Released on 3 October 2025, Lophae’s “Imagine More” originates from guitarist Greg Sanders’ experience at a London house party in 2022. During the event, Sanders performed alongside Nigerian bassist Mike Idowu, playing a set of Ghanaian and Nigerian highlife songs. When they ran out of material, Idowu began singing and improvising over a single rhythmic pattern based on “Yaa Amponsah“, the piece widely recognised as the first highlife song.

A few days later, Sanders was booked to play a solo set at the October Gallery. Using a loop pedal, he tried to reconstruct the highlife lines he remembered from that night, translating them through electric guitar and live looping. The melody that emerged became “Imagine More”. Sanders later sent a recording to Idowu, who confirmed it was entirely new, though highlife remained its underlying reference point.

The version recorded by Lophae features Sanders with Sam Rapley (tenor saxophone), Tom Herbert (bass) and Ben Brown (drums). The quartet tracked the song live to 16-track analogue tape at the Fish Factory, London, with Benedic Lamdin engineering and mixing and Caspar Sutton-Jones mastering at Gearbox Records. The composition builds on the highlife rhythm’s cyclic movement, carried by Herbert’s steady bass line and Brown’s off-beat snare phrasing. Rapley’s saxophone states the main line in short phrases before Sanders expands it into harmonic motion.

Sanders describes “Imagine More” as shaped by his friendships and collaborations in London’s jazz community and influenced by artists such as Ebo Taylor, West Coast Ebusua, Sonny Rollins, Jim Hall, and Stan Getz. The track stands as a direct continuation of those exchanges, drawing its vibe from highlife and its form from jazz ensemble conversation.

“Imagine More” appears as the title track of Lophae’s second album, recorded during the same sessions as Perfect Strangers earlier in 2025.

You can listen to and get your copy of the album HERE