Although somewhat of a rarity, on an occasion an artist will release a project that we get hipped to on the later side of things but with all good music, an expiration date isn’t noted which means we’re technically on time. The saying two are better than one applies here in this situation with the upcoming release of Glenn Echo and Daniel Meinecke’s “What Happened To Yesterday Vol. 2” which obviously follows up the previous which was released back in late 2023 as the starting point for this journey. Even before hearing the project, we were instantly drawn to the cover art which was created by Michal Rafaj and setup our anticipation to a high level of what we’d hoped to hear pouring out of the speakers. Where we find ourselves is in an interstellar soundscape of jazz fusion, funk, and dub that makes for solid sound selections and essential listening.
Serving as quite the companion piece, Vol. 2 grabs elements from the duo’s favorite moments of both their debut “Partly Cloudy” and Vol. 1, perfectly synthesizing the heady and dubby with the cosmic dance flavors, while always eschewing a genre-box. As the opening invocation “World In My Head” says, “why should I repeat myself?”, and the boys continue to push the envelope and find new boundaries. The A-side continues with muscular downtempo joints, with highlights including the Psychedelic Hip-Hop of “Explanation of The Funk” (feat. sultry trumpet from Dre King and cuts by DJ Stylus) and the Gogo-Afrobeat fusion of “Three-Season Crank” (featuring the brilliant Raja Kassis on guitar).
Over to the flip side, “Off The Rails” kicks it off with the most dance-floor oriented joint on the record. From there the album gets dubbier and more meditative, culminating with the blissed out “Black Bird Dub”. It’s the perfect come down after the earlier beatdown.
Glenn’s multi-influenced production is as inspired as ever, while Mr. Meinecke continues to show us why he’s earned his stripes as *the* seminal keyboard player in the scene. Whether it’s drawing from 70’s weed jazz, early 80’s dancehall, 90’s downtempo, or the most rippin’ jazz fusion, Glenn Echo & Daniel Meinecke round out the “What Happened To Yesterday” series in fine singular style.