It is a mid-week evening and The Sunday Gleaner pulls into the Braemar Avenue, New Kingston, Truckback Records base about 9:30, well after the appointed hour. Still, bass guitar player and producer Steve Locke is cool and after waiting a few minutes for another project to be wrapped up, it is up the concrete steps into the much-touted converted container that is the Truckback Studio.

Originally, the idea was to listen in on a voicing session for Bajie's upcoming album. But it turns out to be an in-studio listen to the unmixed versions of the entire album, Equilibrium, as well as a trip back to the recording process (from discussions under the ackee tree to all-night sessions) with producer and performer.

And, even in its not-yet-finalised state, it promises to be an excellent set.

A love song

We start out listening to a love song, Bajie tuning up his voice to "love is an unbreakable chain/no missing link it contain/shouldn't be no hurt or no pain ...".

They discuss just where a particular part of the song should go, Locke stopping the track and Bajie saying, "No, it want to go four more."

"Whe you say, it can put anywhere?" Bajie asks. "Anywhere, true you have some tight rhyme up there," Locke says. After a few more discussions they decide they are ready to do the voicing ... but then there is a reboot and The Sunday Gleaner starts talking.

Locke says the 16-track Equilibrium, which has "a mix of everything", will be released at the end of April or in early May, digitally as well as on CD.

Bajie naturally feels good about his debut album. "As an artiste you always want something to show," he says. Save for the rhythm to Mama Africa (which utilises a beat made popular by Delroy Wilson) it is all original, live music.

Insightful lyrics

Producer Steve Locke at Truckback studios.

Equilibrium is laden with insightful lyrics ("We scattered over the world and we no sailor," Bajie observes in Mama Africa), the vocals swaying easily between the rasp of deejay and the melody of singing. Bajie notes the balance between music and message saying "that's why we call it Equilibrium, cause it have da balance deh".

Then there is the rock song, Out of the Box, with Angus laying down a screaming guitar. "It's like me an Steve deh yah an him a buil' a riddim. We no know wha we a buil'. Then we stop it an come up wid de rock tune. We put it down fe bout tree day an some man a deejay pon it, 'have a gal' an' all that. Me sey no sah. We waan do suppen, when a man hear it dem sey no, reggae cyaa go inna dem genre deh," Bajie said.

"We sey we a think outta de box."

'Out of the box'

And 'out of the box' it is, Bajie's voice gritty as he declares he's "spreading a message to the world, spreading it through the music". It climaxes with a coordinated clatter of instruments, the guitar cutting through it all, and singing "to see my people as one" repeatedly.

Producer, performer and The Sunday Gleaner smile.

There is a sad story to Armageddon too, as Bajie says when he did it he had just heard that his father had died. "When me listen to the song it have a different vibe," Bajie says. It is a different feel as well, with Bajie being introduced as if he were doing a live show, going on to sing "me meditate pon Jah all night/fe be acceptable in Jah sight".

Then there is the title track, Equilibrium, on which Bajie speaks to many of the illusions that entrap the mind, like "a 100-pound girl a sey she a go do lipo".

Know Your Past is ska, Global Warning deals with the environment ("the hole in the ozone who put it there/is it the testing of the nuclear?") and Third Eye is among the final songs from Equilibrium that The Sunday Gleaner listens to.

Bajie has serious ambitions for the set, as he looks far into the future and far beyond Jamaica. "Me waan dis album ya fi have multiple indefinite," Bajie says to The Sunday Gleaner.

It is close to midnight when the in-studio session with a set well worth the listening time ends and The Sunday Gleaner descends the Truckback.