“We get daps from the jazz cats, the rap scene, the indie scene, and everyone else,” says Corey Fonville of his colleagues Butcher Brown: in a nine-year career since coming together on the VCU jazz programme, the Richmond VA natives have drifted around the orbit of planet jazz-funk, picking up accolades along the way.

Their loose, low-slung, laid-back explorations of the outer limits of hip hop, bossa, Afrobeat and new funk stylings have become ever more zeitgeist-y in a streaming sector dominated by the hipster-lite sounds of bands like Khruangbin and Toro Y Moi: Butcher Brown ensure they service ideas of depth and relevance by referencing their roots (as in the 2022 Triple Trey album, a big-band hommage) and maintaining a killer live presence, as evidenced on their NPR Tiny Desk appearance.

This album continues the trajectory: displaying a deep studio tan, a selection of grooves are enhanced with spacey effects and special guests, each of whom encourages the band to set off along a different complementary pathway. So ‘Eye Never Knew’ enlists Keyon Harrold to create a slice of representative West Coast cosmic jazz; ‘Espionage’ brings on Charlie Hunter’s Hendrix wig-outs to summon the spectre of P-funk; and ‘MOVE (RIDE)’ introduces Londoner Jay Prince for some hipster East End disco.

The band show their mettle with ‘No Way Around It’, delivering a slice of slap-bass driven G-Funk without outside help: elsewhere Braxton Cook, Pink Siifu, Nappy Nina and Michael Millions all ably assist with the vibe. Fans of Anderson.Paak’s pre-Silk Sonic output should check this out.