Lewis Daniel Ships Do Sail: A Sonic Voyage Through Letting Go

South London’s Lewis Daniel is back with his second single, Ships Do Sail, and it’s not here to hold your hand. And that’s not quite the smooth jazz for your Sunday brunch. I went through it and I felt in love immediately. A raw, drum-and-bass-fueled storm of electronic textures, industrial noise, and glitchy madness. This is jazz for the future. Messy, unfiltered, and drenched in emotion. It crashes through the walls of genre like a ship with no captain, lost at sea but somehow still moving forward. You know that sound? The one of connections snapping, of people slipping through your fingers, of watching something you built sink before your eyes? That’s exactly what this is.

Drifting Apart, One Beat at a Time

At its core, Ships Do Sail is a meditation on loss. Not the tragic, dramatic kind. The slow, creeping kind that sneaks up on you. The kind where a best friend turns into a stranger overnight, for instance. Where something that once felt eternal simply fizzles out. And, as guest voice Rachel Kerry puts it, “Things coming to a natural end because people drift apart is totally fine… it doesn’t necessarily have to be dramatic.” Except, let’s be real – it usually is.

Therapy in a Drum and Bass Storm

Lewis Daniel plays jazz. He twists it, bends it, and wires it into a cybernetic future. Drawing inspiration from Radiohead and Hudson Mohawke, Ships Do Sail moves with wild, fast beats, haunting strings, and robotic synths. It’s an audio hallucination, produced by DJ Harrsn, whose remix of God Is Trying by House Gospel Choir was named Hottest Record on Annie Mac’s show. This track is a kind of therapy in digital form, a desperate attempt to process the reality of drifting away from someone who once felt like home.

The Birth of a Cyberpunk Jazz Odyssey

For Daniel, Ships Do Sail was the foundation of his upcoming album, Defective Disk, set to drop in May. The 13-track concept album follows Xavier, a video game character navigating a futuristic, cyberpunk world. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? It’s jazz, but not as you know it, pulling from hip-hop, electronic music, video game soundtracks, and Daniel’s Caribbean roots.

With a lineup featuring Sam Jones (drummer for Nubya Garcia and Binker Golding), Natty Reeves, Tee Peters, and actor-musician Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (The Queen’s Gambit, Star Wars), plus a full string quartet, brass section, steel pans, and House Gospel Choir, this album is set to be an immersive trip.

A Saxophonist with a Heavyweight Resume

If Lewis Daniel’s name doesn’t ring a bell, his work surely does. A BRIT School and Guildhall alum, he has played alongside legends. Did you hear about Chaka Khan, Primal Scream, Kylie Minogue, Tom Grennan. And yes, he also supported Florence and The Machine at Madison Square Garden.

So, if you’re expecting smooth sax solos and easy listening, look elsewhere. Ships Do Sail is here to tear things down and rebuild them in glitchy, genre-breaking fragments. And honestly? It’s about time.

Find out more about Lewis Daniel and support his journey on Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and Bandcamp.

Stream Lewis Daniel music | Listen to songs, albums, playlists for free on SoundCloud