The jazz-funksters dropped their new album about shared horizons and togetherness last Friday
In February when announcing the coming release of jazz-funk band Under The Lake’s “Your Horizon Too” album, the story that inspired the new record was chronicled about the chance reunion between keyboardist-songwriter-producer Jayson Tipp and the group’s former saxophonist-flutist Quintin Gerard W. Two weeks prior to the album release date, which dropped Friday on the Mind In Overdrive label, Gerard took ill from COVID-19. After enduring a miserable fortnight, he finally turned the corner and is on the road to recovery as the album dropped. But the scare brought the reality of the novel coronavirus and the message behind the outfit’s fifth album into context for Tipp.
“This extraordinary time reminds us how important the people in our lives are. We feel like our recording of The Stylistics’ track “People Make The World Go ‘Round” from ‘Your Horizon Too’ hits home as we think about the special people in our lives,” said the Portland, Oregon-based Tipp. “When I consider how Quintin and I reconnected two years ago when he happened to tune in while I was doing a live radio interview, picked up the phone and called in…I mean, that’s kind of random. That led to a reunion with other original Under The Lake members – special friends - to create ‘Your Horizon Too,’ an album about how although we may have different perspectives, we all share the same horizon, a shared point of connectivity that unites everyone much like this global battle unites us to combat the virus.”
The core four who formed Under The Lake decades ago – Tipp, Gerard, bassist Nathan Brown and drummer Richard Sellers - reunited in a San Diego recording studio to track “Your Horizon Too” where they were supplemented by guitarist Patrick Yandall. The chemistry between the players returned instantly. The set list mixing jazz, funk, fusion, and rhythm & soul consists of ten tunes penned by Tipp along with a couple of reworked classics – the aforementioned “People Make The World Go ‘Round” and Steely Dan’s vibey “Josie.” The first single that inspired the album title, “It’s Your Horizon Too,” is a Tipp-Gerard collaboration that is presently working its way onto playlists. Tipp is in the process of assembling a video clip for the track for which each player shot his part at home.
Concert dates to support the release of “Your Horizon Too” have been scrapped for now, but Tipp is hopeful that new listeners will discover the collection, encouraged by messages from fans who were quick to tap into new music from Under The Lake.
“We realize that it’s an odd time for everyone. We’re all out of sorts having to stay at home. Folks are streaming content like never before. We know music is a salve for people and we’re just honored that our fans are turning to us. We hope that everyone is looking and moving forward to the horizon out there in front of us as we get through this together but socially distanced apart. And that’s the meaning and the message of the particularly apt album and single titles: we’re all in this together and it’s everyone’s horizon.”
For more information, please visit http://www.underthelake.com.
“UTL have once again come seamlessly together to marry jazz and funk into such alluring dance tracks, making for yet another album that simply has to be in any self-respecting jazz fans collection.” – Exclusive Magazine
“These cats just have the right touch.” – Midwest Record
