Coltrane and the album it’s on, Renascence, mark the full-scale comeback of Cymande, after about a decade of releasing bits and bobs of new music. The comeback includes a tour of the US and Europe that is already underway.

Cymande (pronounced sih-mahn-day; a creole word for dove) are one of the earliest British funk bands, formed more than 50 years ago.

They’ve had a roller-coaster of a career. In 1972, they released a self-titled debut album, featuring a uniquely silky style of fusion blended funk, jazz, African music, Caribbean rhythms and rock. On it, the bunch of nine self-taught musicians (nearly all of them with roots in the Caribbean islands) used the Rastafarian ritual style of drumming known as Nyabinghi. They band called their genre Nyah-rock.

At the core of the group were bassist Steve Scipio and guitarist Patrick Patterson, both now 75. Besides the Rastafarian roots, their music was also psychedelic and soulful. Their lyrics dealt with social issues such as the racism they faced as young immigrants; but were also a celebration of their culture and musical heritage.

Sadly, as so often happens with pioneers, they were under-appreciated in their time. Shortly after the release of their first album, they landed a tour of the US, including gigs at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem. Even so, when they got back to the UK, there was little enthusiasm for their music.

By 1974, disappointed, Cymande decided to disband. Scipio and Patterson, who had moved to the UK as children, with their parents, moved back to the Caribbean. Both men gave up music, trained as lawyers, and practised law for years.

The rediscovery of the band was serendipitous, and it happened via the turntables of DJs in the emerging US hip-hop scene of the late 1980s and early ’90s. Those intrepid taste creators discovered Cymande’s uniquely fusioned music and began sampling them.

Bra, a track on their debut album with Scipio’s distinctive bass line, complex percussion and sax riffs, and Patterson’s guitar, was sampled by many, including the hip-hop duo Gang Starr and the group De La Soul. Early US hip-hop bands such as Fugees delved into the Cymande trove for samples too.

For a long time, the band members were quite oblivious to all this. In a 2022 documentary titled Getting It Back, Scipio says he and Patterson were “busy being lawyers”. It was often their children tipping them off to how rappers were sampling their beats.

Eventually, they realised their music could get a new lease on life. Cymande regrouped in the mid-2010s and released some new material, including an album titled A Simple Act of Faith, in 2015, and began touring again.

Renascence marks their first studio album in a decade and, more importantly, is a spiritual sequel to their seminal 1974 work, Promised Heights. The new offering is a testament to the band’s enduring relevance and their ability to resonate with new audiences while paying homage to their storied past.

The opening track, Chasing An Empty Dream, contains the essence of Cymande’s sound: a hypnotic bassline, intricate percussion, and a message that reflects on the materialistic focus of contemporary society and laments the loss of values.

Tracks such as Coltrane and How We Roll (featuring the British DJ and producer Jazzie B) are highlights, and take listeners on a dance through time, with contagious rhythms and vibrant horn sections.

My own discovery of Cymande was by happenstance, in March 2014. Cinematographer Hemant Chaturvedi, a friend and a man of impeccable taste, sent me an iTunes link to their debut album. No words, just the link (that’s his way of nudging me towards the good stuff).

I got turned on to Cymande then and, more than a decade later, here I am, still grooving to their music.

(To write in with feedback, email sanjoy.narayan@gmail.com)