October 2021 SunNeverSetsOnMusic
Favourites|October2021
Visions Of Light
by Ishmael Ensemble
Released 6 August 2021
Severn Songs
*****
Ishmael Ensemble is the UK (Bristol) based collective led by saxophonist & producer Pete Cunningham. Visions of Light is their second album, succeeding their 2019 debut, "A State of Flow". The album opens with a short, ambient "Into" in which we encounter Cunningham exploring the lower registers of his tenor sax, amid a rising swell of harps and synths. But the piece is cut abruptly short after little more than a minute: it's as if the artist has made a false start. "Feather" which follows, resets the course and builds a moody vibe that sets the scene for the introduction Holyseuss Fly's soaring vocals. The lyrics are banal (When I hit the ground / You laid a mattress down / It was gold with feathers / I tripped and remembered ) but the track is a powerful statement of intent recalling and updating Brisolian precedents of Elizabeth Fraser / Massive Attack and Beth Gibbons / Portishead, whose influences are heard throughout this album.
The opening half of "Wax Werk" presents the rapidfire clacketty-clack of drum, bass, synth attack of Krautrock before it is overwhelmed by Cunninghams wild saxes. The shuffling musical elements of instrumental "Soma Centre" start out indistinctly but thier individuality seems to clarify as the song builds momentum and intensity. "Empty Hands" (featuring disturbing lyrics) maintains this intensity. "Looking Glass" features fellow Bristol artist
STANLÆY and "Morning Chorus" is another percussion-led piece reminiscent of Four-Tet or Atoms For Peace. The short piece "Visions of Light" features meloncholy vocals and dreamy instrumentals from Chris Hillier, while "The Gift" shifts back to a more uptempo groove, with Tiny Chapter providing the ethereal vocals. Holyseuss Fly returns on vocals for the album-closing "January".
"Visions of Light" is a solid sophomore album from "Ishmael Ensemble" but the group's influences remain close to the surface. Cunningham is featured on all tracks, however, the structure of the Ensemble otherwise allows a wide range of vocal and instrumental approaches going forward, with the potential for the Ensemble to establish a voice of its own, so as stand alongside contempories such as Moses Boyd and Sons of Kemet, rather than influences such Massive Attack, Portishead, Four Tet, Thom Yorke etc.
Source: Bandcamp
Flick
by POOKIE
Released 24 October 2021
Achol Agaar
****-
FLick, the debut album from rapper, songwriter, composer and producer POOKIE - an encapsulation of the artist's musical journey over the last 4 years. With its roots still deep in hip-hop, FLick explores jazz, rock and r&b (in true POOKIE fashion, a little bit of this and a little bit of that). It’s like Sade – if she was South Sudanese and grew up in Perth, Western Australia.
The album's opening cut (and lead single) Halloween is the POOKIE anthem; the organ stabs, the strings and the hook will have you wanting to jump on the bandwagon (or at least run beside it). In this expeditious number, POOKIE seems to really be introducing herself to audiences, following her EP Dinka Girl – released earlier this year.
Aćol Agaar Apollo, better known by the stage name POOKIE, is a South Sudanese rapper, songwriter, composer and producer born in Nairobi, Kenya.
POOKIE attributes her love for music to numerous nostalgic childhood anecdotes. Among these tales are flashbacks of her older brother hurling stereo speakers in the middle of the family compound and blasting Chaka Damus and Pliers’ "Murder She Wrote" all day long.
At age seven, her family migrated to Australia where she was introduced to the works of Missy Elliot and the world of Hip-Hop music at large.
Growing up in Perth, POOKIE also discovered a love for other forms of creative expression, ranging from painting, sculpting and sketching. Utilising this creative arsenal, POOKIE’s art has become a dynamic display of her South Sudanese roots, with many of her pieces celebrating her Dinka culture and heritage.
POOKIE relocated to Melbourne in 2014, and found a scene of African creatives boldly celebrating their narratives - unapologetically committed to redefining the art scene by taking up their own space. Finding comfort among the like-minded, POOKIE began exhibiting her art, as well as organising and curating events for empowering Black femme creatives. Around this time, POOKIE also took to the stage with her spoken word poetry. Through experimenting with elements of her poetry, POOKIE discovered the world of production and in 2018 she began studying production and music business. In 2019, she formed a five-piece band. With a wave of authentic Afro-Jazz and Hip-Hop melodies, they quickly made an artistic impact in Melbourne’s music scene, while elevating their name with performances across Australia.
POOKIE not only employs her art as a means of self-expression, but uses it as a medium to bridge the gap between her experiences as a Black African woman growing up in Australia as she navigates the relentless challenges of this society.
With effortless eloquence and grace, POOKIE authentically represents life as it would have been in Paan Jieng, while being dispossessed and subjugated as a part of the South Sudanese Australian diaspora.
Credits
POOKIE: lyrics, main vocals, production, composition
Alejandro 'Silentjay' Abapo, keys
Jason Watts: bass, percussion, backing vocals
Charlie Bowmaker: keys, synth bass, vocals, backing vocals
Leon Sebastian: drums, backing vocals
Ayden Thorne: saxophone, vocals, backing vocals
Winton Findlay: percussion, trumpet, synth
Yannick: vocals
Elle Shimada: violin
Source: Heavy Machinery Records
Hope In An Empty City
by Joseph Tawadros
Released July 2021
Joseph Tawadros
*****
Born in Cairo (1984) and a resident of Sydney since he was 3 years old, Joseph Tawadros is established as one of the world’s leading oud performers and composers. A virtuoso of diversity and sensitivity, Joseph performs in concert halls worldwide and is known for his brilliant technique, deep musicianship and joyous style of performance.
His drive to push musical boundaries has led to many collaborations with significant performers and a solid repertoire of innovative, original music.
He has recorded 14 albums, hass been nominated for Young Australian of the Year (2014) and received the NSW Premier’s medal for Arts and Culture, an Order of Australia Medal (AM) for his services to music and composition (2016) and 12 nominations and achieved four ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Awards (2012, 2013 and 2014) for Best World Music Album, and as a contributor to the Ali’s Wedding soundtrack album in 2017.
Joseph is acknowledged for expanding the oud’s notoriety and acceptance in mainstream western culture and has also been recognised in the Arab world, appearing on the judging panel of the Damascus International Oud competition in 2009, and taking part in Istanbul’s first Oud festival in 2010.
Joseph has been based in London through the COVID pandemic period but the majority of "Hope In An Empty City" was recorded in New York in June 2017 with an exceptional ensemble consisting of Jordanian Layth Sidiq (violin), Scott Colley (double bass), Dan Weiss (drums) and David ‘Fuze’ Fiuczynski (fretless guitar).
This release sees Joseph broaden the parameters of traditional Arabic music by inviting a crack Jazz players in to join the oud. The result is sheer delight - an album that will be ranked among the best of East-West musical fusion music.
Three beautiful, melancholy solo tracks "Everything Is You", "Von Brady" and final cut "Ya Lel (The Night)" were recorded in London in May 2021, during lockdown. In interview with Andrew Ford (ABC The Music Show 17 July 2021), Tawadros explained that these tracks feature longer oud solos than the artist has previously allowed himself, a direct result of changes to his playing style that have occured in isolation.
The songs and album title derive from the conditions of the pandemic, and has what Tawdros describes as “a distinctive individual energy from each player as they come together creating a new sound for Joseph’s compositions, with a cinematic breadth that will take listeners on an evocative and emotional musical adventure.”
Source: Joseph Tawadros Official Site
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Everywhere We Looked Was Burning (Live)
by Emel
Released 7 September 2021
Partisan Records
****-
Emel Mathlouthi (Emel) isn't interested in being typecast as an exotic North African. For people who still haven't heard her ground her honeyed vocals in heavy, distorted electronics, and whose theatrical stage presence and arresting visuals call to mind the likes of Kate Bush and Björk, it's still useful to know how she rose onto stages across the world and become an anthemic voice during the Arab Spring. (NPR)
As might be implied from the album's title "Everywhere We Looked Was Burning (Live)" is a concert recording, primarily revisiting songs from Emel's 2019 album if the same name. Recorded in Europe just before the COVID-19 pandemic, the set list contains the opening five songs of the original album, but swaps out four others: three from her 2017 release Ensen and one "Ma Lkit (Not Found)", from her 2012 debut "Kelmti Horra", before closing out the set with the titular track.
Everywhere We Looked Was Burning (Live) sees Emel and her audiences on a journey of hope and darkness at the same time - of warmth, simplicity and spontaneity. In Emel's own words, "...as the title of the album may suggest it was a cry from my heart to try to raise awareness of a range of truly burning issues - from the forced and violent displacement of people, to rampant misogyny, to the ravages of global business against the planet: problems that were springing up, festering or accelerating everywhere we looked as the last decade drew near its end".
Although heralded as "a voice of the Arab Spring" her songs are poetic and her vocal delivery ethereal. Opening track "Rescuer" is a slow, dirge-like mystical poem that is sung in english against haunting percussion-led backing. 'This Place", which invites comparison with Bjork, recalls moments from the past "...All of it, all of it left and here I am". Sung in Arabic, "Lost" builds gravitas and "Ensen Dhaif", "Ma Lkit" and "Thamaton" showcase Emel's power, range and musicality.
In the promotional material for the original 2019 album, the artist declared that it "is a cry to people to realize that we are in this together. It's burning for everyone: the stakes are universal. This album is in big part a tribute to reconnecting with nature, whether by the themes, the poetry or sonically speaking. As humanity is at a unique stage of trouble, art is a beacon in these turbulent waters. It is not us against nature, we are part of nature. We are nature". The song speaks insightfully of humanity's plight in the face of political and environmental catastrophe"
Mother
by Cleo Sol
Released 19 August 2021
Forever Living Originals
*****
Cleo Sol has arguably been among the most interesting and prolific artists during the recent period, as the world has been assaulted by pandemic and shaken by resurgent racism, each giving rise to unprecedented social disruption: and all occurring in an era when the technologies and ownership of communication and media are changing constantly. The social and political outcomes of this era are likely to take generations to unravel and Cleo Sol's contribution to consciousness-raising as a member of the enigmatic UK soul ensemble SAULT will be an important piece of this period's musical heritage.
On the other hand, her solo albums are entirely different creations, reflecting personal relationships and influences.
Her sophomore new release"Mother"is an emotional and thoughtful response to the birth to her first child, in June 2021, which was reflected in a post to Instagram in which she wrote: “I became a mother this year and it’s been the most transformative, uplifting, heart-melting, strength giving experience thus far that led me to write this album. We worked with a small team of hand-picked individuals, who helped make this music so special and whose intentions were aligned with the honesty I was looking for and who trusted that vision.”
