KOKOROKO – Could We Be More

Creating an overnight hit could easily push an emerging act into rushing a debut album, but KOKOROKO were patient, and the results are rewarding

Album Review by Laurie Presswood | 01 Aug 2022
  • KOKOROKO – Could We Be More
Album title: Could We Be More
Artist: KOKOROKO
Label: Brownswood Recordings
Release date: 5 Aug

If the name KOKOROKO sounds familiar to you, chances are you’ve heard Abusey Junction, the band’s contribution to the 2018 Brownswood Recordings compilation of up-and-comers from the London jazz scene. Creating a standout track that took off overnight could easily push an emerging act into rushing a debut album, but KOKOROKO were patient (as we’ve had to be), and the results are rewarding.

Could We Be More is a finely crafted unit that takes KOKOROKO’s span of influences (highlife and afrobeat in the vein of Fela Kuti and Ebo Taylor; a solid education in jazz; the entire city of London) and spins them through a dream machine of sorts. Otherworldly sirens on the opener Tojo give way to astral reverb that ripples across the album – it feels as though ideas and motifs move fluidly throughout the record, such is the power of a coherent album.

In the brass there’s a tendency to begin phrases with short bursts of repetitive refrains, which is a fine pattern if used sparingly, but when relied upon too much starts to feel a bit like a page of writing made up only of four-word sentences. Though not too distracting, we feel the full benefit of the sound when they let rip and intersect one another.

Listen to: Age of Ascent, War Dance, Interlude

http://kokorokomusic.co.uk