell on trumpet and Richard Edwards on trombone complete the horn section.

The material is politically charged. "Emergency on Planet Earth" addresses environmental destruction. "Revolution 1993" runs ten minutes and builds through several phases. "Music of the Mind" and "Blow Your Mind" deal with consciousness. "Didgin' Out" is Buchanan's solo feature, the yidaki unaccompanied. The album draws openly on Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone and the entire early 1970s soul-funk vocabulary, but the combination of Buchanan's didgeridoo, DJ D-Zire's turntable scratching and the acid jazz rhythms of the early 1990s London scene gives it a specific period character that belongs entirely to this moment.

Original 1993 UK 2LP pressing on Sony Soho Square, pressed at Sony/CBS Haarlem. Gatefold with lyric inner sleeves.