Working again with producer Inflo (whose work with the likes of Michael Kiwanuka, SAULT, Little Simz, Jungle has made him legend), the album is like a collection of tenderly sung diary entries, prayers and lullabies. However, the lyrics don't sugar coat the pain within; these songs deal with personal relationships, especially of the mother-daughter kind.
Opening track "Don't Let Me Fall"is sung daughter-to-mother: “We were kids under the sheets / In this hoarded house / There’s no hope in these rooms of looped dreams / All these pictures looking at me / Mothers don’t leave.” The song's extended instrumental passage fuses seamlessly with "Promises" revealing a sad breakdown in the relationship: "We get closer, but not close enough / Why'd you have to leave? / Why'd you have to go?", she sings.
After this bleak start, some hope is restored in "Heart Full of Love", where Sol prays "Thankyou for sending me an angel straight from Heaven / When my hope was gone, you made me strong".
"Build Me Up", the first of the two eight minutes long centrepieces among this collection, is a painful plea for a partner's selfless attention.
However, the songs for the remainder of the album, are affirming.
"Sunshine" ("You make me feel alive") offers optimism, even in a foreign land.
"We Need You", "Don't Let It Go To Your Head" ("love is stronger than fear") and "Music" ("But life is yours / Dont let them take that away") each offer the encouragement of a parent.
Even the gently sung lyrics of "23" belie it's subject matter, a mother who won't grow up and take responsibility.
The second of the eight minute set pieces, "One Day" brings joy with the lyric "And it feels as if I was born to be free / Flyin' higher just you and me" and the penultimate song,"Know That You Are Loved" extends a heart-warming sentiment: ("Know that you are loved / Even if you don't love yourself"). Finally, "Spirit" closes out the album triumphantly, building from minimalist piano and sofly sung lyrics at the opening, to fully-voiced vocals and and exhuberant horn-filled backing.
Stylistically, the album sits close to the five SAULT productions however Sol's restrained gospel vocals are the standout element here, at times evoking Dione Warwick and Roberta Flack, she invites the audience to fully appreciate the lyrical content. If there is a criticism, it is that although the lyrics to the majority of the songs are positive, a melancholy unnecesarily permeates the entire project. The production might have benefited from a more lively sound pallate, as one world imaging Burt Bacharach and Hal David, for example, achieving in previous times.
Nevertheless, this is an outstanding release that, SAULT's overt socio-political references are left alone, so that Cleo Sol is clearly and magnificently heard, as a solo artist once again.
Source + We Move (Hi Res)
by Cleo Sol, Others
Released 22 October 2021
Concord Jazz
****-
Nubya Garcia's 2020 album SOURCE was among many critics' top 10-lists last year, including our own SunNeverSetsOnMusic 2020 Favourites. Following its release many of Garcia's peers released remixes of each
The song order does not replicate "SOURCE", one of it's songs ("Before Us: In Demerara & Caura") is missing and another "la cumbia Me Esta Llamando") is worthy of two new takes. Two additional remixes - Makaya McCraven's version of"Source" and Mark De Clive-Lowe's remix of "The Message Continues" are not included.
As AllMusic noted, Source, was a stunning, kaleidoscopic work that explored the connections between the thriving modern (UK) jazz scene and the composer's Afro-Caribbean roots, harmoniously blending dub reggae, cumbia, neo-soul, and several other genres into a powerful meditation on family history and identity.
Source: We Move is a short but diverse remix collection, further expanding the scope of the original album while keeping its message intact and continuing to honor Garcia's heritage.
Broken beat pioneer Kaidi Tatham starts off the set with a sparkling revision of "La cumbia me está llamando," which subtly shifts through different rhythms before landing at a heart-racing conclusion filled with shuffling percussion.
Nala Sinephro's brief, wondrous mix of "Together Is a Beautiful Place to Be" plucks some of the original's saxophone and places it in an orb of harps and echo effects, along with some momentary drum breaks.
DJ Harrison's "The Message Continues" collides more killer breakbeats with filtered sax melodies, basking in effortless good vibes.
Georgia Anne Muldrow and KeiyaA both inhabit more abstract spaces with their trippy reworkings of "Boundless Beings" and
"Stand With Each Other" respectively: Muldrow goes for a wonky Los Angeles beat scene approach, frequently fading the beat in and out, while KeiyaA loops pitched-up, chattering voices and threads the track with dubby, pulsating beats.
Suricata ("La cumbia me está llamando feat. La Perla") and Dengue Dengue Dengue (Source") both explore the cross-section of dub and electro-cumbia, with the latter's mix holding the heaviest bass weight.
Finally, visionary drummer Moses Boyd ends the set with a phenomenal drum'n'bass reworking of "Pace," comfortably setting Garcia's cascading saxophone to slamming breakbeats and trickling guitars.
While Source was an epic labor of love that clearly felt like the culmination of extensive soul-searching and constant refinement of the artist's craft, Source: We Move is far more spontaneous and off-the-cuff, recontextualizing snatches of the compositions in the postmodern tradition of hip-hop and dance music culture. The remix collection is considerably more fragmented than the cohesive original, but it's no less forward-thinking, and is well worth the time of anyone who was bowled over by the proper album.
Source: AllMusic
Skin
by Joy Crookes
Released 15 October 2021
Sony Music
****-
"Skin" is an impressive debut album by London singer-songwriter Joy Crookes, who although still stylistically influenced by her heroes (especially Amy Winehouse) still manages to stand out in the city's over-crowded, highly talented field of nu-soul female vocalists.
That's because she is overflowing with musical and lyrical vitality and possesses the happy knack of the very best writers and composers, to be able to commit her ideas to song in a way that makes the results of the combination of music and lyrics seem as if they were somehow inevitable.
Simultaneously, she marries the local to the universal and the personal to the political, broadening her reach and appeal.
It’s an album eight years in the making, capturing the South London musician’s journey through adulthood as she greater establishes her identity in her past, present and future, all while gazing out at the constantly-changing socio-political world surrounding her. It’s full of the intricacies and detail that have pedestaled Joy Crookes as a blossoming artistic force, full of the personal intimacy that sits within her lyrics, her production, and the visuals that tie them together. In all, Skin is an album that showcases every single facet to Joy Crookes: “This is an album about my identity,” she confirms.The songs are frequently autobiographical, drawing upon her Bangladeshi-Irish heritage and South London beginnings.
It’s an album eight years in the making, capturing the South London musician’s journey through adulthood as she greater establishes her identity in her past, present and future, all while gazing out at the constantly-changing socio-political world surrounding her. It’s full of the intricacies and detail that have pedestaled Joy Crookes as a blossoming artistic force, full of the personal intimacy that sits within her lyrics, her production, and the visuals that tie them together. In all, Skin is an album that showcases every single facet to Joy Crookes: “This is an album about my identity,” she confirms.
Source: Pilerats
The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
by Valerie June
Released 12 March 2021
Fantasy Records
****-
The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers emerged from a long-awaited revelation on the part of the Tennessee-bred singer/songwriter. “With this record, it finally became clear why I have this dream of making music,” June says of her third album for Fantasy Records. “It’s not for earthly reasons of wanting to be awarded or to win anybody’s love—it’s because dreaming keeps me inquisitive and keeps me on that path of learning what I have to share with the world. I think when we allow ourselves to dream like we did when we were kids, it ignites the light that we all have within us and helps us to have a sort of magic about the way we live.”
Produced by June and Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys, John Legend), The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers achieves that transcendent effect thanks in no small part to the splendor of its sound, an exquisitely composed tapestry of folk, soul, gospel, country, blues, psychedelia, and time-bending symphonic pop. In bringing the album to life, June and Splash stayed true to the spirit of wide-eyed exploration by working with an eclectic lineup of esteemed musicians, absorbing themselves in a prolonged period of free-flowing experimentation and playing with a magnificently vast palette of instruments (flute and banjo, mbira and Mellotron, saxophone and synth, to name just a few). The result is a selection of songs both ornate and elegant, each moment crafted with a profound awareness of what’s most essential in creating enduring beauty.
Source: Bandcamp
Blue Heron Suite
by Sarah Jarosz
Released 7 May 2021
Rounder Records
****-
Composed after becoming the recipient of the FreshGrass Composition Commission in 2017, Blue Heron Suite was recorded in December of 2018 at Reservoir Studios in New York City and features Jeff Picker on bass and Jefferson Hamer on guitar and harmony vocals. The piece was inspired by frequent trips Jarosz and her parents made to Port Aransas, a small town on the Gulf Coast of Texas a few hours from the family’s home in Wimberley. “2017 was an emotional year for me - my mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer the previous winter and the town of Port Aransas was severely impacted by Hurricane Harvey,” recalls Jarosz. “Those two events caused me to think back to the early morning walks my mom and I would take along Mustang Island beach - we would always spot the Great Blue Herons along the shore… The bird came to be a symbol of hope for my family during a difficult time, and even now, throughout my travels, whenever I spot a Blue Heron, I always think of it as a good omen; a little reminder of the important things in life, especially family.”
The album steps away from the sassy Americana stylings of World On The Ground and taps Jarosz's folk sensibilities and vocal capabilities, to great effect. It's a very personal record that evolved from a time of hardship, but Jarosz does not allow the underlying melancholy to dominate. Instead, she and her little trio bring an engaging range of moods, tempos and vocal approaches to each track.
Note: In March 2021 Sarah Jarosz won a Grammy in the Best Americana Album category for her June 2020 release, World On The Ground (which features in SunNeverSetsOnMusic's June 2020 Playlist)
Prioritise Pleasure
by Self Esteem
Released 22 October 2021
Universal Music
*****
Throughout Prioritise Pleasure, her second album as Self Esteem, Rebecca Taylor searches for a feeling she can rely on. Her stomach and heart seldom align. A callous lover makes her doubt herself. “Casual” texts from an ex evidently conceal ulterior motives. She has to check out emotionally in order to climax from a zipless fuck. Marriage and babies don’t appeal, yet other people’s still make her insecure. Even the nostalgia induced by a warm summer’s day can trick her into self-sabotage.
Pacing these shifting sands is exhausting. But simply by defining them, and acknowledging how normal it is for these contradictory states to coexist (especially in the lives of women, contorted by diet culture and dating), Taylor establishes a sturdy sense of common ground – one on which the makings of a stellar pop second act are taking shape.
Prioritise Pleasure (is) an album totally confident in its strange, brilliant vision: if there is a counterforce to all that instability, Taylor implies, it is in nothing but full-throated expression.(It) is a rare big pop album after 18 months of comparatively diminutive offerings from headline female pop acts.
