Joe Armon-Jones Releases 'All the Quiet Part I'
The Ezra Collective keyboardist’s first solo LP in six years features Nubya Garcia, Ashber, and other London heavyweights.
Update: Joe Armon-Jones has officially released All the Quiet Part I, the first installment in his two-part All the Quiet album series. The ten-track project includes features from Asheber and Goya Gumbani as well as assistance from other artists like Nubya Garcia, Greentea Peng, Wu Lu, Hak Baker and Yazmin Lacey, all woven around Armon-Jones’ virtuosic keyboard and production work.
Stream All the Quiet Part I now, and head to Armon-Jones’ Bandcamp to purchase the project on vinyl or CD.
Original Story: Joe Armon-Jones is a musician of many hats — keyboardist, composer, producer, record label owner and member of Ezra Collective — and fresh off the September release of Ezra Collective’s Dance, No One’s Watching, he’s back with his first solo LP in six years: All the Quiet. Spanning 20 tracks, All the Quiet will be released in two installments, with “Part I” touching down on March 28 and “Part II” releasing June 13.
As a scholar of dub music, Armon-Jones spent much of the COVID lockdowns in 2020 teaching himself how to use a mixing desk, the same tool used by pioneers of the genre like King Tubby. His passion led him to create an entire at-home setup with everything from reel-to-reel tape machines to spring reverb, and he’d then test out the recordings on the booming Unit 137 sound system in London’s Lewisham neighborhood. “I got really into exploring the soundworld of dub,” he explains. “Taking that process and applying it to jazz, funk, and all the other music that I really love.”
Though All the Quiet was written, produced and mixed entirely by Armon-Jones, it features an all-star cast of supporters including Nubya Garcia as well as his Ezra Collective bandmates James Mollison and Ife Ogunjobi. After four days of recording live instrumentation, Armon-Jones went into the lab to add, tweak and chop, making use of signature dub effects like delay and echo.
Ahead of All the Quiet Part I‘s March release, Armon-Jones has also released “Kingfisher,” the first single from the project, which features West London dub poet Asheber.
Besides its streaming release, All the Quiet will be available via a variety of deluxe vinyl editions, one of which will be accompanied by a comic book. Pre-orders will open soon, so in the meantime you can check out the “Kingfisher” video above and revisit our 2022 profile of Ezra Collective during their three-day residency at New York City’s famed Blue Note jazz club.
