BODUR and Coby Sey keep the first take
The London pair's first three songs together are sparse R&B, self-funded and sung close to the mic. At three tracks it is an opening, not a summary.
BY JOLT Staff · OCT 20 2026 · 2 min readBOX OF TRICKS is three songs and no filler. BODUR and Coby Sey made it together in London, and it has the charge of two writers finding a shared room. 'LEAVE' makes the case and 'AGAIN' is the reason to come back.
BODUR's debut album MAQAM drew on the Arabic maqam system. Before this she had a fixed idea of what to make, and BOX OF TRICKS is her first collaborative project. Coby Sey is known for long-running work with Tirzah and Mica Levi, including Tirzah's Devotion, and here he loosens.
“I just wanted to remember what it felt like to make music without thinking too much about it.”
The EP is the first three songs they made together. 'AGAIN' came first, at Coby's studio in Hither Green. 'LEAVE' arrived after a day of failed ideas, from a first jam with Coby on drums, Gabriel Gifford on bass and BODUR singing; Coby added more bass later. Gifford and Harvey Causon then worked on the songs at their shared Bethnal Green studio. It is self-funded; BODUR directed and edited the 'LEAVE' visualiser.
The playing is sparse, with room left for silence. 'LEAVE' is the lead single and the hardest hit: drums, bass guitar and voice, classic R&B in its bones. BODUR's vocal has vibrato and a close presence. At under two minutes it lands, then gets out.
'AGAIN' is the ballad, and the best argument for the pairing. It is about the small gestures that wound, about holding a hand while the other person lets go and does not reach back. The vocal carries the weight without pushing.
The title track is a bleak nursery rhyme about a world that deals some people a harder hand. The frame is childlike and the lesson is not. It keeps the EP from settling into relationship songs only.
This is for listeners who take Kelela and Fatima at slow speed. Anyone after a big R&B statement will find it slight.
The flaw is size. Three songs make a strong opening but settle nothing. 'LEAVE' is almost too bare, and the title track's nursery-rhyme frame is gone quickly.
At 3.5 it is a good record with a sharp edge. The songs are honest and the playing is spare, and the best moments earn their silence.
