EP Review: Puzzle Without A Picture

Back in the early 2000’s I DJ’d on a local radio station that specialised in Lounge and New Soul Music. We called ourselves Café Style Radio. Buddha Bar and Fabric CD’s along with material from Acid Jazz labels and world music blenders like Enigma were all the rage at the time.

Listening to this four-track set from collaborators Inside Trading and Mista Ed entitled Puzzle Without A Picture, I was taken right back to those audio-halcyon days dreaming of late-night barge parties on the Thames, Thai holidays and beach side grooves. It was a cooler time, before the Great Recession of the mid 2000’s, Covid or Trump.

Inside Trading started by producer & musician John Faulding as a lock down experiment, with 48-hour turnarounds to complete a series of collaborations with other producers (resulting in Inside Trading Vol 1 & 2, a collection of home-studio recordings made with other collaborators).

2025 includes appearances with Radio Relaxo on their debut album and downbeat chill-hop collabs (usually guitar and bass) on projects released by label Millennium Jazz Music, alongside Hip-Hop turntablist and producer Mista Ed (who also appears on this current collection).

The title track, Puzzle Without A Picture, with its smooth as chocolate silk bass groove and snippets of Oriental instrumentation, and funky Jazz guitar licks offered up a bit of FOMO yearning for those secret out-of-the way establishments on foreign dock-sides that open at one in the morning selling lychee martinis and smelling of sweet lilies and jasmine.

“What is it that people get back when they recover?” asks an authoritative voice over the early acid jazz percussion of Recovery. “Perhaps, they get back themselves,” they ponder.

One some streaming services you’ll see accompanying graphics, made with AI smarts, which have a provocative, slightly sinister sci-fi flavour. But, in contrast, the music is chill, laid back, rehabilitative. None the less, I loved the fade out guitar solo and wished there was more of it, a taster denying me full satisfaction.

Isolation also has an equally bizarre animation accompaniment. Added are the exotic strains, reminiscent of a kobe (Japanese lute). Hints of a dark unidentified Asian cityscape, lonely vinyl toy manga characters haunt the environment. Whilst centred on more acid jazz loopery, the music, along with the images paint for me a sample of some kind of modernistic kabuki opera.

The final of the quartet is completely different. Hope mines the crates of 80’s funk junkies, stealing from DeBarge, Ashford & Simpson, and Chaka Khan et al. The images are all about era MTV cuts, proving the perfect atmosphere for a bit of a living room, car-cab or private headphone boogie.

This lil’ collection with be my current go-to in the man cave, as I set up my cocktail mixes and fire up the lava lamp. I really hope there will be more to come. Bring back the Acid Jazz 2000’s!