Pub quiz compilers of the 2030s take note: the surprise guest singer on the sixth album by north London indie band Bombay Bicycle Club, in one of the most unlikely music team-ups ever, is none other than Chicago disco queen Chaka Khan.
The 70-year-old, who has previously had songs written for her by Stevie Wonder and Prince, keeps everyone waiting for her big moment, nine songs in, on a bouncy groove titled Tekken 2 after the Nineties arcade game. Two and a half minutes along, the fuzzy bass gives way to low piano notes, handclaps, a spacey synth line and that familiar, emphatic voice. It’s certainly unexpected, but it works.
The band have earned the right to experiment, deep into a music career that began when they won a competition to perform at the 2006 V festival aged 16. Now in their early thirties, with a few children of their own, they got big enough to play the last ever gig at Earls Court in December 2014 (where the star guest was David Gilmour of Pink Floyd) but have never had a hit single that could have cemented expectations about what they should sound like.
This time, on their second album back after a hiatus that resulted in solo albums from both frontman Jack Steadman and bassist Ed Nash, the diversions of work away from the band have bled back into a freeform overall sound. Steadman, who has made two hip hop-inspired albums as Mr Jukes, comes up with a number of instrumental parts, such as the stuttering Just a Little More Time and the relaxed keyboard notes of the title track, that could pass for rap songs.
The band gets punkier on Meditate, where the indie musician Nilüfer Yanya adds deadpan vocals and the guitars achieve full feistiness. There’s a woozy fairground feel to Sleepless and rumbling guitar work on I Want to Be Your Only Pet that make both songs sound a bit like Blur, so it’s less of a surprise when king collaborator Damon Albarn materialises to add a slow-motion verse to the horn-stuffed ballad Heaven.
By this point you wouldn’t bat an eyelid if Ozzy Osbourne, Felipe VI of Spain and Barry from EastEnders hopped on board, but all that remains is for indie pop singer Holly Humberstone to add her sweet breathy voice to the twinkly Diving. It’s another bright highlight on an album that is excellently suited to the impatient streaming generation. It’s 11 bands for the price of one.
