{"id":8,"date":"2012-06-11T18:48:41","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T18:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/?page_id=8"},"modified":"2020-06-16T16:31:18","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T16:31:18","slug":"bio","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/bio\/","title":{"rendered":"Mozez"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\u201cThe singers I look up to, like Marvin Gaye and Karen Carpenter, have an ease and beauty in how they sing. The point of singing is to deliver a message. If you sing with grace, your story will sound easy.\u201d Mozez.
\nLong before Sam Smith and Jess Glynne got their start as collaborators with the likes of Disclosure and Rudimental, Jamaican soul singer Mozez was helping influential soothing club duo Zero 7 to tell their story with an unhurried simplicity.<\/div>\n
\nAcross two albums at the turn of the \u201800s, it was Mozez\u2019s graceful voice that shone alongside the then-unknown Sia and Sophie Barker in Zero 7\u2019s compelling comedown music. Blessed with a sky scraping voice, while knowing when to keep his vocals unadorned, you\u2019d have bet on Mozez becoming as successful as Sia, especially when his debut solo album, 2006\u2019s haunting So Still, won rave reviews. Since then, other than touring as the singer for long-time friend Nightmares On Wax, Mozez has been silent.
\nUntil now. Nine years on, and the perfectionist singer\/writer\/producer is ready to emerge with Wings, an album that\u2019s definitely worth waiting for. If its lyrics tell of a man at the crossroads, unsure which path to take in life, there\u2019s a certainty to the music across its lush, beautiful landscape. Not a note is wasted, and you won\u2019t hear 12 songs that are better sung all year. Wings\u2019 title track and first single has already garnered praise from Dermot O\u2019Leary at Radio 2 and 6 Music\u2019s Tom Robinson, with the video notching over a million Youtube hits. Wings opens the album, and what follows are rich, varied textures that encompass the absurdly catchy A Place Called Home and Hannah, the dark drama of Planets, Run River\u2019s choppy funk, unsettling Brian Eno ambience on Philia and Broken Toy\u2019s multi-coloured psychedelia.<\/div>\n
\nWhat unites the songs is that, for all the troubles about love, money and friendship within, there\u2019s a strong message of hope throughout. \u201cThe point of the record is optimism,\u201d nods Mozez. \u201cThere\u2019s so much frustration and trouble in society, but the future is what we as humanity make of it. We\u2019re in a state of metamorphosis, and my view is we can have a grand future if we can come to a collective consciousness.\u201d<\/div>\n
\nThe Absolute, the oldest song on Wings, it highlights Mozez\u2019s ability to pare his music back to its essentials, both in its spare piano-driven beauty and his wise counselling. \u201cI planned that song a lot,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt means a lot to me, and it\u2019s exactly what I\u2019d wanted in my head. The trick of songwriting is to convey a message as simply as possible. The Absolute has a lot of words, but there used to be a lot more. That song has been a touchstone for the record for the past six years.\u201d<\/div>\n
\nPerhaps Wings\u2019 lyrically simplest song is Coloured Dreams, a retelling of The Beatles\u2019 Here Comes The Sun complete with a well-placed \u201cLa-la-la\u201d. Mozez chuckles as he explains its genesis, insisting: \u201cLa-la-la is the first part of music. That\u2019s what music was initially before we learned how to use words.\u201d The thoughtful messages in Wings can partly be attributed to Mozez\u2019s upbringing. He began questioning his faith as a child, moving to London to study theology before signing to a small indie label where he met Zero 7.<\/div>\n
\nOn moving to London, Osmond Wright slowly became Mozez as his real name \u201cdissatisfied\u201d the singer. Mozez is now ready to return to the spotlight, vowing that he\u2019s already begun writing songs for another record \u201cwhich shouldn\u2019t take nine years\u201d.<\/div>\n
\nIn the meantime, there\u2019s the sumptuous Wings, which ends with the euphoric soul of Mirror Mirror. The album\u2019s quickest song to write, its chorus of \u201cWho is the greatest of us all?\u201d points to future great leaders and cultural figures yet to come. \u201cMichael Jackson, Marvin Gaye… they were great, but the greatest of them all isn\u2019t here yet, because life goes on and greater people come.\u201d That\u2019s for the future. For now, Wings is as good as it gets.<\/p>\n

Written by John Earle<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe singers I look up to, like Marvin Gaye and Karen Carpenter, have an ease and beauty in how they sing. The point of singing is to deliver a message. If you sing with grace, your story will sound easy.\u201d Mozez. Long before Sam Smith and Jess Glynne got their start as collaborators with the likes of Disclosure and Rudimental, Jamaican soul singer Mozez was helping influential soothing club duo Zero 7 to tell their story with an unhurried simplicity. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1273,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1594,"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions\/1594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mozez.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}