The Journey Is The Destination

Perhaps it’s their commitment to ‘slow living’, that distinctively Mediterranean response to our fast times, that explains why we’ve had to wait over five-years for The Journey Is The Destination, the sophomore album from Madrileños, Beatspoke. Certainly it captures the essence of that movement: sensual, lazy, organic, bespoke, standing out a mile from the manufactured, identikit music that dominates both pop and dance charts and fulfilling the inherent pun in their name. No less than Gilles Peterson said of No Rush, their 2008 debut for German label in/phusion, that ‘the world is better because of it,’ and we couldn’t have put it better ourselves. Plenty agreed: the album was festooned with ‘best album’ -type plaudits and awards.
The duo, producer Josh Fontan and vocalist Sarah Gessler, have spent the last five years internationally performing alongside some stellar names around the world and honing their intuitive, improvised live act: Sarah, a vocalist in every sense, not just a singer (spoken-word passages and wordless cries punctuate the album), uncannily tuned in to Josh’s beats and ambience, cooked up from up a combination of analogue synths and digital wizardry, and vice-versa. That spontaneity jumps out all the way through The Journey … from the squelchy, spare analogue funk/mutant R&B of its opener Seed of Doubt, all the way through to the granular, future-soul of its closing track, Fortress …
With guest appearances from singers and rappers including Metropolis, Pumpkin, RQM, Joseph Derteano and Sneaky making this a cosmopolitan and even multi-lingual Journey, with our ‘destination’ a place where beautiful music is being made from the exciting fusion of the two primal, raw elements and these vital additional contributions. Get into the spirit of Beatspoke, sit back, and enjoy the ride…