British band The Wow! Scenario, comprised of comedian James Acaster and his longtime collaborator Graeme Wicks, are looking to make their mark on the music scene with their debut single ‘Zacuti!’. This jazz-forward, endlessly surprising track is the perfect announcement for a band that has existed mostly in legend for the past twenty years.

‘Zacuti!’ is the lead single from The Wow! Scenario’s upcoming album ‘Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus’, a project that has already lived several lives. Acaster and Wicks first recorded a version of the album with producer Chris Hamilton in 2007, then again as an instrumental album in 2018, and once more in 2023 after recruiting vocalists BC Camplight and Emma Daman. This final, definitive version of the album will be released on 23rd October via Bella Union.

This is not Acaster’s only recent foray into music; in 2023, he produced the album ‘Party Gator Purgatory’ with the collective Temps. That album demonstrated Acaster’s passion for experimentation, which is also on full display on ‘Zacuti!’. In a press release posted on Acaster’s website, The Wow! Scenario described themselves as "an acquired taste", and it’s easy to see why. The sonic landscape of ‘Zacuti!’ is quite crowded, with guitar, bass, drums, saxophone, piano, violin, and vocals all jockeying for attention. It’s delightfully and intriguingly dense, and requires you to give yourself over to it.

‘Zacuti!’ is a song defined by its changing time signatures and rhythms - it’s almost as if it’s four songs in one. The song opens with Camplight’s airy, doubled, Tame Impala-esque vocals, before the rollicking drums and shiny, jazzy guitar come crashing in. As soon as you catch your breath, the saxophone joins, playing a bright, joyful melody. The song reaches a peak when Daman’s vocals enter the mix, before the band shakes it up, introducing searing violin and a punchy new rhythm.

By the time the band reaches the song’s final distinctive part, the outro, the arrangement has been stripped back to bass, drums, and the light, effervescent guitar that leads us through the track. It sounds sparse in comparison to the banquet of tones and textures that encompasses the rest of ‘Zacuti!’, but it’s just as lively and dynamic. Acaster, Wicks, and Hamilton have clearly put everything they have into this song, and the result is an upbeat, uplifting celebration of music as experience and artistic expression.

Mia Tobin Power

@miatobinpower

Image: Ryan Klye, taken in 2005

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