On the title track, Taylor breathlessly lists her shortcomings over a choppy, earthy beat: “I shrunk, moved and changed,” she sings, a state of affairs that she immediately defies with a dizzying, moving chorus, It all comes together best on I Do This All The Time, which, improbably, melds the influence of Arab Strap, Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) and Lisa Stansfield into song-of-the-year material.
Self-Esteem’s second album shows that it is never as easy as all that. It’s a powerfully intense record that some may recoil from; confrontational and liable to catch you off-guard as Taylor crisply extracts gutting truths from the general murk of self-loathing, never sugarcoating grimness nor over-egging her attempts at self-affirmation. Despite the imperative contained in the title, the album doesn’t preach but invites you in, suggesting pleasure as a collective vision born of shared confidences. It’s remarkable.
Source: The Guardian (Laura Snapes)
Fresia Mandalena (EP)
by Sophia Kourtesis
Released 19 March 2021
Jazz re:freshed
****-
Berlin based, Peruvian artist Sofia Kourtesis has today announced her new EP Fresia Magdalena will be released 19 March via Ninja Tune imprint Technicolour. Following her breakout EP Sarita Colonia - which saw her tipped as a 'One To Watch' by The Observer, feature on Emerging Artist lists from DJ and Mixmag as well as being named #4 in Gorilla Vs. Bear's 'EPs and Mixtapes of 2020' and appearing in this years NME 100 - the EP continues to hone her singular sound,
using astutely selected samples and a joyful sense of personality and place to make something utterly infectious. Today she has also shared lead single ‘La Perla’, a track that is at once energising and meditative. Utilising her own singing voice for the first time, ‘La Perla’ clears the head in an uplifting wave before getting the body moving.
Speaking of the track she says:
"Although I’ve sampled my own voice before, this is the first time I’ve really sung on a track. My dream is to develop a live show and I created ‘La Perla’ with that in mind. ‘La Perla’ is about staring at the sea, It's the first thing I’ll do when I return to Peru. My dad used to say staring at the sea is like meditation, it clears your head. This song is for him. It's hard for me to listen to La Perla as it wrote it during a time I lost my dad to leukaemia. This song is for him, descansa en paz papa"
Though undeniably present in all her work, Fresia Magdalena is more rooted in Kourtesis’ native Peru than ever. On one of her regular extended trips home, the process of making the EP began with the collection of field recordings around the city of Lima where Kourtesis' family currently live and specifically Magdalena, their district. "I look at songs like a collage" she says, "I put all the samples at the forefront and create music around them". Then finished between Peru and Berlin, the result finds both aspects of her life bleeding effortlessly into her music and weaving around themes and a broad range of styles that remain universal.
From the gritty and pulsating rumble of ‘Dakotas’ to the twinkling groove of ‘By Your Side’ and the exhilaration of ‘La Perla’, Kourtesis’ ability to naturally flow from one style to the next, though always with an eye on the return to the dancefloor, is ever apparent here. Thematically though, her message is simple and direct. "Fresia Magdalena is about activism" she says, "It's about making positive changes, whoever and wherever you are".
A passionately vocal voice for the wellbeing of the community herself, Kourtesis here attributes this message to the person who inspires her most. "Fresia is my mother’s name" she says, "her whole life she’s fought hard for the people of Magdalena, Peru. This is my tribute to her and the other activists around the world working hard to better the lives of others. We as musicians have a responsibility to help our communities to have their voices heard, changes are needed".
A nod to another significant figure both to Kourtesis and to any unheard voices, the artwork for the EP draws an elegant line between previous EP Sarita Colonia and this one. "Housed within one of Lima’s biggest favelas, The Cementerio Baquijano del Callao contains a beautiful tribute to Sarita Colonia, the Patron of the Poor" Kourtesis recalls, "she’s an icon within Peru and the voice of the underrepresented. Gaining access to this cemetery is challenging as not everyone can just walk into a favela but after some negotiations we managed to gain access". Much like the music itself these images were then collaged to create something striking and new.
Fresia Magdalena loses none of its impact when taken at its surface level – a collection of vibrant dance music that gets under the skin and lifts the mood with distinctive and addictive flourishes separating it from the pack. What really makes it unique though is the life bubbling under the surface of the collection as a whole. The influences, passions and relationships of Kourtesis as a person are behind every moment - a fierce call to action softened and presented with the warmth of family and home.
Source: Bandcamp
Driftglass
by SEED Ensemble
Released 8 February 2019
Jazz re:freshed
****-
Four-time Grammy Award winner Esperanza Spalding has taken a scientific approach to her newest release, Songwrights Apothecary Lab.
For this project, the bassist and composer wanted to make her music a visceral healing experience for the listener — enlisting the help of not only fellow musicians, but a team of researchers, neuroscientists and music therapists, too.
Every song on the album is created with a specific human condition in mind, studying how the body responds to experiences of aging, social anxiety and stress, and counteracting those responses with each of the 12 new musical compositions.
The Songwrights Apothecary Lab itself is an ongoing project led by Spalding that will continue to bring artists and experts together to explore how musicians can apply the principles and findings of music therapy to their art.
“Half songwriting workshop and half guided-research practice, the Songwrights’ Apothecary Lab seeks to develop a structure for the collaborative development of new compositions designed to offer enhanced salutary benefit to listeners,” the website reads.
The songs (or formwelas) to come from these lab sessions were conceived in Wasco County, Oregon, and Portland. Spalding recorded the first six compositions in collaboration with Wayne Shorter, Phoelix, Raphael Saadiq, Justin Tyson, Ganavya Doraiswamy and Corey King for the first six songs. The second half of the album was recorded with drummer Francisco Mela, pianist Leo Genovese, guitarist Matthew Stevens, and saxophonist Aaron Burnett over the course of 10 days in June in New York. Theses sessions were also filmed for accompanying visuals.
Each night, the Songwrights Apothecary Lab extended invitations to the public, where they could listen to each song and speak with Spalding and her team of researchers about the intentions, methods and effects of each composition.
On Songwrights Apothecary Lab, Spalding takes a literal and methodical approach to the John Coltrane quote: “If one of my friends is ill, I’d like to play a certain song and he will be cured.”
Source: Jazz FM
Shout Out! To Freedom
by Nightmares On Wax
Released 29 October 2021
Warp Records
*****
Sliding into middle-age, Nightmares on Wax hits upon a hot streak – aided and abetted by the considerable talents of Greentea Peng, OSHUN, Haile Supreme, and Shabaka Hutchings
At fifty-one years-old, Leeds-born George Evelyn has now been releasing trip-hop and techno records as Nightmares on Wax for thirty whole years. Influenced at first by the b-boy and rap scene of his home city, he was an early signee to Warp Records and soon became a key figure in their glitchy rise to dominance.
But while Aphex Twin and Autechre pursued more challenging and propulsive sounds, Evelyn plunged towards far warmer territory. With records like 1999’s Carboot Soul, a nostalgic, crate-digging soundtrack to many a toke, he became a legend in the downtempo scene to follow.
As anyone who’s dabbled in a ten hour Lo-Fi-Beats-To-Study-To mix on YouTube knows, music which is laidback to the point of sedation can feel blissful and utterly inconsequential in equal measure. Even a craftsman like Evelyn began the last decade somewhat drifting, releasing albums which sounded soothing to the point of snoozing. But it’s a joy to announce that Nightmares On Wax is on something of a hot-streak. It began with 2019’s Shape The Future where he adopted the Avalanches-Gorillaz approach of bringing in a gamut of guest-singers and MCs, a formula he returns to with even greater success here.
The press which has surrounded this latest album emphasises that it was made by a rejuvenated creator. For him, the pandemic came at the end of ten years of relentless touring and a cancer scare. Like many people, the 2020 lockdowns brought Evelyn a chance for pause and self-reflection. He began writing with the focus of a man working on his final testament. The album which came from those sessions does indeed sound like one made by an artist deeply engaging and in love with his own music again. Frankly, Shout Out! To Freedom.... is a joy to listen to, packed as it is with warm tones, a boat-load of guest-stars, and an eclectic sound which dips between dub, rap, and house.
The guest stars certainly help keep the mellow vibe consistently fresh, from the deep-voiced neo-soul of OSHUN to the repeated presence of New York roots-reggae artist Haile Supreme, who brings the ghost of Curtis Mayfield to closer ‘Up To Us’.
Less a lockdown record and more a post-lockdown record, various lyricists return to themes of freedom – physical and otherwise. Singing about 5G and fluoride in the water, buzzy Londoner Greentea Peng skirts around questionably conspiratorial themes on ‘Wikid Satellites’, but the sound of her voice is such a harmonious match for Evelyn’s horns and pianos that, together, they even make libertarianism sound sexy.
The star of the show though is London saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who totally hijacks ‘3D Warrior’ with a subterranean groove which turns the album briefly into a Comet Is Coming LP. That’s not to diminish the skills of Evelyn though, who is still more than capable of bringing the goods without assistance, as he shows on early highlight ‘Imagineering’, a track which takes you on a journey straight to the Cuba of Buena Vista Social Club, but hands you a couple of brownies for the trip.
The song and the whole album are testament to the fact that – even with largely-instrumental, crate-digging music – when the creator is making their songs with a smile, you’ll feel it. Oh, you’ll feel it.
Source: The Quietus
FIELDNOTES (EP)
by Ego Ella May
Released 15 October 2021
Ego Ella May
****-
Ego Ella May is a songwriter and vocalist, hailing from South London. She has an all-encompassing love of music, which she channels into her own neo-soul and contemporary jazz compositions.
Alongside writing from the heart, performing live is important to Ego Ella May to share and connect with the people who enjoy her music; “I feel most comfortable when my band is with me and I can just dance around whilst they play really sick versions of the tunes!”
Ella May has worked with the likes of Oscar Jerome, Joe Armon-Jones (Ezra Collective), Wu-Lu and Eddie Hick (Sons of Kemet), recording with live instruments in an impromptu jam-setting. She has received support from the likes of Bradley Zero (BBC Radio 1), Jamz Supernova (BBC Radio 1) and Gilles Peterson (BBC 6Music) alongside The New York Times, Noisey and Clash Magazine.
Regards FIELDNOTES, her first major release, the artist's Bandcamp entry says it best:
Fieldnotes refer to qualitative notes recorded by scientists or researchers in the course of field research, during or after their observation of a specific organism or phenomenon they are studying. Fieldnotes allow the researcher to access the subject and record what they observe in an unobtrusive manner. These 4 songs were written in lockdown and became my findings about myself during such a weird and confusing time. I was observing what was going on, and writing about it for my own sanity and as usually these songs helped me to understand myself a lot better and cope with what was going on. This EP is the first in the series of releases coming over the following months.
