DOMi & JD Beck – Not Tight (180g Vinyl LP)

“My philosophy of life is don’t take shit too seriously,” says Domi Louna, born Domitille Degalle. And that’s fair. But the vibrant world she and her collaborator JD Beck have given us demands exploration. Their long-awaited debut album, Not Tight – which will be released by Anderson .Paak’s new label Apeshit in partnership with the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records – is an attempt to bottle their goofy, very virtuosic magic. Featuring special guests Anderson .Paak, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat, Mac DeMarco, and Kurt Rosenwinkel, the album exemplifies their trailblazing take on jazz.

Their music finds both humor and greatness in harmonic complexity and rhythmic shiftiness, abruptly adopting and ditching tempos, toying with time signatures, and sneaking extra beats into bridges. They offer winking breaks and gleeful pivots, but the album is more composed than anything they’ve done before, toying with pop structures and pretty restraint. That befits their origin story. The duo first played together in a room full of blaring demos at a trade show, but they bonded over gauche keyboard FX and mom jokes. Over the next year and a half, they wrote and recorded much of the album at JD’s house in Dallas on drums and a 49-key MIDI board with just a few mics.

Along the way, Domi & JD Beck have sat in with Herbie Hancock and backed Thundercat, Ariana Grande, Eric André, and more; they also co-wrote “Skate” on .Paak’s Grammy-winning album with Bruno Mars as Silk Sonic.

1. Louna’s Intro
2. Whatup
3. Smile
4. Bowling
5. Not Tight
6. Two Shrimps
7. U Don’t Have To Rob Me
8. Moon
9. Duke
10. Take A Chance
11. Space Mountain
12. Pilot
13. Whoa
14. Sniff
15. Thank U