NEEB: Taking Flight with Soul, Groove, and Open Skies

The following feature is now included in our online magazine which is also available in print.

Issue #5

There is a lived, in warmth to NEEB's new album Take To The Sky that is newly inspired, music recalling why the band plays music in the first place. The Hartlepool based outfit have been grinding years getting between shapes, dub, drum & bass, house, jazz, but this album is like arrival. Out in October 2025, it's a late-night synthesis of soul, jazz, and ambient funk that has the calm of experience and the urgency of rejuvenation.

The album puts everything the band have accumulated in twenty years into a way that sounds simple. You can hear it in the bottom groove of "Brighter Day," the effortless glide of "All Caught Up," the percussive push of "Cave of Hands," and the title song's beautiful rise, off. There's space and groove, rhythm and space. Singer and guitarist Jasmine Weatherill's recruitment is a new kind of chemistry to NEEB, the half-crying, half-determined voice of hers, making the band's complicated arrangements human and real. Recorded in their own, self-built Mobeus Studio, Take To The Sky is more of a conversation between musicians who trust one another absolutely. Mark Hand's synth and Rhodes textures provide richly textured underpinnings for the album, precision and swing being delivered by Mark Lloyd on drums. It is Tony Waite's production that holds it all together with a kind of cinematic clarity that never goes over the top.

On certain tracks, the addition of percussionist Martin Ditcham, a Talk Talk and Sade veteran, brings the extra glow, the feel of the rhythm being performed by someone who understands the restraint that is beauty. It's the type of album that ends up that awkward middle ground between the club and the dimly lit living room. It's for the kids who danced when they were young but now get enjoyment out of a good deep groove and a nice glass. There's an echo of The Cinematic Orchestra, a little of the essence of early Zero 7, and even a few moments that have a touch of Groove Armada's Black Light. But NEEB's sound remains distinctive, based on British jazz funk but with a morose, lethargic slow burn that you feel compelled to keep playing straight through without skipping a beat. This isn't a temporary novelty. NEEB have climbed the hard way. They've toured with Zion Train, Pee, Wee Ellis, Gong, The Egg, and Alabama 3, among others, and played from the Glastonbury Avalon Stage all the way to Solfest and Freerotation. They've been described as "the speccy white boys" in Mixmag with a sympathetic wink, and included on compilations such as Sounds of the Funky Underground, a title which now has to be both a reference to their origins and an account of how they've survived. But Take To The Sky is different. It's bold without swagger, refined without sacrificing the grime. Perhaps it's Weatherill who, upon joining, transitioned NEEB from three-piece to a relaxed and more song-oriented collective. Her voice adds intimacy to the band's rhythmic progression. You feel it in the way her lyrics overlap with keys and percussion — little truths swaddled in a melodic blanket. There's a line in "Brighter Day" where she croons like she's smiling through the mic, and you know this is what hope sounds like when you've labored for it instead of assumed it.

The album sits well among contemporary UK jazz-soul releases from artists such as Yazmin Lacey, Alfa Mist, and Tom Misch, but NEEB's experience working within electronic music sets them ahead. Under the jazzy chord progressions and ominous basslines, there is always some kind of distant hum of the dancefloor — the echo of a kickdrum, the throb of a night still uncompleted. It's the same genetic material that once fueled their breakbeat and techno adventures, only slowed down and reflective.