Acclaimed and rapidly rising British neo-soul and hip-hop instrumental outfit Gotts Street Park— Josh Crocker (bass, production), Tom Henry (keys) and Joe Harris (guitar) — will be releasing their highly anticipated full-length debut, On The Inside on October 13, 2023 through Blue Flowers.
The 12-song album is reportedly a window into the band’s inner world, a world that’s been expanding since the band’s formation. What initially began as an outlet for their shared love of 60s Motown quickly became one of Leeds’ most successful and acclaimed bands, while amassing over 69 million Spotify streams.
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s released singles”
- “Got To Be Good,” an effortless, vintage soul-inspired strut built around skittering boom bap-like drumming, glistening Rhodes, burst of funk guitar and a sinuous and supple bass line paired with Pip Millett‘s yearning delivery.
- “Fuego,” the album’s second single saw the acclaimed British outfit returning to their instrumental roots with an irresistibly funky funky, El Michels affair-meets-classic soul-like groove, “Fuego” and a shape-shifting arrangement of twinkling keys, squiggling funk guitar and relentless boom-bap snares. It’s a mischievously anachronistic jam that’s perfect for lounges and for crate diggers looking for deep, hypnotic grooves.
“Mountains,” On The Inside‘s third and latest single is built around a swaggering, Quiet Storm-meets-neo soul-like groove featuring boom bap-like snares, twinkling keys an glistening guitar paired with ENNY‘s Lauryn Hill/Mary J. Blige-inspired delivery that sees her spitting bars and crooning lyrics informed by lived-in experiences of heartache, depression, struggle and survival. While not being a straightforward Behind the Music-like tale, it celebrates the fact that life is often about figuring out how to go forward when everything has gone to shit in front of you.
“The instrumental for ‘Mountains’ is originally from a little batch of GSP jams that Joe had chopped up and made beats from a couple years ago,” the band explains in press notes. “Fast forward a year or so… Josh was in the studio working on songs with Enny mainly for her solo stuff, and this was one of the beats she liked enough to write to.” They continue, “When we heard her demo vocal on the beat, we fell in love with the song. Enny is an artist we all admire and it was obvious we needed to get this tune fully finished and have her guest on our album!”
“I had a session with Josh last year around a time I was going through a bit of a down period,” ENNY says. “And, once he played the first few seconds everything just flowed. It was the first time in a longtime that I’d written lyrics using a pen” ENNY adds: “The guys are so cool and easy to vibe with and I’m grateful to be a part of this project.”
Directed by Harvey Pearson, the cinematically shot black and white accompanying video for “Mountains” places ENNY in the center of the screen passionately performing the song in an intimate club, before slowly panning out to reveal the members of Gotts Street Park. “With this video, I wanted ENNY and her performance to be front and center, capturing an intimate moment within a motionless crowd,” Pearson explains. “Shooting in a single, unbroken take, we draw focus to the frank and captivating performance. Underlining this approach in striking black and white, we deliberately zero in on the raw and immediate essence of this moment.”