As a very young man, London musician Tom Misch caught a few ears when he released a couple of beat tapes in the mid-2010s. While those beat tapes held some promise, they most certainly didn’t prepare you for his debut album in 2018, Geography, which while retaining some hip hop influence, moved much further into jazz and soul as Misch’s guitar and vocals took center stage. After releasing Geography, Misch connected with United Vibrations member and jazz drummer Yussef Dayes. The two soon began collaborating with each other, now resulting in their full-length album as a duo, What Kinda Music.

If you’re familiar with Geography, What Kinda Music isn’t too far of a stretch. It feels more like a continuation, with a further push in the experimental jazz direction. Misch has a sweet tone to his vocals, and he’s still mainly singing about romance, which provides the album with some pop/R&B foundation to build upon. Dayes then complicates this music with these incredibly tight and atypical drum patterns – he can sit back when he needs to and just deliver a good groove for a minute, but part of the energy of the album comes from the excitement of knowing that he’s always ready to bust out and push Misch in these unexpected prog-jazz-R&B directions. What this means in a practical sense is that you get blue-eyed soul from Misch on a ballad like “Tidal Wave,” which is a great breakup pop song that just happens to feature some incredible drum and guitar work snuck in, or the fun piano hook, and upbeat groove of “Last 100.” However, then you get some hip hop influenced tracks like sped up soul-samples on “The Real,” or the guest appearance of Freddie Gibbs on “Nightrider.” You also get extended instrumental jams like “Lift Off,” which also features Rocco Palladino on bass, where you just get three top notch musicians building and improvising on some post-rock/free jazz song structure. It all makes for an interesting listening experience that grows on you with each listen as you see how Misch and Dayes are connecting all of these different genres.

As an album, it doesn’t have as many and as big of pop hits as Geography, but from a musical growth standpoint, What Kinda Music is an incredibly exciting next step for Tom Misch. Frankly, I don’t need him to repeat everything he did on the last album, and I’d much rather see him stretch his legs and experiment on a sophomore effort. Yussef Dayes makes for an excellent partner in this endeavor, helping to push his song structure and to experiment more as an instrumentalist as well. It all makes for a really engaging listening experience that you’ll keep returning to.