Soundtrack

Us3

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2025
Views: 193

Tracks

What Have We Done?; Resist The Rat Race; Dance Of The Five Fevers; Footsteps In The Dark; Skin On Skin; Cosmic Dance; Long Ride Home; Frustration; One Night Stand; Save Me; You Can't Stop Me; Narco.

Personnel

Album Description

After twelve years away, legendary jazz and hip-hop fusion pioneers Us3 return with “Soundtrack”, their long-awaited 10th studio album. Known worldwide for their groundbreaking 1993 hit “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)” and their fearless hybrid of sampled beats and live musicianship, Us3’s new album isn’t a comeback—it’s a bold continuation. For the first time in their career, founder and producer Geoff Wilkinson has crafted a fully instrumental album. Yet despite the absence of lyrics, “Soundtrack” speaks volumes—offering a raw, cinematic exploration of memory, loss, social reckoning, and artistic rebirth. “Soundtrack” features the urgent, socially-charged single “Resist The Rat Race” (praised by The New York Times as “a swaggering alliance of human and machine”), the percussive debut single “What Have We Done?” (described by Goldmine Magazine as having “jazzy-riffed undertones” and “an emotive sound”), and the moody, cinematic “Footsteps in the Dark.” Together, the tracks form a body of work that feels both intensely personal and globally resonant. Blending live instrumentation, trap drums, and a sweeping 18-piece horn section, Wilkinson cites inspiration from Gil Evans’ orchestrations for Miles Davis in the late 50s and early 60s. The... result is a kaleidoscope of sound that plays less like a traditional album and more like a movie score for the present moment. The story of “Soundtrack” is as much about survival as it is about music. After decades of breaking boundaries and carrying the torch for jazz-hip hop fusion, Wilkinson stepped back from the industry due to health challenges and burnout. More than ten years later, he returns with clarity, ambition, and a recharged creative vision. “ Geoff Wilkinson’s new vision for Us3 and "Soundtrack" splits the difference between filmic technicolor-inspired worlds, soulful jazz melodicism and the crispness of trap-hop rhythm”. Jazz Times Throughout the 1990s, Us3 dominated global airwaves, influencing a generation with their genre-bending sound—echoing everywhere from London jazz clubs to Tokyo record stores. With “Soundtrack”, Wilkinson doesn’t seek to relive that past but to reimagine what jazz and hip-hop can mean in 2025.

Album uploaded by Michael Ricci