Jay-J - Love Alive (Album)

So, it’s been 2 years and counting since we last had a full length offering from Shifted Music top dog, Jay-J… but has it been worth the wait? We were lucky enough to grab an advanced copy from the man himself a few weeks ago, and over the last fortnight we’ve given it a little time to percolate.

The result…? well we can’t help but say it’s pretty flipping brilliant. We consider Jay a good friend of ours, so we thought (especially after making us wait so long!) that we could be brutally honest and offer our thoughts, good and bad. Well this album is probably the closest representation of Jay-J (personally) that we’ve ever heard. It’s classy, it has a sound for every mood and the production quality shines with tireless brilliance - a lot like the man himself. It’s a summer album, and definitely one for the deep house lovers among us. As always with Jay, a man who loves to collaborate and invite influences into his sessions, the tracks have an incredible selection of vocal contributors, but even for a DJ that likes to keep his sets pretty dubby, CheckPoint agrees that most of the tracks would make his sets.

“There’s a couple of tracks on here that I’m dying for the extended mixes (hear that Jay?!?! ;), most notably Watching You. That is a serious piece of work, that I’m already hammering during my sets.”

Track 7: Watching You

You can tell that all 12 tracks on Love Alive are the cream of what was probably a fairly large crop of tunes, with Jay selecting the perfect combination of a dozen ingredients for a lovely balance of ‘playable album’ and ‘DJ friendly tracks to be played out”. Play the whole album throughout and there’s a smooth progression through Jay’s trademark deep, vocal house, into a little bumping phase, gliding through some soul, RnB and even a little hip hop, before rounding off with an amazingly chilled, sonic cruiser in the form of Ease Your Mind, to bring things to a close beautifully.

In short, it’s a work of genius from one of the most understated dance music professionals in the business. Our only criticism… don’t make us wait so long next time!

A couple of the stand out tracks are below - then head on over to Traxsource to grab your copy.

Track 1: Love Alive

Track 10: Every Road

Track 12: Ease Your Mind