After the philosophical weight of the earlier singles from Lion Dance, Dan Webb’s ‘Thai Basil’ feels like a deliberate release of pressure.
This new track swaps questions of identity, displacement and reinvention for movement, colour and the pleasure of being fully present. Inspired by the flavours of Southeast Asia, it’s a bright, densely arranged piece of psychedelic fusion that treats complexity as something playful rather than cerebral.
His music has always operated comfortably between jazz, rock, electronic music and classical influence, but ‘Thai Basil’ brings those elements together with particular exuberance. A synth bass line and electronic drums provide the foundation, while Micah Hummel and Nate Werth add a deeper rhythmic pulse through layered live percussion.
While Ron Blake and James King (the horn section heard on the Rolling Stones’ recent albums Hackney Diamonds and Foreign Tongues) are pushed into one of the track’s most distinctive ideas: a unison line so dense that it was effectively impossible to perform in one continuous take.
Dan originally improvised the part on keyboard, where breathing isn’t a concern. But when it was translated for brass, the physical problem became obvious. So rather than simplifying it, the musicians recorded the phrase in shorter sections and stitched the performance together, preserving the illusion of one uninterrupted run.
‘Thai Basil’ keeps adding layers to it, turning the horn section into a three-part contrapuntal arrangement before stacking further synth parts over the top. The closing stretch becomes increasingly dense, psychedelic and rhythmically charged without losing its sense of celebration.
As the third single from Lion Dance, ‘Thai Basil’ offers another side of the record. Where the album’s earlier material has searched for meaning, this track seems content to enjoy motion itself.