Knats – Self-titled Review

Knats is impossible to talk about without referencing the collaboration which keeps their hearts beating. Collaboration includes getting your better half to drop the needle on Knats, the self-titled release from the Newcastle quintet, because you’re too ill to get up off the couch. You could crawl across the floor and hit the record player stand until the needle bounces onto this self-titled beauty, but that is behaviour unbecoming of an awards winner. It doesn’t help the listening experience to have thrown up a cocktail of booze and undercooked pizza on the path where Stan Woodward and King David Ike Elechi are photographed for the album cover, but it does add that flavour of home when flu-ridden and laid out on the couch. Crushed velvet never felt so good. Their energetic, infuriatingly brilliant work never sounded so good, either. Rare it is to find an artist you react with rage to because you wish you could do what they do, you’ll find that with Knats.  

Brilliant the whole way through. A self-titled album which will fly under the radar, like Chloe Gallardo’s Defamator. Impress your friends with superior musical knowledge. Throw them a curveball with Knats. It’s an incredible introduction to jazz fusion and the thrill of following unlikely, interesting creative arcs. You can hear it immediately on One For Josh. A song that has all the bars and hooks necessary to create danceable but catchy, cool jazz. That fine line between the jazz purist and the layman who enjoys a nice note is walked perfectly by Knats. Crucial to any great quintet is the desire to collaborate. They may have opened for fellow free-spirited creative Geordie Greep, but the in-studio work from keyboardist Sandro Shar and Cam Rossi on the tenor saxophone is magnificent. Woodward on bass and Elechi on drums is crucial to finding the driving force of the song. They’re creating a strong foundation for instrumental sensations.  

Everything comes together in the studio for a song like 500 Fils, a moving powerhouse of jazz-funk creativity. It’s enough to feel the creative surge through this self-titled piece. Satisfaction fills every song. Thrilling drum beats on Makina Thema (Interlude) stand not just as monumentally impressive modernisations of jazz-funk stylings but as new routes through to the energetic core of fusion music. Knats has nailed that with this record, a barnstorming experience from start to finish. There’s still scope for a few tender moments, a few reflective parts like Tortuga (For Me Mam). Truly touching. It’s music that’ll gut punch you but bring you around once more with a convincing barrage of experimental, flowing sounds. What a time to be alive. Knats is a truly tremendous piece of work, not least because Woodward and Elechi are willing to give themselves so totally to the music at hand. Creativity comes first.  

You can put Knats on the same pedestal as Sam Fender and Mark Knopfler. What they’re creating here reflects the times that’ll last once brighter days appear. Emotional sway in jazz is not a guarantee, though it is when Knats are working away in the studio. Brilliant, innovative material with heart and soul embedded in each song. In the Pitt and Adaeze have that quality instrumental overlap, dedicated listeners will be trying their hardest to seek out. Look no further than Knats’ debut album, a classic with such brilliant instrumentals to it. Depths like this are hard to come by, but just so easy to fall in love with. Outstanding efforts the whole way through this debut album will keep it burning long after the band has succeeded elsewhere, further on from this. Every album needs to fight its way to the top of the listening pile, it’s just a fact of easy access. Knats will linger longer than most records do, and it’s thanks to the embedding of emotional sincerity in songs of instrumental spirit that it becomes a magnificent modern classic.