There’s a whole generation of us who only knows soul music from whatever the algorithm decides we need this week. Funky, live-off-the-floor retro soul with real musicians in a room together, actually sweating it out, is a completely different conversation. Most of us only got introduced to it if someone older and considerably cooler forced us to sit down and pay attention. For me that was my grandmother. 80 years old and still shows up to church wearing something that makes the pastor visibly nervous, a laugh that fills a whole room, and absolutely zero tolerance for music that plays it safe. She dances in her kitchen to shit this funky and full of heat like it’s the only reasonable response to being alive. I grew up watching her, thinking damn, I want that energy when I’m 80. Hell, I want it now. Joy Xande & The Peace Option just handed it to me.
Joy Xande grew up in Springfield, Illinois with Caribbean roots and a father singing bass vocals in church every Sunday and like, that kind of thing gets into your bones before you even have a say in it. Her family moved to Canada and took one look at this kid and said yeah, music lessons, immediately, because some people are just built for this from birth and everyone around her could see it. She was writing lyrics at six years old. Six. I can’t even journal consistently and this woman was crafting songs before she lost her baby teeth. Her influences are Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Joni Mitchell, and Prince and I need you to sit with that for a damn second because that is an absolutely unhinged combination of power and range to absorb into one human body. Her voice goes from soft and completely devastating to full-on electric and she makes the fucking switch feel effortless which is honestly kind of infuriating. On ‘Walls’ she’s backed by The Peace Option, a Toronto studio ensemble produced by Brian Nevin, and together they created something that crawls inside you and genuinely refuses to leave.
‘Walls’ was recorded mostly live off the studio floor and you feel every single bit of that. The Peace Option plays with the loose, earned confidence of musicians who’ve been in enough rooms together to know when to push and when to hold back with the groove moving like a hand on the small of your back that has no intention of stopping there. There’s something in the low end that settles right at the base of your spine and just stays there. Patient. This is a band that understands foreplay, is what I’m saying.
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Right out of the gate Joy is swinging big. “The damned and the sacred / The lost and the naked / Will reach out and take it / When the walls come down” and right away you know this is a big idea. Everyone, saints and sinners alike, the exposed and the protected all reaching for the same moment of release the second the barriers fall. She delivers it with a quiet authority that makes the whole thing feel deeply personal and somehow also inevitable. Liberation as a full-body experience. The image is sexy as hell and she absolutely knows it.
And then Joy gets wicked. “The blind slaves of passion / The victims of fashion / Are ready for action / When the walls come down.” She is not being subtle and she is not trying to be. The walls come down and suddenly everyone, the ones driven here by pure desire, the ones who just looked good getting here, are in the same state of wanting. That’s a lot of damn honesty to pack into eight words over a groove this filthy and Joy delivers it like she’s been sitting on it all night waiting for the right moment.
Joy makes her intentions clear in the chorus. “ You’ve got to push it to the limit / I don’t mind / I don’t mind where we end up this time / You’ve got to push it through the finish / Where I can find / Some peace of mind. ” Push it to the limit. I don’t mind where we end up. I dated someone once who used to say this kind of thing and at the time I thought he was talking about us but in retrospect he was just describing his whole philosophy about everything and honestly? Correct. Joy delivers it with this knowing, almost amused ease that makes the double meaning hit twice as hard. She’s confident enough to let you take it however you need to.
Joy goes philosophical and sexy in equal measure here. “Climbing snakes and ladders / Is all that really matters when the walls come down / The splendor of the season / You don’t need no other reason when the walls come down.” Snakes and ladders. The whole chaotic game of it, up and down and sideways and none of it predictable. And yet Joy is saying the chaos is the destination. The splendor is in the season, whatever season you’re in, and you don’t need a better reason than that. I’ve had years where I fought the falling apart so hard I exhausted myself. This song is basically a musical intervention for that tendency.
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By the third verse Joy has the whole room. “The power, the glory / The meaning of the story / Will stretch out before me / When the walls come down.” She holds back just enough to make the release feel earned. The story stretching out before her is the wide open mess of what comes after collapse. And she’s walking toward it. You can hear The Peace Option behind her and Brian Nevin holding the whole thing together, and Joy Xande sounds like she has been waiting her whole life to stand right here.
Joy saves the best for last. “A new world of wonder / Is coming up from under / And crashing to the gutter / When the walls come down.” The transcendent and the street-level colliding at full speed, wonder crashing into the gutter, and somehow it feels like the only possible ending. It is fucking beautiful and she knows it and so do you.
My grandmother tried for years to get me to understand what a real live room sounds like. What it feels like when musicians lock in together and something happens that no algorithm could ever serve up. I get it now. Joy Xande & The Peace Option made something that fills a space this generation didn’t know was empty and lands with the kind of weight that stays with you. The walls are down. Reach out and take this sound back with you.
