Jim Noir - A.M Jazz (2019)

A record to be enjoyed to its very last second AM Jazz is set to place this songwriter where he just might, finally, receive the recognition he deserves; from unsung hero to a truly worthy candidate for being called up to join the City of Manchester’s ranks of great musical icons. Whether you prefer to know him as Mr. Roberts or simply call him Al, it’s time to become acquainted with the real Jim Noir.

Tossing his bowler onto the hat stand and sliding on his slippers, AM Jazz sees ‘Jim’ putting his feet up whilst Alan Roberts takes the lead. A creative masterpiece for the record player and the mantlepiece, it’s a multi-layered album that features close friends including those dearly departed, and is his truest record to date, by a songwriter painting his own hypnotic Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

15 years since he recorded the first ever Jim Noir EP, AM Jazz is the record all Noirheads won’t be surprised Al had inside him. Letting the Beatlesesque stylings of his most recent album Finnish Line be (5 years ago no less), AM Jazz suits the Noir repertoire of his catalogue so far and is another homegrown offering which sees the Daveyhulme composer tinkering in his suburban Manchester studio once more, with the magic of his computer work sorcery, analog and tape recordings.

Culled from around 50 tunes AM Jazz moves like the time of the day, from dawn to night, stirring from the pop of Good Mood and Upside Down’s Beta Band groove. “As the album was playing, I imagined this smoky backstreet with all those neon signs outside clubs at about 4am,” Al says. Mellow TOL Circle is like Percy Faith’s Theme From A Summer Place synthesized, capturing the style of TV library music or movie soundtrack obscurity that has always stirred Al’s curiosity, and the album plunges into a vast chasm of instrumental exploration with Mystermoods, visiting Japan’s funky synth whiz duo Testpattern and Hakabashi Sakamoto. Darkening and deepening in intensity, Eggshell is like an undiscovered gem from Angelo Badalamenti’s cutting room floor, the Panda Bear shimmer of Lander is where blissful positivity and sadness meet, about another of his friends who left the world too young.