Breathe: It's funny because the song order is the order in which the songs were actually written. I remember writing this song in the peak of the first lockdown because it felt like everywhere I looked people were trying to make the most of being in a global pandemic. It was their opportunity to realise their dreams!! write a novel, make the best banana bread, get fit, and not let this precious time go to waste, and I was just bewildered because.. we're in a pandemic! no1 has a clue what's going on, and even now we are still trying to push ourselves to be working non-stop and on the grind. I thought if this time wasn't a call to rest then what was it gonna take?
I also wrote it because it seemed I was the only one who was doing nothing! I started to feel pressure to 'be someone' but then deepening my yoga practice helped me to realise that just being during this time is more than enough. I don't need to DO anything. I can simply observe, take my time, and breathe. This is the first collab I did with Geo Jordan and it just felt so natural that we did another.. (yoyo)
YoYo: I wrote this because the media was pissing me off. I felt like a lot of things were being exaggerated which resulted in lots of fear and separation. I was still in a period where I didn't have an understanding of anything really going on and so my views changed daily and I was questioning everything.. it felt like I was doing a lot of yoyo-ing simply because I was so confused. I felt like an alien and in my annoyance about that I dreamt about living off grid, where there's no TV and no iPhone, I'm with like-minded people and we just grow our veg and make clothes, and cook and sing and dance and make up our own rules, and that's how yoyo came about. It's a song about my dream life. Aside from that I really love the production on this song! it's so feel good, and was produced once again by Geo Jordan.
I Feel Something: I wrote this song when I ran away to Margate for a few weeks to live by the sea during yet another lockdown. It was in February, it was cold, snowing, and everyone was miserable. I wanted to be on a beach somewhere but I felt trapped here. I ran away because I wanted to try something new, I actually took up running for a little while simply because for the most part I just felt numb and in a routine that was slowly killing my creative. So Eun (producer) sent me some stuff to work on and I freestyled this song and never changed it. The end of the song feels like a light at the end of the tunnel when I say 'somethings lit up, they won't get us' - I had gotten to the end of the song and felt like "ok, still got it!" because I hadn't recorded anything in a while.
Speck Of Dust: The last song I wrote for the EP, and a good closing song because it made me realise that I was no longer in that 'I feel something' headspace. The weather was getting warmer, and my mind was getting clearer and I suppose I was getting used to this 'new normal'. I'd survived a dark time! This song is about how miniscule your problems can be sometimes, in the grand scheme of life. I'm just a speck of dust in this really big world. An ant! and none of this matters- and I mean that in the best possible way! all of this will simply fade away, so why worry?? It made me feel good to think about life in that way..
I worked on this song with Flwr Chyld and I'm still so blown away by the production- it's one of my faves.
Source: Bandcamp
Love Came Down
by Brian Owens & The Royal Five
Released 15 October 2021
Life Creative Group
****-
Music and love define the artistry of singer, songwriter and dedicated community activist Brian Owens. These qualities radiate from all of his work. In 2017, Brian Owens constructed two critically acclaimed albums: Soul of Ferguson and Soul of Cash. Each record was highlighted by Rolling Stone magazine along with several other prominent online media outlets
His new album, "Love Came Down" focuses on themes of faith, family, and purpose as Brian offers listeners his most personal and introspective recording to date.
A unique part of this process is the partnership with LIFE Arts, a nonprofit founded by Brian which seeks to produce the future-ready leaders of today through arts education, programs, projects, and pathways. Through the LIFE Creative Pathways Initiative, Brian will empower several students to help with production oversight as well as implementation of the album’s overall concept. Specifically, six young artists and writers ranging from 12 to 28 years have been selected to work on this project in areas of A&R, songwriting, and production. These students will receive paid experience as well as recording and mentoring opportunities with and from the Grammy-award winning team Brian has selected to create this record.
In all, while this album will be Brian’s most personal lyrically, it symbolically will be a global introduction to the transformative work happening through Brian and his organization—LIFE Arts—in his hometown of Ferguson, MO.
Source: Bandcamp
Gela
by Baker Boy
Released 15 October 2021
Island Records Australia
****-
It may have taken him a while, but the Fresh Prince of Arnhem Land has come through with the goods. Since bursting on to the scene in 2017 with “Cloud 9”, Baker Boy has slowly but surely pieced together a debut album that highlights the dance beats he’s become known for, willingness to indulge modern music and pay respects to his ancestors, while putting at the forefront of each song his ability to perform in both his native tongue and English. The former Young Australian of the Year, Baker Boy has been ever-reliable in releasing catchy pop songs that the public has flocked to en masse. Here on his debut album, Gela, this has not changed.
With half of the album’s 14 songs already released and on streaming services, there isn’t a heap of new material on Gela left to surprise the listener with a first listen. This normally wouldn’t be ideal, but based on the overall quality of the remaining album tracks, when combined with a flurry of hit singles already released, Gela stands up as one of the better debut albums of 2021. Gela, Baker Boy’s skin name and one of the truest forms of his identity, takes you into Baker Boy’s world as he paints the best and most vivid picture of himself. A proud Yolngu man, Baker Boy (or Danzal Baker as his friends know him) incorporates his rich connection to his culture into all of Gela which, as he puts it, makes the album him; it’s his story. At the root of it, Gela is Baker Boy’s connection between his home, his people, the big city and his progression to being one of the most exciting artists in the country.
The album has its notable peaks in the form of its singles, with Baker Boy melding his native tongue and English effortlessly across all his hits, from the slinky and bass heaving “Cool as Hell” to the clean and killer “Meditjin”. As probably the best known of his tracks, it’s the quality of these two tracks that ooze and fill the remainder of the album with quality. Notable collaborations with G Flip on “My Mind” and Yirrmal on “Ride” showcases Baker Boy’s ability to delve into full blown pop mastery (“My Mind” being an absolute love song and hit), while “Ride” embraces elements of modern hip-hop, big band and Indigenous Australian music. It’s this willingness to embrace different styles and voices that helps Gela stand on its own.
The love of “My Mind” continues on “Butterflies”, a deep dive into the feelings everyone has felt when they think about their crush or partner. Describing the song as being about that adrenaline hit and feeling of excitement you get while chasing love, “Butterflies” once more shows the overall strength and catchiness of Gela.
While the pre-released singles are all hits and worthy singles, it’s the remainder of the album tracks that hold the key to maintaining Gela at such great heights. “Stupid Dumb” is the closest of tracks to follow a traditional hip-hop style and flow, with its three minutes run time just not long enough to allow the song to go to another level.
Flipping the album on its head once more, “Funk Wit Us” gives the album a little disco flavour, with its simplistic hook intertwined with the vibes of a great house party and classy backing vocals.
“Make You Want to Dance” is cut from the same cloth as “Funk Wit Us”, and as the album closer features the experimental elements of a Beastie Boys track if it were to be released in 2021.
Baker Boy is to be commended on his willingness to have friends, family and industry colleagues feature across Gela. From the aforementioned features of G Flip and Yirrmal, to the faultless vocals of Lara Andallo, or the intense and forceful delivery of “Survive” featuring Uncle Jack Charles on a spoken word verse, Gela highlights Baker Boy’s want and ability to invest his time and efforts into his story, people and industry.
It’s not often debut albums hit like Gela does. It’s been a slow build for Baker Boy after seemingly breaking through overnight, but in the end, waiting four years to hear the album was worth the wait.
Gela might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the album and the artist who created it will undoubtedly do wonders for many people for many years to come.
Source: The AU Review
Hand To Earth
by Australian Art Orchestra, Daniel Wilfred, David Wilfred, Sunny Kim, Peter Knight, Aviva Endean
Released 8 October 2021
Forever Living Originals
*****
With an emphasis on improvisation, the AAO explores the meeting points between disciplines and cultures, and imagines new musical forms to reflect the energy and diversity of 21st century Australia. Led by trumpeter/composer Peter Knight, the AAO explores the interstices between the avant-garde and the traditional, between art and popular music, and between electronic and acoustic approaches.
Hand to Earth is a call to open ears: eluding genre, traversing continents and fusing ancient and contemporary. At its heart are Yolgnu manikay (song cycles), a 40,000+ year-old oral tradition from South East Arnhem Land, northern Australia. These songs exist to cross vast time and space, to continuously make the continuous – known as raki, the spirit that pulls all together, all performers all listeners.
Hand to Earth developed during an Australia Art Orchestra (AAO) residency in the remote highlands of Tasmania. Yolgnu songman, Daniel Wilfred, and Korean vocalist, Sunny Kim, formed an effortless rapport; their combined vocal approaches expressing a deeply human commonality whilst also invoking raw elemental forces. Trumpeter and composer, Peter Knight draws upon his minimalist influence to create a bed of electronic atmospheres that meld beautifully with these contrasting voices. The combination of Aviva Endean and David Wilfred’s evocative sounds transport the listener to previously unimagined sonic plains. Together the ensemble wields these mystical elements with a masterful improvisational touch that AAO is famous for.
Source: Bandcamp
Restless Dream
by Bob Weatherall & Halfway, William Barton
Released 27 August 2021
ABC Records
*****
Restless Dream is a collaboration between Brisbane band Halfway and Kamileroi (Northern NSW) elder Bob Weatherall, with legendary Australian yiḏaki (didgeridoo) player, William Barton.
In 2015, they began to work on the writing and recording of an album of song-stories.
Aboriginal ancestral remains and secret, sacred objects are scattered across the globe, in museums both overseas and in Australia. In Aboriginal religious law, there will be no spiritual peace until the dead have been returned to the place of their birth and received their last rites in accordance with their traditions.
This album tells the story of the Repatriation of Aboriginal Ancestral Remains. Restless Dream is a very personal story, yet it touches all Aboriginal Nations as they grapple with the task of repatriation and reburial, just as it acknowledges those who have taken on the task of uncovering the past and advocating for the Rights of the Dead.
Bob and William are both friends of Halfway.
John Willsteed of Halfway says “Bob used to come to band practices, to listen to us play, and to share the summer nights and his stories. My ears sought out Bob’s words in the dark, the stories of his work: travelling to the other side of the earth; the arrogance and thievery of scientists and protectors; the overwhelming emotion of this job. A job which chose him. A tricky job, full of negotiation, responsibility, righteous successes and disheartening failures. And he was burdened with an overwhelming question: Who is going to carry this work on?”
Writer and performer Bob Weatherall adds, “We have a responsibility to uphold the fundamental rights of the dead to return to the lands of their birth, and to be given customary last rites in accordance with their culture and beliefs. Restless Dream will help to put an end to the injustices of the past in the true spirit of reconciliation and justice.”
The album was recorded at QUT in Brisbane in 2016, by Yanto Browning (Kate Miller-Heidke, Art of Sleeping) and mixed in South Carolina by Mark Nevers (Yo La Tengo, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Lambchop, Jason Isbell).
