Johnny Richards & Dave King — The New Awkward

The New Awkward takes a more complex, detailed, and often fresh take on piano and percussion duo playing. Each of the album's ten tracks offers up a varied selection of sonic approaches and disciplines to serve a wholly satisfying release.

The New Awkward is the debut album from UK pianist/composer Johnny Richards (Shatner’s Bassoon) and USA percussionist Dave King (The Bad Plus). As a release, it takes influences from genres such as jazz, funk, classical, and acoustic takes on electronic-like constructions- to create a highly distinctive and often urgent sound.

The album's ten tracks move from the building piano & percussive details of “Chance Would Be A Fine” with its developing weave of locked mid-range twinkle, taut ‘n’ strutting bass, and shifting percussive detail. Through to the mood rumbling thunder bass key, tinkling rain like plucks, and sleekly moody drum detail of “False Doors” which later sounds akin to an acoustic take on Autechre.

In the album's second half, we move from shifting bass darts, slinky percussive details, and slamming mid to high-end key flourishers of “Gene Heard Wrong”. Onto darting angularity meets taut yet tolling sensibilities of “I Done It”- which at points shifts into detailed/ unbalancing layers of interlocking key runs- before settling on a great groove for a while.

As an album, The New Awkward is both fresh-sounding and adventurous- shifting between pleasing tautness, clever atmospherics, and rewarding details. One of the better debuts in recent history, and one of the highlights of 2025- let us hope this isn’t a one-off collaboration!