Following their recent Grammy success with Family Dinner, Snarky Puppy return with We Like It Here, a live recorded ode to jazz and funk that proves their skill, not only as a musical collective, but also as song writers.
We Like It Here is clearly an evolution on Snarky Puppy’s earlier albums, but the remnants of previous work lingers. It is an album built upon far grittier foundations than any previous album. Electric bass is traded readily throughout for the powerful rasp of the Moog Keybass to create deep, moody funk and, when combined with one of the most rhythmically creative percussion sections around, spectacularly unleashed on ‘What About Me?’, the result is groovier than George Clinton’s Hair.
As the title suggests, We Like It Here captures Snarky Puppy at their most comfortable creatively. Perhaps their most stylistically varied album to date, they exchange soulful vocoder riffs on ‘Sleeper’ for Latin American grooves on ‘Tia Macaco’. But each track is a movement in itself. ‘Kite’ transitions from film score-esque orchestration to winding trumpet and piano solos while opening track ‘Shofukan’, moves from fusion through to a barrage of dirty horn-led funk that has the live audience off their feet with excitement.
Though it is an album at the jazzier end of the spectrum, We Like It Here is melodic enough to be easily accessible. And luckily for us, Snarky Puppy are releasing a video performance of each track every Monday for the next 6 weeks.
Rating: 4/5
