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Feb 23, 2018 Web Exclusive By Michael Watkins

It’s fair to say that Richard Russell has paid his dues. By this point, the record producer and co-founder of XL Recordings, has spent 20 years out of the studio whilst his label landed some of the biggest starts in music—including Adele, Radiohead, and The White Stripes. After recovering from a long-term illness, Russell returned to the studio in 2014 under the moniker Everything Is Recorded, drawing heavily on his label’s established and rising stars to create a mixture of 12 tracks that are warm, vibrant, and surprisingly cohesive.

The standout tracks on the record—“Close But Not Quite,” “Mountains of Gold,” and the fabulous “Bloodshot Red Eyes”—all feature different artists, have different textures, and mix a brilliant concoction of electronics, R&B, jazz, alternative and dance stylings together. The standout performance, aside from Russell’s in the production chair, has to come from Sampha. The latest Mercury Prize winner had one hell of a 2017 with his debut album Process and continues his well-honed talents for collaboration here, on no less than four of the tracks.

It appears to be that the ethos of XL, an independent British label, devoted to discovering the best homegrown and overseas talent, is alive and well in Russell himself and is fully on display here. The album that the project has produced is perhaps the first truly fantastic record of the year and one that shows that, when we come together, we can create something that is much more than the sum of it’s parts, a lesson that in 2018, could become increasingly hard to remember. (www.everythingisrecorded.com)

Author rating: 8/10