Jessie Ware deliberately wanted the opening track of That! Feels Good! to sound like a group of people at an orgy. Featuring the likes of Kylie Minogue, actor Jamie Demetriou, Radio 1 host Clara Amfo, producer Benny Blanco and Ware’s mother (and co-host of the hit podcast Table Manners) Lennie all whispering the album’s title, it has the same brain-scratching satisfaction as an ASMR video, albeit one tempting you into the velveted opulence of Ware’s exceptional fifth album. It’s a record that delights in its author’s joyous liberation: as Ware sings on the title track, “Freedom is a sound / And pleasure is a right!”
Ware is qualified to make such a proclamation. Following the underwhelming adult contemporary safety of her third record, 2017’s Glasshouse, the singer took stock of her career and blew everything up. She secured new management and went into the studio intent on enjoying herself. The result was her lockdown album, 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure?, a sophisticated disco record that that revived Ware’s career and helped reclaim the dance music diva-ship of her early days. The live shows had the same debauched energy as an illicit club night, sweaty and lubricious, Ware wielding a whip on stage, holding court like a ring-leading dominatrix. After the monotonous confinement enforced due to the pandemic, Ware seemed to be encouraging the world to make up for lost time.
