The Return (Kamaal Williams album)

Keyboardist Kamaal Williams formed Yussef Kamaal with drummer Yussef Dayes and released Black Focus in 2016. Shortly after the album's release, the band broke up in 2017. With The Return, Williams continues the style that Black Focus left off, where "it focuses on pure groove, augmented with loop-like repeated motifs but achieves them with live drums, funk-driven bass, and smooth, twinkling Fender Rhodes lines".[1] This style was labeled as "jazz fusion", a genre Williams rejected amongst others. He considered the album to be "the essence of the London Underground",[1] which Williams clarified that the musicians involved were from London.[1]

The album relies on improvisation based on the "rhythmic exchange" between Williams, bassist Pete Martin and drummer Josh "MckNasty" McKenzie.[1] Williams said that "the whole album is a dialogue between the three of us”.[1] According to Michael J. West of Bandcamp Daily, "the seed [Williams] plants usually takes the form of a rough, basic idea: a motif, a beat, a timbre, or a combination of the above".[1] The band records jams for up to 20 minutes and selects highlights to use for tracks.[1] Williams considers this method "the most natural way to do it".[1] He and engineer Richard Samuels worked on The Return for six months,[lower-alpha 1] the drums in particular "took weeks" to mix.[1]

Matt Collar of AllMusic described The Return as a "psychedelia-dipped" jazz-funk record. With the "breakbeat-infused 'Catch the Loop,' and the equally kinetic 'Broken Theme'", the album incorporates "bits of modern electronic dance and hip-hop".[2] He additionally said that "cuts like 'Salaam,' 'High Roller,' and 'Rhythm Commission,' showcase Williams and his band's knack for dropping bass- and keyboard-heavy hooks, rhythm section motifs that sound like the intros, and hot mid-sections", similar to that of George Duke, Herbie Hancock, and Eddie Henderson".[2] The album "allowed him to shake off the darker edge that ran through Black Focus, creating a more laid back, funk-soaked sound", according to Angus McKeon of Clash.[3] John Paul of PopMatters writes that "the album's back half tends to lessen the tempos and allow for greater washes of synth to blanket the incessant rhythmic prowess on display".[4]

The first track "Salaam" has "watery keys and a groove that starts slow before working itself up to a bustling climax", as "MckNasty quickens the tempo, Martin strings together galloping phrases, and Williams begins making his own runs".[2][5] The string-arrangement of the title track was compared to Jon Brion's work on Late Registration by Kanye West.[6] The fifth track "Situations" was recorded during a live performance in Milan.[3] For "Catch the Loop", the track "employs a sputtering, machine gun-fire drum loop atop which Williams adds a series of vintage synth stabs", its rhythm then "lessens to a lock-step, club-footed march".[4] "Rhythm Commission" is "a slowly evolving groove that, by track's end, has blossomed into a gloriously funky exercise in rhythmic precision".[4] For "Medina", the track "opens on a musing electric piano introduction with a few streaks of bass running through it, then settles into a trancelike 3/4 rhythm with Williams developing melodic motifs on top".[1] The ninth track "LDN Shuffle" features guitar soloing from Mansur Brown compared to that of Allan Holdsworth.[4] The closing track "Aisha" is a minimalist track that has layers of "ambient synth pads".[7][8]

Music videos for "Catch the Loop" and "Salaam" were released, both directed and filmed by Greg Barnes.[9] After he and Williams worked together on "Catch the Loop", they saw The Return as "the soundtrack to an unmade, and epic film".[9] The next video "Salaam" was filmed in Marrakech, Morocco in two days. Williams said:

Marrakech is a special place for me, both spiritually and creatively. Every time I go, I feel alive again and it's a huge inspiration for my work[…] Working with local people in the medina and sharing our story with the community made this experience real. Barnes captured the essence of my relationship with the city as well as the colors and the energy of everything in it.[9]

Prior to the album's release, Williams listed tour dates for March and April 2018 in the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.[10] He also announced a tour in America and Canada for March 2019 in support of the album.[11]

The Return was released on 25 May 2018 under Williams' own label Black Focus Records.[12] The album topped the UK Jazz & Blues chart,[13] while it marked Williams' first entry in the Official Albums Chart at number 63.[14] In the country's Independent Albums Chart, it ranked at number 5.[15] The album reached number 82 in the Scottish Albums Chart.[16] The album debuted in the US Top Jazz Albums chart at number 3.[17] In the Belgian Ultratop Flanders Chart, it reached number 182.[18]

Reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	76/100[19]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Clash	8/10[3]
Exclaim!	8/10[7]
Mojo	[20]
MusicOMH	[5]
Pitchfork	8/10[6]
Uncut	8/10[21]

The Return was met with "generally favorable" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 77, based on 9 reviews.[19]

Kevin Press of Exclaim! said that "The musicianship is extraordinary, but never self-indulgent. There is a timelessness to this record that's as connected to the electric jazz pioneers of the '70s as it is to today's best fusion players."[7] Dean van Nguyen of Pitchfork commented that "while Dayes’ rasping drumming is missed, newly recruited percussionist MckNasty offers his own urbane rhythms."[6] He continued that Williams "present[s] himself as belonging to the same continuum as Yussef Kamaal while establishing himself as a solo artist[…] Yet The Return does even more".[6] Matt Collar writes: "While The Return implies, and often delivers on, Williams' clear desire to recapture the plasmic spirit of vintage '70s jazz-funk, the album is less of a return to past traditions and more of a rebirth".[2]

Nguyen gave light criticism for the short lengths of "Rhythm Commission" and the title track, stating that "there was room for this album to grow."[6] Ben Devlin of MusicOMH also expressed similar comments with the track "Situations".[5] Devlin also wrote that the track "'LDN Shuffle' never quite justifies its own existence over its five-and-a-half minute run-time, but such noodling can be forgiven to an extent on an album that is more about groove than melody".[5]

Credits for The Return adapted from album liner notes.[32]

• The Return at Discogs