Gotts Street Park - Volume Two (LP)

Gotts Street Park’s Volume Two lands like a late-night conversation that keeps deepening the longer you sit with it. The Leeds trio of Josh Crocker, Tom Henry, and Joe Harris already had a rep for dusty, lived-in soul before this release, and this set pushes that craft further. You hear it right away in the drum feel, the way the bass tucks in and the keys leave air in the corners. It is soul and jazz at heart, but the hip-hop DNA is undeniable, with grooves that sit back rather than shout. Volume Two came out after their first EP made the rounds, and it reads like a confident next chapter from a group that prefers vibe over flash.

If you have followed them from the start, you know the story. The band grew out of Leeds sessions and a shared love of analog textures, old tape machines, and the detail you only get from instruments breathing in the same room. Their name nods to a real park in the city, and that sense of place is baked into the music. You can almost picture a cramped studio with amps humming, spring reverb shivering, late cups of tea going cold as a take locks in. That commitment to feel sets them apart from a lot of modern retro-soul. They are not chasing an era so much as using it as a tool. The result is a tight set of pocket grooves that could sit next to Menahan Street Band or early BADBADNOTGOOD, but still sound like Gotts Street Park.

Vocals float in and out across the EP, never overpowering the band. That balance matters. The guests color the mood, but the trio’s fingerprint remains bold, from Henry’s Rhodes and piano voicings to Harris’s unhurried guitar lines to Crocker’s ear for low end and space. Even on the more singer-led cuts, you can zero in on the snare tone or a guitar squeak and feel the room. Few groups doing this hybrid of soul, jazz, and hip-hop leave this much headroom. It makes the quiet moments hit harder when the chorus blooms.

There is a cinematic streak running through Volume Two as well. Not the glossy, string-swell kind. More like a late 60s crime OST looped up on an MPC, then replayed by people who understand the pocket. A smoky organ line will slip under a verse, a guitar phrase will answer a vocal in half-time, and suddenly you are back inside a noir alley where every hi-hat tick feels like a footstep on wet pavement. That restraint is addictive. It also means the EP rewards repeat listens. New details keep surfacing, a keyboard harmony here, a ghost note there, a tambourine that only shows up once.

Context helps. The band had already worked with a range of UK voices by the time Volume Two dropped, including Celeste earlier in their run, and that network sharpened their arranging chops. They know how to leave space for a singer, when to clip the groove to set up a phrase, when to let a vamp breathe. It is the kind of musical empathy that only comes from a lot of hours in a room together. You feel that in the patient tempos and the refusal to crowd the frame.

If you are crate digging and you spot Volume Two vinyl, grab it. The warmth these tracks carry gets even richer on wax, and the low end feels more tangible. Gotts Street Park vinyl in general has become a quiet favorite among DJs and collectors who want modern cuts that still play nice in a set with 70s deep soul. If you prefer to buy Gotts Street Park records online, keep an eye out, since small-batch pressings can disappear, and Gotts Street Park albums on vinyl do not always stick around long enough for a second chance. Even in a busy Melbourne record store, a copy of Volume Two tends to move. The same goes for folks hunting vinyl records Australia wide.

What makes Volume Two stick is how unforced it feels. No big concept, no heavy-handed features, just a group with serious ears letting good songs unfold at their own pace. Put it on at dusk, leave it spinning while dinner’s on, then flip it back when the room settles and conversation drifts. It is that kind of record, the kind you trust to set a tone without telling you what to feel. For a band that trades in quiet confidence, Volume Two is a sweet spot, and it still sounds fresh every time the needle drops.