It is a blend of songs, stories and instrumentals; like a Halfway album and then some. Restless Dream has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council and supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
Source: Halfway
Complicated (EP)
by The Merindas
Released 27 September 2021
The Merindas
****-
The Merindas are the collective force of Kristel Kickett a Ballardong Whadjuk and Nyoongar woman from Tammin, Western Australia and Candice Lorrae of Jawoyn and Thursday Island heritage, born in Darwin, Northern Territory.
Now based in Melbourne, these soul sisters are set to trail-blaze their innovative style of Indigenous music. They describe their unique sound as “electronic pop with a dance-hall feel, alongside hip hop and R&B influences.”
The Merindas formed in 2012, singing Motown hits for the premiere of The Sapphires movie. What was supposed to be a one-off show became a full-time career, having performed more than 400 shows in the last eight years. Garnering rave reviews on the live circuit, playing festivals and major corporate events across Australia, The Merindas present a world-class, fresh and energetic show. During their performance, audiences can expect choreographed dance moves, soaring vocals, and visual projections that weave into the fabric of their music and stories.
On the back of their debut LP release ‘We Sing Until Sunrise’ in June 2020, The Merindas return with their incredible follow up EP ‘Complicated’. Delving into a more Disco/Pop feel, The Merindas are showing their true essence with this EP as they continue to find their unique voices and individuality through the lyrics and production of the new tracks.
The songs on 'Complicated' delve into themes of relationships, falling in and out of love, while also expressing happiness, uplifting feelings and more matured outlooks on life.
All songs written and performed by Candice Lorrae and Kristel Kickett
Musicians:
Phil Turcio - keys,
John Clark - percussion
Emilio Kormanic - guitar
Source: Jazz FM
Friends That Break Your Heart
by James Blake
Released 8 October 2021
Republic
****-
James Blake attracted attention from the momet he first emerged on the UK music scene in 2010-2011 with a series of excellent EP's and his eponymous debut. He joined a growing list of artists such as Ahnoni, Justin Vernon and Thom Yorke who paired their high tenor voices with electronica, but Blake's point of difference was his ability to strip his music to a minimalist form of post-dubstep without losing the underlying pop sensibilities that account for his wide appeal.
Matthew Cole of Slant Magazine wrote that "the combination of traditionalist songwriting and avant-garde sonics is what makes James Blake such a compelling listen."
Blake has collaborated more and more with other artists with each release and "Friends That Break Your Heart" (his fifth album) is no different: he shares writing credits with numerous others and engages vocalist SZA, rappers JID and SwaVay, vocalist Monica Martin, slowthai but adds conventional songwriting to his familar spatial arrangements.
Song-by-song, "Friends" is beautifully crafted (and uncharacteristicly straighforward in parts) but there is still plenty of his trademark disruptive production to satisfy the fans of his early work.
Continuing a trend that has emerged tentatively in the past couple of albums, the songs are more expressive and warmer than we've heard from him before, but there's none that are as memorable as "The Wilhelm Scream" or his cover of Feist's "Limit to Your Love", from his debut.
Perhaps the minimalist musical choices of his early records were so effective that it has taken the past few albums for Blake to work through their possibilities and find new foundations for his work. Omne part of that, his collaborations with cutting-edge rappers has been well worked over. If so, "Friends That Break Your Heart" may allow Blake to pivot towards a wider musical vocabulary in future releases.
Chansons d'Ennui Tip-Top
by Jarvis Cocker
Released 22 October 2021
ABKCO Music
****-
Following a pair of collaborative albums -- one a tribute to Hollywood's Chateau Marmont with Chilly Gonzales, the other with his improvisational art rock group, Jarv Is -- the eccentric, former frontman for 1990's Bri-pop icons Pulp takes another unpredictable stylistic turn with his first solo album in 12 years, Chansons d'Ennui Tip-Top.
A tie-in to the soundtrack for the 2021 Wes Anderson film The French Dispatch, it offers 12 cinematic covers of classic French pop songs, some with ties themselves to other films. A collaboration with Anderson, the record closes on the larger-than-life "Aline," Cocker's version of the hit '60s ballad by Christophe that he recorded for The French Dispatch soundtrack and which inspired a full album of like-minded covers. Steeped in echo, thundering drums, harpsichord, and a weave of strings and soaring backing vocals, it's guided by Cocker's spoke-sung vocals as they rise from sultry whispers to tortured pleas. Generally using the dramatic, stylized arrangements of the originals as templates throughout, he opens the album with "Dans Ma Chambre" and, loyal to the Dalida original, a quote of the famous opening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which recurs during the song. A highlight for its quirky theatricality, the space-age "Contact," a Serge Gainsbourg tune made famous by Brigitte Bardot, is a fairly spot-on cover by Cocker, who has Bardot-like vocal support on the choruses. Speaking of guests, Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier is featured prominently on another Dalida entry, "Paroles Paroles," the singer's seductive 1973 duet with actor Alain Delon. The Tip-Top version employs a similar palette but emphasizes piano, bass, hand drums, and eventually strings over the original's bossa-style guitar, though all this and more comes into play on both editions. Elsewhere here, French cinema is represented on tracks such as "Requiem pour un Con," a Gainsbourg original from the 1968 film Le Pacha, the psychedelic "Mao Mao" from 1967's La Chinoise, and the finger-snapping funk entry "Elle et Moi," an earlier track included in 2003's Any Way the Wind Blows (featuring a dramatic reading in the style of the '80s new beat original by Max Berlin). Intriguing from beginning to end, Cocker's lush, emphatic takes should delight fans of vintage French and Baroque pop.
Source: AllMusic
Intra-I
by Theon Cross
Released 29 October 2021
New Soil
*****
Theon Cross' new album, Intra-I, finds the gifted tuba player and composer creating a sound system powered by breath. This unique record is an uplifting celebration of Black music that, thanks to Cross' pioneering approach, helps to redefine the sonic possibilities of the tuba.
Reflecting his own heritage, the young virtuoso melds jazz with dub, hip-hop, soca, grime and other sounds connected to the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Additionally, the record - which features Remi Graves, Shumba Maasai, Afronaut Zu, Ahnansé, Consensus and Oren Marshall - is Cross' first music to include collaborations with guest vocalists, adding a further new dimension.
Theon Cross is at the forefront of the thriving London jazz scene. In 2015 he released solo EP Aspirationsand in 2019 followed it with his acclaimed debut solo album, Fyah. In addition to his solo endeavours, Cross is a core member of Mercury nominated group Sons Of Kemet and has collaborated with Little Simz, Stormzy, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Kano and others. An incredible live performer who's constantly looking to push boundaries, Cross participated in SXSW Online earlier this year by playing a live set from Abbey Road Studios and, using motion capture technology, as a 3D digital avatar in a VR showcase.
Source: Bandcamp
Aya
by Aya Nakamura
Released 13 November 2020
Whirlwind Recordings
****-
Since catapulting to the top of the French charts, multi-platinum Malian-born artist Aya Danioko has been given countless labels. In one breath, she is abbreviated as an Afro-pop artist, the next bundled into France’s robust and increasingly populous rap scene, teeming with talent from Paris to Marseille. Her success has frequently been minimized as a novelty act, despite being the most listened-to contemporary French act in the world. Her international smash hit “Djadja" - from her sublime second album, 2018’s Nakamura - placed her on a feminist pedestal she was reluctant to embrace. Her detractors looked at her unflappable demeanor as a tall dark-skinned woman, churning out hit after hit in France’s cis-male dominated music industry, and pegged her as overly cocksure.
The clearest signal in the noise, however, lies in the labels she gives herself, indicating her creative essence long before she became a mainstay on Spotify. Her performing surname, Nakamura, comes from the character Hiro Nakamura of the superhero series Heroes; a warrior who, through sheer force of will, can bend space and time, transporting himself to different worlds. This has been Aya’s superpower since the days of her 2017 debut Journal Intime - playing with the universes of not just Afrobeats, but zouk, R&B, and pop to layer in her penetrating musings on life, love, and freedom.
Aya has a challenging act to follow; it seems nearly unfathomable to eclipse the cultural phenomenon of “Djadja.” The Aulnay-sous-Bois-raised chanteuse rose to the occasion, however, masterfully employing l’argot, or French slang, as she shifts through her various modalities of defiance, softness, and matters of the heart to create a cohesive, intimate experience. Aya is the sound of a young woman and mother who has found the love she deserves and is embracing it unreservedly.
Source: Pitchfork
Slowly Rushing
by Safire, QQQAkane
Released 27 August 2021
Heavy Machinery Records
*****
Slowly Rushing is the debut LP from Melbourne multidisciplinary duo Safire & QQQ Akane, in a collaboration bound by creativity and community. They act as the glue connecting people, experience and art; leveraging their craft of audio and visual design to stew a melting pot of forward thinking cool sh!t.
Collaboration is key when identifying their artistic practice. They seem to have an organic knack of creating parties/raves, record labels and releases, technical masterclasses and inclusive artistic spaces that place emphasis on community.
As artists independently, they have hit their respective heights. Ben Safire has toured extensively throughout Europe and Asia, representing Australian Drum and Bass on a global scale. As a musician and event curator he has built the foundations of bass music in Melbourne, collaborating locally and internationally with Noisia, Alix Perez, Dub Phizix, Zed Bias and DLR, to name but a few.
To limit QQQ Akane as a visual artist would be an injustice. While she is well known for her creative collaboration with Metalheadz boss Goldie and visual art with record label Plasma Audio, QQQ Akane is an enigma of creativity that flows from fashion and dance to vocalism and music production.
Slowly Rushing is the debut long play from the seasoned duo. The album feels like the soundtrack to a warm night, sharing food on a big table with your friends and family. A dinner where the conversation is as filling as the meal. Before you know it, the table has disappeared and made room for a hazed-out dance floor, exploring non-verbal communication and telekinetic meditation.
Slowly Rushing broods warmth, taking notes from jazz, dub, hip-hop and bass music to hypnotically wrap around your consciousness like a snake to a snake charmer. QQQ Akane calls on her indigenous Amami roots of storytelling and musical styling, that simultaneously feels grounded whilst taking you further down the rabbit hole.
Safire and QQQ Akane have created their own world, a dinner party if you will, all they ask is you bring a plate and enjoy.
Source: Bandcamp
Distractions One
by Tim Shiel
Released 27 October 2021
Spirit Level
****-
In the cracks of each song on Distractions One lie the cracks of modern life itself - missed connections, divided attentions and everyday existential angst.
