The ever-expanding UK music collective – United Freedom Collective – return with another outstanding 5-track EP, welcoming new collaborators Joshua Idehen and Labdi into the fold and exploring the full breadth of UFC’s musical identity. 

The title of the EP - ‘Vast Oceans, Empty Skies’, comes from an old Chinese idiom: ‘退一步, 海闊天空’ meaning ‘if we take a step back, we are met with vast oceans and boundless empty skies. Where infiniteness awaits, if we could just let go’. “This was a theme we kept coming back to when we were making these tracks in the studio,” explains Robbie. “We made a conscious effort not to get bogged down by small obstacles and try to zoom out on the bigger picture, and also to find inspiration in the nature and landscapes around us.”

Lead single ‘A Smile at Last’ features vocals from Joshua Idehen, founding member of bands Benin City, hugh and Calabashed and collaborator with the likes of Sons Of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and LV. “He’s a really imaginative lyricist and a brilliant rapper,” says Robbie who originally struck up a friendship with Joshua some years ago performing together at an open mic night in London called Play All The Things. “The quality of his vocal made producing the beat fairly simple… to know how the vocal had to be held. It’s got our signature tropes: WaiFung on the Erhu [Chinese bow], wonky synth arps and live percussion. I borrowed a Balafon [West African tuned percussion instrument] from Falle Nioke to create a lot of the texture within the track too.”

Elsewhere, guitarist William Rees (of Mystery Jets fame) pops up on ‘Vast Oceans, Empty Skies’ and ‘To the Sea’ alongside Rita Issa on violin. Both tracks were inspired by water, with the EP title track referencing the pre-studio sea swims that have become something of a ritual for the band whilst in ‘To the Sea’, the music depicts water flowing from its source, through the landscape with its many obstacles, in streams and rivers, and ending in the sea.

‘Nyiego’ welcomes the revolutionary Kenyan singer-songwriter and Orutu [African single-stringed fiddle] instrumentalist Labdi to the United Freedom Collective. Robbie connected with her on a trip to Kenya to play at a festival. “Afterwards I took the opportunity to travel a little bit and ended my trip by hiring a little studio (courtesy of Santuri East Africa, a musical education organisation) in Nairobi and got in touch with some of the musicians I met at the festival,” Robbie explains. “One who came through was Labdi, an amazing singer and Orutu player. I played her a few beats I had and she picked this quite jazzy one with a pretty off-kilter time signature (9/4 for the heads) and we spent the next two days writing and recording the rest of the track. Her vocal is so smooth and soulful and she sang in her native Luo and Swahili languages so I was really surprised when she told me ‘Nyiego’ means ‘jealousy’ and the song’s got quite a heated message within it!”

With Robbie Redway, WaiFung Tsang and Mathieu Saynaeve at its heart, the United Freedom Collective continues to grow having released a string of quite excellent singles and EPs variously featuring Jordan Stephens, FACESOUL, Falle Nioke, Eliza Shaddad, William Rees and The Social Singing Choir during the past 18 months since their debut single in April 2022. Collectively they have been influenced by birds, trees, Buddhism, yoga, headless way meditations, Jungian analysis, Zen Taoism, Chinese plant medicines, indigeneity, Amazonian and psychedelic cultures, icaros and worldwide healing traditions… 

With a string of triumphant summer festival shows under their belts including Blue Dot Festival and Lost Village, United Freedom Collective play The Jago in London on 17th November followed by Where Else? in Margate on 19th November.

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