Album Review: Prospa - 'Free Your Mind'
Leeds to the Dance Floor: Prospa’s debut is a slick, sun-soaked introduction to a duo built for big moments.
For Leeds-bred duo Prospa, Free Your Mind is more than just a debut album. It also marks the first-ever full-length release from CircoLoco Records, so the stakes could hardly be higher. The pressure shows at times, but so does the talent.
From the first seconds, Prospa make their intentions clear. Latin-inflected keys set the scene over a short intro that feels less like an album opener and more like walking out into an arena ready for battle. The atmosphere is immediate. That energy carries straight into “Love Songs,” a slow-burning, climactic build that eventually explodes into a funky bassline and a smooth, insatiable hook. It sets the standard early: slick, unapologetic, and carrying a groove that doesn’t quit.
The title track keeps that momentum rolling. The keys turn menacing, the groove becomes hypnotic, and a deep vocal narration pulls you further in before a female vocalist lifts the whole thing skyward. The Cloonee feature is a formidable pairing, delivering tight drums and buoyant basslines in a cut already primed for locked-in, hands-up moments all summer. It is one of the album’s undeniable peaks.
What follows is largely impressive. Track five offers a softer, deep house palette, the kind of heavenly keys that feel designed for the small hours. Track six channels something close to Faithless before bursting into a body-heat anthem that will absolutely go off at festivals this summer. Track seven is the most daring thing here: haunting keys, drilled drums, and a Dracula-esque sonic detour that is genuinely unsettling in the best way. Weird, thrilling, and marginally too long.
The back half is more uneven. The glossy techno of track eight works in the context of a rave but loses something when stripped of one. Track nine has an afro beats warmth that briefly reinvigorates things. “Baby,” a previously released single, arrives with one of the album’s hardest drops but feels oddly hollow around it. At that point, Prospa stop telling us anything new.
The closing track, though, is something else entirely. Celebratory, emphatic, undeniable. It is Prospa in their element, revelling in the kind of big number that moves through your whole body. It just arrives a little late.
Capturing the magic of a dance floor on record has always been a difficult trick to pull off, and Free Your Mind doesn’t quite manage it in full. There are genuine standouts here, but as a complete body of work it leaves something to be desired. The potential is obvious. The execution, for now, is only half realised.
Words by Alexander Peters