But those complexities are offset by the project’s deeply human nature. Each song connects contributors and reflects real-life connections and friendships, stitched together by the playful spirit that has long been a hallmark for Naarm/Melbourne producer Tim Shiel. His intuitive production style deftly avoids cliche while still retaining a warmth and openness, gently but purposefully nudging familiar elements just slightly out of their orbits. Deep house pulses, afrobeat rhythms, ambient textures, boom-bap and more combine on a collection that is both emotionally resonant and sonically thrilling.
After a dreamlike invocation from Happy Axe, the album opens in earnest with “Right In Front Of You,” a sprawling workout where waves of psychedelic horns and ambiences build and crash against a relentless four-to-the-floor pulse. Braille Face repeatedly asks “How does what you missed right in front of you have anything to do with me?” - and this gently defiant question sets the tone for the entire release.
The theme of missed connections echoes on “Call Me Back!” - a playful and sentimental house track built around anonymous voicemails from friends desperate to connect. “Sparrow” catches Kaitlin Keegan reflecting on time itself over a gentle Bristol-ish breakbeat while on “Coliseum”, Genesis Owusu lends his restless energy to a song that imports its boom-bap from Stankonia and feels as claustrophobic as it is fun.
On “Together Again,” vocalist NIK NAVY tenderly celebrates how truly powerful a deep connection is: “You put me together again no matter how many times I fall apart.” Melbourne art-pop duo Hemm also make a rare appearance, lending an unreleased song from their archives to the album, transformed by Shiel into the wistful album closer “Inside My Head.”
Many more of Shiel’s longtime friends appear on the record, including folk singer/harpist Lucy Roleff (“Get Into Your Love”), Sydney producer Anatole (trumpet on “Right In Front Of You”) and pianists Leah Kardos (“Sparrow”) and Luke Howard (“Together Again”).
“I think I realised a few years ago that I’m a better editor than I am a composer. A lot of my process is to just take whatever I have in front of me and shape it into something else, combining things with each other until there is something new. So now I tend to be much more careful about what those raw materials are in the first place, because I know how it informs the end result.
If I reach out to the people I love and people I admire, and ask them to give me sounds - a vocal, or a piano part, sometimes a whole song - from that point on, they are embedded in the music too, they are intertwined in it. That to me is so interesting and rewarding. The song becomes more than the sum of its parts, it becomes about more than just me. This collection of songs is also a collection of my friends.” - Tim Shiel
Source: Bandcamp
The Wind That Shakes The Bramble (EP)
by Peter Broderick
Released 10 September 2021
Erased Tapes
****-
The five tracks on this EP from Irelan-based American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Peter Broderick have been collected from various sources: the opening two pieces ("Some People Don't Have Gonads" and "A Year Without Summer") are left-overs from the sessions for his 2020 album, Blackberry.
Then follows a beautiful two-part reworking of fellow American artists Bing & Ruth's "What Happened to Your Heart".
The EP concludes with the new 22-minute title track; an expansive and meditative ambient odyssey, and balm for the baffling chaos of the current era.
Sung to piano-only accompanyment in vaudevillian style, "Some People Don't Have Gonads" commences the recital on a positive note, urging us to"Come on now, people! just get out there and livethose lives!"
"A Year Without Summer" ia a sombre song deliverred in a powerful soaring voice that shares as much of Leonard Cohen as Scott Walker and recalls "This has been / A year without summer / A year without laughter / A year without you / A year shook by winter winds / A year of December / A year to remember The summers we knew ... And here I stand / On the edge of nowhere / With nowhere to go / In the summer snow" . It's a powerfully evocative subject for a world beset by pandemic, ecological catasrophy and rampant injustice.
"What Happened to Your Heart" is a sombre monologue with a deceased grandparent: "So what happened to your heart? / Did you see it coming, Grandpa?" the singer asks.
The title track references a ballad called ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’, written by local poet Robert Dwyer Joyce from Limerick, Ireland in the mid-1800s.
A bullet pierced my true love’s side
In life’s young spring so early
And on my breast in blood she died
While soft winds shook the barley
(excerpt)
The recurring imagery of the barley standing tall amidst the breeze was meant to symbolise the resilience of Irish people amidst oppressive British rule. In 2006, the song title and its theme served as the inspiration for a powerful and heart-breaking film starring Cillian Murphy. Now, in 2021, Broderick pays homage once again.
Broderick’s obsession with and devotion to the blackberry plant go well beyond his music. Last year, along with the release of the new album, he shared an eight-part video series titled The Blackberry Diaries in which he demonstrated all the different uses of this incredible, ubiquitous plant.
Source: Bandcamp
Blindspotting (Music From The Original Starz Series)
by Ambrose Akinmusire, Michael Yezerski)
Released 8 October 2021
Republic
****-
The 2018 film Blindspotting was one of the best of the year – an emotionally raw look at the effects of gentrification and police brutality in Oakland, California that also managed to be extremely funny. One of the most unique aspects of the film was the use of music and spoken word to create a theatrical, heightened reality. This same feel has now been translated into a TV show, which has an even greater use of music and dance than the film did. It focuses on Ashley (Jasmine Cephas-Jones), the girlfriend of Miles (Rafael Casal) and her coping with life with her young son after having to move in with her mother-in-law (Helen Hunt) while Miles is in prison.
Blindspotting (Music From The Original Starz Series) is the work of composers Michael Yezerski (who scored the film), an Australian and Ambrose Akinmusire, an Oakland-native, best known for his October 2020 release "on the tender spot of every calloused moment".
Yezerski: "Ambrose and I were given a unique opportunity - to create a score that actively expresses the emotional journey of the characters. Our music for the show is the heartbeat, the underscore, and the dance – as intricately connected to the drama as the choreography and the camerawork. Ambrose and I come from different corners of the world and yet we found a way to craft a musical language that felt entirely of ourselves, yet true to the spirit of collaboration that permeated all aspects of the production".
Akinmusire: "I was born and raised in Oakland, and representing my city - the stories, community, and culture - is personal for me. The project provided an opportunity to produce a score that highlights the complexity of emotions and points of view that are often simplified or overlooked"
Source: Jumpcut Online and Black Film Online
On Our Own Clock
by Mushroom Hour Half Hour (Various Artists)
Released 2 September 2021
Mushroom Hour Half Hour
****-
Pre-pandemic, there was a plan. The plan was for musicians from South Africa and Senegal to travel to London’s influential Total Refreshment Centre to make an album with musical kindred spirits in the UK. Like so many plans, it had to be adapted.
During the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, groups of heavy-hitting musicians met for a day of intense recording in their home cities then sent the music to their compadres across the oceans. They returned to the studio a month later to respond to the music they’d been sent. The result is ‘On Our Own Clock’, a sonic testament to trenchant and collaborative creativity which digs into layers of South African jazz, traditional Senegalese instrumental music and London’s rich diaspora-informed musicality. Individually these are powerful strands of music. Collectively, they are super-sized.
‘On Our Own Clock’ contains interludes titled ‘How To Make Art In A Pandemic’. The phrase became a byword and a prayer to keep the process going across the multiple hurdles that presented themselves: people getting Covid; the fear and fury that proliferates in the twin pandemics of Covid and racism; the practicalities of making music across two continents. It builds on another phrase, in the spirit of evolution and improvisation: two words used in the foreword to Toni Morrison’s novel Jazz in which she describes the ‘unreasonable optimism’ of musicians. Making this album was unreasonably optimistic even before the pandemic. To have created a deeply-rooted and warm-hearted gem like this is extraordinary.
Album highlights among the phenomenal 11 tracks include singles ‘Dune Dance’, which steps and hustles around a gorgeous groove that was written in Joburg and reflected back by the London players.
‘Ngikhethile’ (an isiZulu word which translates as ‘I Have Chosen’) fuses playing from across continents in an incrementally intense salutation to powerful optimism.
‘Be The Light’ draws deep from the endless well of feeling that the Senegalese kora provides, and builds up and outwards from a sweet-yet-solid bedrock and Grandmaster Cap’s vocals.
Featuring:
Alabaster de Plume – Sax (UK)
Asher Gamedze – Drums (South Africa)
Damola Owolade – Emcee (Nigeria)
Danalogue – Synthesizer, Piano, Sax (UK)
Grandmaster CAP – Emcee (South Africa)
Lex Blondin – Drum Machine (UK)
Mpumelelo Mcata – E. Guitar (South Africa)
Nosisi Ngakane – Vocals (South Africa)
Siya Makuzeni – Trombone, Vocals (RSA)
Tarang Cissoko – Kora (Senegal)
Tebogo Austebza Sedumedi – E. Bass (RSA)
Theon Cross – Tuba (UK)
Yahael Camara Onono – Percussion (UK / Senegal / Nigeria)
Zoe Molelekwa – Keyboards, Wurlitzer (RSA)
Source: Bandcamp
Music for Film and Theatre
by Hania Rani
Released 18 June 2021
Gondwana Records
****-
Writing music for film and theatre has always been a big part of Hania Rani’s musical world. It is also a part of the creative process that can be tantalisingly out of reach for listeners, either the project doesn’t come to fruition or the music simply isn’t available away from the film or play. From early collaborations with friends, to last year’s two scores for full length films ("xAbo: Father Boniecki" directed by Aleksandra Potoczek and I Never Cry directed by Piotr Domalewski‘) Rani has been involved in many such projects, each representing an important step in her artistic development and life as a composer and artist:
“Composing for motion picture or theatre is for me a very different kind of work than writing for my own projects. Firstly, I need to collaborate with somebody else who sees the world through the lense of their own art and craft. That's why these kinds of encounters can be so exciting - they are a promise of creating something very new, as a result of creative work of so many people from all walks of life. Secondly, I feel that music in film is an invisible character, a missing emotion that creates a special atmosphere and sensation. It doesn't illustrate, it completes the work of art. I think it is an extremely sensitive matter that rejects banal associations and easy solutions. I feel like composing for film works like an exercise for my imagination.”
It is the nature of these collaborations though, that sometimes the composers own preferred compositions don’t make the final cut. This is where Music for Film and Theatre comes in as it allows Rani to present a selection of her own personal favourite pieces composed for film and plays. Pieces that made it to the final cut and pieces that were rejected by the director or the producer. Bringing the music together as an album offers a chance for Rani to share her music with her listeners on her own terms and a chance for her fans to hear a different side of her art.
“I put them in one place, as a collection of precious objects that were kept for years in a drawer. Some of them were composed a couple years ago, some are the result of recent research. I am very happy to finally be able to present them as a separate project."
