- The million-and-one side-projects and world tours of the 30/70 Collective have come back together to form the Voltron they were originally meant to be. Music journalism is no stranger to hyperbole, but this is a big thing, yeah? In the blurb for the new record (their fifth?), they point out that just getting the old band of Allysha Joy, Ziggy Zeitgeist, Josh Kelly, Finn Rees and Matthew Hayes together again, they’re all pretty much big deals in their own right, now, so, 30/70 is, albeit unintentionally, a jazz supergroup.

Art Make Love certainly sounds that way. The good supergroup way I mean, not the other one. The ensemble is tight, the bpm is -for the most part- breakneck, you often don’t notice the solos because they just barrel along with the rest of the freaky complexity and, especially with the distinctly reverberant production the sound forms a seamless whole; sleek, with the sheen of new sports car.

Pursuing it in this unrelenting manner almost creates some problems. Each track is so densely packed that in lesser hands there’d be serious danger of it flying apart, but 30/70 make it move along effortlessly. I don’t know about you, but on the first couple of listens that made the sound impenetrable, actually even like it was a simple whole and everyone was just going through the motions. I don’t think I need to tell you that’s not the case.

It's more like the great jumble of stylistic parts that a band like this have aIways been able to choose from are clicking together more neatly than ever before. I think part of this stems from the stylistic arc 30/70 have been following. Ever since -way back- Hiatus Kaiyote turned heads around the world with their futuristic mix of jazz, funk, r’n’b, hip hop and so on, the fusions that have been floating up from down south have been getting more and more complexly eclectic. I’ve particularly enjoyed the addition of dance beats, a lot of which I heard coming from labels like La Sape; for all the instrumental noodling going on, these go a long way toward taking back jazz from the academy and returning it to the people, in the place where it began: in the club.

As always, everything old in music is new again, at some point and 30/70 have been honing their musical kung-fu to the sound of the ancient art of broken beat. Unlike other artefacts of UK club culture, like garage, I’m not sure how widely aware even the cognoscenti are of broken beat, these days. It began back in West London in the ‘90s, when heads from various electronic scenes - d’n’b to house and beyond - and jazz and funk types started splashing their styles over each other. If you read the wiki there’s a good quote from John Bush of All Music who called it "about as fusion-soaked as it gets”. That’s what I think we have here. 30/70 are really taking the lead in the fusion stakes and, more than that, they've clicked all those component parts together into that very smooth whole.

One of the members of 30/70 I’ve followed the closest is Allysha Joy. When I hear one of her records I generally expect to be treated to a manifesto on a tranche of progressive issues. Don’t get me wrong, in the words of Anthony Kiedis, of all people, “I love the music that makes me think”. Anyone who can unleash a political tractatus and still make you want to dance is doing great. I was sort of surprised by Art Make Love then, because, again superficially, it comes across a bit like a record about love; albeit a slightly bipolar one. Beginning with Without You, Within Me which is all “Please tell me where I’m going / When all I need is right here / Without U, Within Me / How dare you ever try and sell the secret!” That paean to personal power, authenticity and love within oneself is backed by All 4 U which is just smitten In every way I’m falling / I was calling you / I feel brand new / 2x soaring!” It’s like a lurch from personal centeredness to all-consuming passion for someone else. Well, that’s just life I guess and, because this is Joy, it’s delivered, if you listen closely, with more philosophical subtlety and spiritual fire than most. It is subtle and I may have missed some, perhaps many of the insights, as Art Makes Love proceeds through the stages of eros: all the beauty, pain, celebration and recrimination. I guess this is why we go back and re-listen to records.

In line with Allysha Joy’s political awareness, 30/70 are a very democratic band. Some of the things they do sound downright anarchic. They say: “this album was created with each member of the band taking full control of the recording and producing of their own instrument only to culminate in a unified sound, their synergy palpable as a singular force.” Which sounds like a recipe for complete disaster, but when you’re 30/70, etc., etc.. Another thing I’m curious about is the proposed blueprint for their live shows: “Allowing the audience to approach the stage from all angles, ears and feet as physically close as possible to the source of sound. Dancers are at the forefront, every room they play is organically transformed into a collective heat and joy for the love of the moment in blessed sound.” Sounds like they could put out a recipe book for disasters. At the same time I’m really keen to experience it and, given how much time everyone in 30/70 is spending in Europe (I think they’ve even started their own record label over there to put this album out), chances to hear them down under may become increasingly rare.

We already knew 30/70 were the real deal. On this record I think they’ve progressed to a point where it nearly exceeded my comprehension. Art Make Love approaches fusion singularity, a blazing point of light. At the beginning of this I talked about the dull ubiquity of hyperbole in music journalism, but you know, what the hell? if you stare into that light I think the silhouette of Sun Ra will appear and, if you take his hand, you and everything else will transform into the pure energy of love.

- Chris Cobcroft.