Home

Four years after his last album, Archie Fairhurst is back with Home, a third for the Ninja Tune label. This release marks a new chapter in the life of Fairhust who, since the release of Love Songs: Part Two in 2016, has left London for the countryside and started a family. While he moves away from the themes of love and romance and explores instead spirituality, identity, and belonging (as the bio says), Romare’s signature sound and texture, which fit together so well on his two previous albums, remain intact. For this new effort, Fairhurst has moved away from sampling to a variety of instruments and tools such as a vintage organ, his father’s old 12-string guitar, his childhood drums and a tape recorder that allowed him to create samples from cassettes. That said, despite this different approach, it’s roughly the same universe here, but the whole is arranged in a more fluid and coherent way. Romare kicks off dynamically with the first four tracks, then slows down the tempo and gets slightly lost in the middle, before coming back to the warm house grooves on the extensive “Heaven” and concluding with the charming “Home”, a smooth and sensual finale that concludes this excellent album superbly.