Rani is of course grateful to all of the directors who have entrusted her to create music for their projects, but she professes especially warm feelings for the pieces composed for her first ‘real’ theatre play, Pradziady, directed by Michał Zdunik. The title comes from ‘Dziady’ a term in Slavic folklore for the spirits of the ancestors and a collection of pre-Christian rites, rituals and customs that were dedicated to them. The essence of these rituals was the ‘communion of the living with the dead’, namely, the establishment of relationships with the souls of the ancestors. “I felt this story needed extremely dark and fragile music, and at the same time a sound that could express the mixture of the two worlds - the living and the dead. I decided to compose part of the soundtrack with a string quartet but including two cellos, viola and only one violin. We recorded in a little house, completely built from wood, mostly from Finnish pine. I always felt this space has a very special, warm and natural acoustics - especially when it is combined with string instruments. The track composed for this theatre play is called Ghosts but actually didn't finally make it to the performance, although I like it so much that I thought it would perfectly fit this compilation”. Other highlights include the enchanting Soleil Pâle written for a collaboration with director Neels Castillon, and improvising dancers Alt Take, the beautiful melancholy of In Between (from the film score for xAbo: Father Boniecki) and the magical bliss of The Beach (from I Never Cry) and together they create a beautiful offering from an artist whose every note is worth hearing, but for whom the journey is just beginning:
“I am very happy to see that many artists consider my music as the right soundtrack for their works, because film music was always a huge inspiration for any of my compositions. I find there a lot of life and real emotions, but also a feeling of freedom. Freedom from my own thinking patterns and prejudices. I also believe strongly in collaboration between people, I always feel this is the way to create something really new, based on a mixture of different ways of thinking, feeling, expressing.”
Source: Bandcamp
Inner Symphonies
by Hania Rani, Dobrawa Czocher
Released 29 October 2021
Deutsche Grammophon
****-
Fresh from Music for Film and Theatre, Hania Rani teams with renowned cellist and childhood friend Dobrawa Szocher for the exquisite Inner Symphonies. The album was conceived during the pandemic as the composers considered how they might encourage each other and offer hope through their music.
The saying of Hania’s grandmother ~ “Spring will come, that’s for sure” ~ is reflected in the title of the final track and the album’s upbeat mood. The tone travels from restrained and contemplative to exuberant and unleashed, as demonstrated in the contrast between the overture and “Con Moto” ~ joy crouched behind a couch, followed by the leap. The track features a multitude of friends in the auditorium of Kraków’s Juliusz Słowacki’s Theater, the theatre beautifully lit. Early on, one witnesses the flurries of notes that we now associate with Rani’s playing. The small orchestra may be playing in an empty theatre, but the lushness of their sound makes the seats seem filled. The title means “lively, with movement and spirit,” and these performers ~ all university friends ~ embody the definition.
The keening of “Whale’s Song” is reflective of the human spirit in a time of lockdown: tired, lonely, yearning. One expects “Scream” to be loud, but instead the selection is subdued: an inner scream matched by the Inner Symphonies of the title. We bear silent burdens and silent hopes, but Rani and Dobrawa give them voice. So even “Scream” eventually includes glockenspiel, perhaps the world’s happiest instrument, and leads directly to the album’s second single and spiritual center, “There Will Be Hope,” the title reminiscent of a Daniel Day-Lewis movie, but with a completely different outlook. The song is inspired by Philip Glass, the key change signaling hope’s arrival, Drew Tyndell’s abstract video like a dance of fire and ice, hope and despair, finally arriving at reconciliation. The struggle begins again, with “Anima” and “Demons,” but leads to the same conclusion: hope wins.
The album cover is black and white and wintry; the video cover is green and lush, signaling the arrival of a spiritual spring. This is the inner symphony that can give one strength to carry on, and even to thrive: like a friendship rekindled, a reservoir rediscovered. Our grandmothers have lived through times far worse than these; thanks to their wisdom and witness, we know that we can do the same.
Source: A Closer Listen
I'll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute To The Velvet Underground & Nico
by Various Artists
Released 1 October 2021
Verve
*****
When it was initially released in 1967, The Velvet Underground & Nico sounded less like an album ahead of its time than music that had appeared out of time and out of nowhere. There was some context for the sinister but dreamy pop of "Sunday Morning," the tough R&B of "There She Goes Again," and the Teutonic girl group accents of "Femme Fatale," but the dark themes, ferocious attack, and moral ambiguities of numbers like "I'm Waiting for the Man," "Venus in Furs," and "Heroin" were strong meat and without precedent in rock & roll. Brian Eno's famous quote about the album has become one of rock writing's greatest cliches - "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band" - but it does speak to the fact that the few who embraced the album did so deeply and passionately.
If time and changing tastes have allowed the record to evolve from a curiosity to a widely acknowledged classic, its style and personality remain unique. Producer Hal Willner, who took the tribute album to the level of an art form with projects like Amarcord Nino Rota, Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, and Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill, had long planned to pay homage to the Velvets' debut, and it was a project he was working on at the time of his death in April 2020. I'll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico, doesn't play like a grand conceptual reimagining of the original album's themes in the manner of Willner's most ambitious releases. Instead, he allowed each artist the space to explore one of the LP's songs and find in it what they will, and the strength of I'll Be Your Mirror is how the performances often find a middle ground between the formative vision of the Velvet Underground and the viewpoint of the artist taking their turn with the music.
Bobby Gillespie and Thurston Moore's cover of "Heroin" is more of an homage than a reimagining, and Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen approach "Femme Fatale" as if they think they can out-gloom Nico, but Andrew Bird and Lucius offer a remarkable take on "Venus in Furs" that strips away its noise without compromising its tension, Courtney Barnett takes the prettiness from "I'll Be Your Mirror" and makes it sound all the more organic and heartfelt, and Matt Sweeney and Iggy Pop take a deep dive into the maelstrom with "European Son" that actually outworks the original's terminal pulse.
More than 50 years after its release, it seems there isn't much new to be said about The Velvet Underground & Nico, and I'll Be Your Mirror doesn't challenge that notion. But it does allow a number of worthy artists a chance to see themselves reflected in these songs, and it's a labor of love that's engaging and from the heart.
Source: AllMusic
Stay Awake (Various Interpretations Of Music From Vintage Disney Films)
by Various Artists, Hal Willner (Producer)
Released 1988
A&M
****-
Whether you regard him as one of the greatest storytellers in American history or a cold-hearted marketing genius who forced a set of prepackaged consumerist myths on several generations of unsuspecting youth, there's little argument that the films of Walt Disney have become an indelible part of our collective subconsciousness. Then again, for every child who delighted in the antics of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, there's another who had the bejesus scared out of him by the Wicked Queen or went into hysterics after Bambi's mother was shot; there's a mingled joy and tragedy in Disney's best work that's helped to give his films a cultural resonance Bugs Bunny or Tom & Jerry have never achieved. Consequently, different people have wildly different perspectives on Disney's work, and producer Hal Wilner, a man who joyously revels in diverse perspectives, made the most of that on Stay Awake, in which 21 songs from classic Disney films are reinterpreted -- sometimes faithfully, sometimes radically -- by a startling array of artists brought together by Wilner.
Some of these tunes are barely recognizable from their sources (most notably Tom Waits' predictably clanky version of "Heigh Ho [The Dwarfs Marching Song]"), while others are faithful yet idiosyncratic (Syd Straw's jaunty "Blue Shadows on the Trail," and Los Lobos's rollicking "I Wan'na Be Like You [The Monkey Song]"), but just about everyone seems to find a different angle from which they approach these tunes.
Bonnie Raitt gets soulful on "Baby Mine," Buster Poindexter's take on "Castle in Spain" is high camp at it's most eyebrow wagging, Sun Ra and His Arkestra take "Pink Elephants on Parade" to the spaceways, the Replacements pull "Cruella De Ville" from a puddle of stale beer, and Sinead O'Connor invests "Someday My Prince Will Come" with a desperate longing that's just a bit disturbing. For every nightmare there's a moment of genuine beauty, and when Ringo Starr wraps it up with "When You Wish Upon a Star" the cynics and the incurable optimists join hands and all get along just fine for a moment, just the way Uncle Walt would have wanted it.
A fascinating look at a massively influential and little explored treasure trove of music.
Source: AllMusic
Lost In The Stars: The Music Of Kurt Weill
by Various Artists, Hal Willner (Producer)
Released 1985
A&M
****-
Not to be confused with Sony's 1997 soundtrack release, September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill, which was inspired by this 1985 CD on A&M, and co-produced by visionary Hal Willner, Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill indeed contains the "eclectic updates of Kurt Weill's distinctive German theater music" with help from Sting, Marianne Faithfull, John Zorn, Lou Reed, Carla Bley, Tom Waits, Charlie Haden, and more.
This deep and complex work contains a 12-page booklet chock-full of information condensed into tiny, tiny print. Did the onset of compact discs hold this elaborate project back? If it were released on vinyl à la Jesus Christ Superstar, would it have reached a wider audience?
With such diverse artists as Peanut Butter Conspiracy keyboardist Ralph Shuckett, Van Dyke Parks, and Aaron Neville, it's literally a cast of thousands. Coming on the heels of new wave, as techno and trance were taking more of a hold, this extensive presentation may have been a bit too heady for audiences embracing the simplicity of power pop and punk.
You expect Marianne Faithfull to hit a home run, and she does on "Ballad of the Soldier's Wife," with some help from Chris Spedding, while superstar Sting is at his underground finest performing a creepy "Mack the Knife," a place his original fans wanted him to stay. Surprisingly, it is Lou Reed who, along with Ms. Faithfull, walks away with the "Oscar" here. Reed's outside appearances on soundtracks and tribute projects is hit or miss, working best when he gets to put together "My Love Is Chemical" for the film White Nights or a "Little Sister" from the Get Crazy soundtrack, disappointing when "Soul Man" for the film of the same name goes nowhere. "September Song" by Lou Reed is such a standout that its almost five minutes get extended to seven plus, as it becomes the title track to the aforementioned film this CD project inspired.
Henry Threadgill's controlled cacophony on "The Great Hall" is everything Brian Eno's Portsmouth Sinfonia aspired to be. Had Eno taken that ensemble in this direction, they may have had a chance.
Todd Rundgren and Gary Windo sound like Trevor Horn let loose in the studio to have some '80s fun, while Aaron Neville, Mark Bingham, and Johnny Adams are the antithesis of this track that follows them. Sounds and ideas from over a century of music cascade across the 67 minutes and 34 seconds of this CD.
Both breathtaking and pretentious, there is so much to discover and contemplate that at the end of the day, Lost in the Stars gets a thumbs up.
Interesting to note that in 1998, Marianne Faithfull would release a disc, The Seven Deadly Sins, featuring her performing music by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. For that great artist, this type of material is a perfect fit.
