Basil Kirchin

UK first press 2023. ‘Assignment Kirchin’ catches the drummer turned bandleader turned film score composer and avant-garde explorer in his jazzy heyday, following his travels in India, and prior to producing blueprints for experimental ambient music. The first half’s ‘Assignment K’ soundtrack depicts Kirchin at his most opulent and debonaire, yet making room for subtle experimental flourishes and the funk in the likes of his spy funk sequence on track 6, the sleazy suss of track 9, and a standout bonus song featuring uncredited vocalist and surely paralleling work by his jazz idols on the other side of the Atlantic.