MAN MADE

Greentea Peng—the alias of South London singer and songwriter Aria Wells—has been building towards her debut album since the Sensemilia EP surfaced in 2019, and MAN MADE arrives on AMF Records via EMI as one of the most anticipated British debuts of the year. Produced largely with Earbuds and featuring Joe Armon-Jones on keys, it’s a heavy, bass-forward record that folds neo-soul, dub reggae and trip-hop into a single, unhurried sound.

That fusion is set out in the opening bars of Make Noise: a low-slung groove of sub bass and skanking guitar that gives way to Wells’ toasting across a half-time beat. The dub influence is everywhere—the record is drenched in reverb and delay, its mixes full of space where a lesser producer would pile on texture. Nah It Ain’t The Same floats on a jazzy Rhodes line, whilst Be Careful strips everything back to a minimal, echoing percussion bed that could have come off a vintage Studio One plate.

It is unmistakably a London record, and that is its greatest strength. The city’s current crop of jazz-influenced vocalists and beatmakers are all in here somewhere—the smoky keys of Jimtastic Blues recall Armon-Jones’ own band, the ragga-tinged patter of Mataji Freestyle owes as much to grime as to roots culture, and Free My People (featuring Simmy and Kid Cruise) turns a spiritual chorus into something you could hear bouncing off the walls of a Peckham basement at 2am.

Highlights come thick and fast. Kali V2 is a woozy, head-nodding standout built on a slippery bassline and half-sung, half-spoken verses, whilst Meditation, at over seven minutes the record’s longest moment, stretches out into a slow-burning mantra with live drums that shimmer and breathe. Closer Sinner is the most direct thing here—a gritty, four-to-the-floor-adjacent thump that proves Wells can work a proper groove as well as a haze.

MAN MADE is a striking, confident debut that wears its influences proudly without ever feeling derivative. It occasionally drifts into its own smoke—a couple of the interludes could have been trimmed—but as a statement of intent from an artist with a genuinely individual voice, it’s difficult to fault. Play it loud, with bass up and lights down.