Zara McFarlane is a London jazz singer whose approach to the artform puts her in the company of border-pushing spiritual explorers Thundercat and Gregory Porter. Fitting, then, that her forthcoming single “Angie La La” features baritone-blessed vocalist and trumpeter Leron Thomas, who cut his teeth in Bilal’s band. Below, the song approaches perfection as it picks up a third collaborator in St. Louis-born producer Osunlade, who give it his trademark “Yoruba Soul” treatment. There, the smoky track is imbued with a Balearic beat that bounds ever onward while harps flutter and piano figures rise and fall. “Angie La La” arrives ahead of McFarlane’s album, If You Knew Her, due January 20 via Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings.
