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Jayda G – Significant Changes

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Canadian DJ and producer's debut album blends disco and house-inspired tunes with an important message
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Jayda G – Significant Changes

Canadian DJ and producer's debut album blends disco and house-inspired tunes with an important message

Jayda Guy's debut album as Jayda G arrives at a peak in her career, after selling out four Fridays at Brixton's Phonox, starting her own record label and recently beginning her month-long residency on BBC Radio 1. Musical success aside, Guy has also just completed her Masters in environmental toxicology, investigating the effects of human activity on orca whales in her native Vancouver. Using her platform for good, Significant Changes (which shares its name with her final thesis) is a way to 'bring her two worlds together,' combining Guy's interests in a blend of classic disco and house-inspired tunes with an important message at their core.

The most explicit connection to the ocean comes in 'Orca's Reprise', a twinkling soundscape featuring actual whale sounds (!), that is a quiet and pivotal moment of anime soundtrack-esque calm amongst the funk. The lo-fi string sound that is key to this track is heard throughout the album, along with nods to the pre-digital era lyrically, especially in 'Stanley's Get Down' which urges people to get off Instagram and onto the dancefloor to 'get doooown'.

And it's hard not to shake your thing to party bangers such as 'Leave Room 2 Breathe' and 'Move to the Front', which radiate as much soul and warmth as the dancefloor classics that inspired them. Most of the tracks feature vocals – either by Guy herself or longtime collaborator Alexa Dash – which would make the grooves even more magnetic in a club setting. Unfortunately, there are a few moments when these belting soul vocals don't quite come off, sitting oddly in the mix and sounding a little clunky (in 'Renewal' and 'Sunshine in the Valley' particularly).

Making a disco album about environmental issues is an unconventional project, and it's safe to say that Significant Changes has a few bizarre moments. But what Jayda G's joyous debut does best is remind us that in a rather gloomy global climate, the best medicine is sometimes simply good ol' boogie.

Out Fri 22 Mar on Ninja Tune.

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