DORNIK - Dornik

The name is new and the album in question is a debut fresh off the press, but 24-year-old Dornik has been kicking around London's soul/jazz underground scene for quite some time now, where he's better known as the drummer for electro-soul singer Jessie Ware (the very person who convinced Prm Records to sign him after hearing some of his demos).

The formula is a curious one: Dornik crafts a disco-funk-pop sound that openly pays tribute to the most in-demand touchstones of American Black music, past and present, while spinning it all into a joyful psychedelic carousel of hazy keyboards, syncopated rhythms, muffled choruses and melodic lines that bend toward near-jazz flourishes.

He draws heavily from the 1980s work of Michael Jackson, traceable in the dotted vocal lightness of tracks like "Stand In Your Line" and the beefier "Mountain", but also from the stylishly synthetic Prince of "Around The World In A Day" and "Parade", who appears as a purple-clad ghost over the backing tracks of "Blush" and "Chainsmoke". From there we travel toward the present, chasing the more delicately funky productions of Blood Orange, and the more electro output of the Neptunes/Pharrell camp, with tracks like "Drive" and "On My Mind".

But that's not all: since Dornik is an instrumentalist before he's a singer, the rhythmic side of his songs occasionally takes precedence over the melody, creating quirky, jagged interplay between bass and drums ("Strong"), and the result brings to mind certain passages from virtuoso jazz-hop bassist Stephen Bruner, aka Thundercat.

"Dornik" may not be an album that has people shouting miracle, but it sounds extremely contemporary even in its unrestrained vintage attitude, and for a British product it undoubtedly carries a clear international flavour - the co-production credit belongs to Pop Wansel. Plenty of people have brought up the names Frank Ocean and The Weeknd, but Dornik comes across as decidedly more laid-back and breezy than those colleagues.

And that's precisely his charm: a sun-drenched, summery album, built on mood and rhythm, yet one that still keeps its songwriting well-crafted and knows just how to be playful enough to win over even the most demanding listener, dragging them into his fanciful world of painted palm trees, inflatable paddling pools, fruit cocktails and pink flamingos. Highly recommended listening on sweltering August nights.

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07/08/2015