Joel Holmes is not the kind of musician who usually needs an introduction. A four-time Grammy-nominated pianist, musical director of Carl Craig’s Synthesizer Ensemble and a long-time keyboardist for Roy Hargrove, he has spent his career inside other people’s arrangements. Osmosis, his debut for Toy Tonics, sees him step out front: four tracks of jam-session jazz-house co-produced by label boss Kapote and Italian Sam Ruffillo, with a mix by DFA’s Justin Vanderfolgen that keeps everything warm and, crucially, human.
The record opens with It Feels Good, and the title is not a statement of intent so much as a description of the room. The Rhodes keys sit right at the front of the mix, played with the unhurried confidence of someone who has spent decades on stage, whilst the four-to-the-floor beat stays low and patient beneath gospel-touched vocals. It’s the sound of a session caught on tape rather than constructed in the box, and the slight looseness of the playing—the way the keys lean just behind the kick—is exactly what gives it life. Playing with My Mind digs deeper, its bassline more syncopated and insistent, the piano traded for more abstract stabs as the groove tightens around a single, nagging phrase.
Side B’s Pose is the EP’s most playful moment, a strutting, funk-tinged number built on clipped guitar stabs and handclaps, the Rhodes vamping over the top like a pianist enjoying his own joke. Closer Got to Survive brings the gospel out of the church and into the club, its vocal hook drenched in reverb and answered by warm organ swells that swell and recede over the closing bars. It is the most overtly emotional track here, and a reminder that Holmes can turn a dancefloor into a congregation without ever getting heavy-handed about it.
That live, unpolished quality is Osmosis’ great strength, and occasionally its limitation—the four tracks share a similar tempo and temper, and the record never quite pushes itself anywhere unexpected. But as a statement of intent from a player stepping out of the shadows, it works beautifully. Where many jazz-house records polish the rough edges into oblivion, this one lets them breathe. It’s a record made by people who clearly love playing together, and you can hear it in every bar.