Source: AllMusic
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Her (Original Score)
by Arcade Fire, Owen Pallett
Released 21 March 2021
Sony
****-
Spike Jonze’s science-fiction masterpiece, Her, is set a decade into the future, but there’s so much about the film that feels tangible for society today. For one, it’s hardly as dystopian a world as Jonze’s previous works, (including)1999’s Being John Malkovich. But really, it’s the seemingly unprecedented relationship Joaquin Phoenix’s Theodore Twombly has with his revolutionary OS system (voiced to perfection by Scarlett Johansson). What starts as a simple working relationship, no different from ours with Apple’s Siri, blossoms into the top-level romance that leads romantics to start thinking, I could spend my life with this someone. And so he tries, and, well, audiences relate. After all, we also wake up, eat, sleep, at times fornicate, and even shower with our OS systems. They’ve become appendages of our bodies, a modern communication tool that’s more or less a form of evolution, and the closest thing we have to a real-life soul in the digital era.
As Arcade Fire sang on last year’s “Reflektor”, “We fell in love when I was 19/ And I was staring at a screen.”
How fitting, then, that Will Butler scored the film. Actually, how fortunate for Jonze. Butler not only “got” what the cult filmmaker was going for with Her, but managed to enhance the project’s themes and visuals. His score, written with multi-instrumentalist Owen Pallett, is substantial proof, a strikingly human and organic collection of music that keeps the film grounded in reality. While Twombly shuffles through a future Los Angeles, passing time with advanced video games and handless computers, Butler and Pallett follow along with archaic instruments like the piano or violin. Oddly enough, this wasn’t always the case; in fact, when Johansson replaced Samantha Morton last minute, the score changed “radically,” as Butler told Billboard. He explained: “The movie got less high-concept and became more about these two people. The music did the same thing: It started in a Blade Runner world and slowly became more piano-centric and less epic, with strings and warm synthesizers.” When you watch the picture, or even listen to the score while walking around aimlessly, it’s jarring how timelessly it resonates.
Her isn’t a complicated film by nature. It’s a love story - read: A Spike Jonze Love Story - for an era that’s only just beginning. When you look at it that way, you can see how the story’s initial thematic threads start tying on to bigger ideas that weren’t there to begin with, which essentially makes this a bigger, more complicated tale. By focusing on the core human elements and paying credence to the future that may or may not come, Butler and Pallett successfully created a portal for any filmgoer today to walk into. That’s not exactly the job or role of a composer, but it’s the mark of a great one.
Source: Consequence of Sound
Glimpses of an Eternal Bloom
by Berck Icli
Released 15 October 2021
Zel Zele Records
****-
An introspective dive into an ethereal atmosphere, “Glimpses of an Eternal Bloom” is the debut album of Turkish producer, composer and pianist Berk Icli. The album is an attempt to frame certain moments of “being” no matter the emotional state concerned, whether euphoric, sentimental or dark and contemplative. At times, this is done through orchestrations of strings, brass and woodwinds. Other times with solo piano, field recordings, electronics and the use of samples.
Born in Istanbul, Berk Icli recorded his album in NYC, which had been his home for the past several years. Studying classical and jazz composition at The New School’s Mannes Conservatory allowed him to practise unconventional ways of obtaining sounds from various instruments, to produce a timbre widely unbeknown to their true nature. The album was recorded, produced and mixed in Berk Icli’s apartment over a year. “I wanted to project the sound of my personal space and in this fashion refrained from pushing for a clean and sterile sound” he explains. Glimpses of an Eternal Bloom opens with dramatic scenery enhanced with spiritual chants. Throughout the album, Icli incorporates simple yet emotive piano-led pieces in tracks such as “Lullaby for Laika”, “Unsan Musho”, “Postlude” and “Ils sont devenus Intemporels”. In “Bambino’s Nap” evolving rhythmic patterns with liberating vocals create a dreamlike state in which the sounds & sentiments get mixed up, evoking feelings of joy along with melancholy. Varying musical tones are set with the use of synths, bass-heavy soundscapes, a powerful brass section in the track “Blossoms”. It spirals in & out of tremulous episodes paving the way for a spirited ending. Berk Icli incorporates real-life field recordings from his neighbourhood, voices of his friends and the children from the elementary school he worked at. The tracks were composed in succession and sequenced to construct a coherent sensual experience.
Source: Bandcamp
2X1=4
by Nils Frahm, F.S. Blumm
Released 20 October 2021
LEITER
****-
Nils Frahm is a singular figure in contemporary electronic music. As Tony Naylor put it in 2015, he's just as likely to be "playing solo piano pieces to the ravers and prickly techno at the Royal Albert Hall." But on the records that he makes with F.S. Blumm, he trades the emotional gravitas of his solo work for playfulness and curiosity. Their first two releases, Music for Lovers, Music Versus Time and Music For Wobbling Music Versus Gravity, were lovely introductions, as we heard the duo stumble on a melody or groove and then transform it with studio wizardry and found sounds (everything from crumpling paper to door springs).
On 2016's Tag Eins Tag Zwei, the pair settled into a comfortable—and fused—sound, where Blumm's country-informed guitar danced over Frahm's keys.
2X1=4, their latest LP, is a totally different beast, as the pair touch on something equal parts country and dub, wrapping their acoustic instrumentation in the dense warping of dub and echo.
These tracks are finicky and complicated, which might have something to do with when they were recorded: work started in 2016, giving the producers five years to fiddle with the music. (As Andrew Ryce pointed out, it "[sounds] like each artist tried to pull it in about 100 different directions.") This isn't a bad thing, because this obsessive tinkering allows new textures and ideas to burst through the seams, making for plenty of head-turning surprises. Take "Presidential Tub." Blumm's finger-picked melody has the country swagger of the best moments from their previous records. Here, however, the melody is pulled apart amid a wash of delay and turned into smudged chords that float across the stereo field like the trail of a comet in the sky.
What does remain consistent between 2X1=4 and the duo's earlier records is Blumm's guitar playing. "Buddy Hop" is about as lovely a serenade as you'll hear, with rich, syrupy guitar work that reminds me of Dave Harrington's work with DARKSIDE. Blumm is not limited to country twang: he lets 'er rip on a captivating guitar solo in "Neckrub," and on "Raw Chef," the reggae guitar chords duet with another earworm of a lead that you'd be happy to hear looped for an hour or two. That is, before Frahm takes the bottom out transforming the song into murky dub minestrone.
2X1=4 is Blumm and Frahm's best record because it captures how much fun the duo have recording together. Sure, there's a lonesome-on-the-prairie vibe to the melody on "Desert Mule," but it's hard not to start grooving along with its staggering drums. As Frahm himself explains, "None of this is too serious. The record is only as much of a dub record as the ones before are jazz records." In not taking themselves too seriously, Frahm and Blumm shine as sparring partners, tapping into dub to expand their growing universe.
Source: Resident Advisor
Camino
by Sean Shibe
Released 20 August 2021
Pentatone
*****
To say that critic Erica Jeal's review for The Guardian's, of the new release by virtuoso guitarist Sean Shibe was ecstatic, would not be any exaggeration - concluding as it does, with the assessment that"Shibe’s playing ... is spellbinding, more tender and flowing than Segovia’s at every turn".
But it not unreasonable to expect that this view will be shared by almost all who hear it.
"You might think you know what Spanish guitar music sounds like, and you might think it an unexpectedly middle-of-the-road choice for Sean Shibe, who has always appeared more at home in programmes that set your ears slightly off-kilter: for example, juxtaposing whispering lute music with screaming electric guitar works by Julia Wolfe, as on his 2018 album softLOUD. But there’s nothing hackneyed about Camino. It’s a beautifully intimate recording, full of playing that is as far from classical-guitar cliche as a real flamenco dancer is from a postcard of a donkey in a sombrero.
The programme crosses the musically porous border of Spain and France via Catalonia, taking in Ravel, Satie and Poulenc alongside Falla and Antonio José, a Burgos-born composer admired by Ravel and killed aged 33 by a Falangist firing squad. José’s elegiac Pavana Triste – the third movement of a guitar sonata that I would very much like to hear from Shibe in its entirety – follows on beautifully here from Falla’s Danza del Molinero from his ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, which is full of big, bold gestures and soft, subtle shifts in colour.
All the transitions from piece to piece, key to key, have been similarly meticulously thought through – but what’s really striking is the way in which Shibe sustains a world of intensity and introspection through playing that buzzes with vitality. The attention to detail in his playing is breathtaking; nothing interrupts the flow of the music, and nothing is done purely for effect. Only in the swirling lines of the Catalan composer Frederic Mompou’s Dansa 6 is the melodic line less than crystal clear. Following on from a starkly eloquent version of Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante Défunte and Falla’s funereal Homenaje in memory of Debussy, it’s Mompou’s Suite Compostelana that forms the programme’s climax, with six eclectic movements including a hypnotic lullaby and a vibrant closing dance. It was written for the ground-breaking guitarist Andrés Segovia, who made its first recording. Shibe’s playing of it is spellbinding, more tender and flowing than Segovia’s at every turn".
Source: The Guardian
Pittsburgh
by Matthew Stevens
Released 1 October 2021
Whirlwind Recordings
****-
He may not have known it before, but Toronto-born, New York-based guitarist Matthew Stevens, prized for his forceful, distinctive electric sound on Esperanza Spalding’s groundbreaking albums Emily’s D+Evolution (2016), Exposure (2017) and the GRAMMY-winning 12 Little Spells (2018), was an ideal candidate to make an album fully devoted to solo acoustic guitar: the intimate, unadorned, straightforwardly titled Pittsburgh.
Stevens’ previous two outings, Woodwork (2015) and Preverbal (2017), made use of steel-string acoustic as a vibrant textural contrast, but still, a solo acoustic album seemed to Stevens like a “maybe someday” prospect, if that.
Then came the convergence of two major events - the COVID-19 pandemic and a fractured elbow.
By September 2020, Stevens was hunkering down in his wife’s family's hometown of Pittsburgh, still busy with adjunct teaching (virtually) at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute while navigating his way through the crisis. He had with him a vintage Martin 00-17, a small-body mahogany guitar that he bought not long after recording Exposure with Spalding (the studio had a different one in its possession and Stevens used it fairly extensively on that album). Practicing daily on the Martin, he began generating a series of short song “starts”- ideas and sketches he thought might lead somewhere. With the help of his friend, go-to drummer and producer Eric Doob, he made preliminary versions of some of the Pittsburgh material for The Jazz Gallery’s virtual “Lockdown Sessions” video series, and the vision started to take on a more concrete form.
Then one rainy Pittsburgh day, Stevens’ bike slid out from under him and he broke his right elbow. Rather than getting derailed musically, he became immersed in a creative process that led straight to Pittsburgh: a document of those short song “starts” from the notebook, now hatched as completed compositions. “Playing this music became a big part of my rehab,” Stevens recalls.
As the album took shape, it became clear to Stevens that he was headed in the direction of a wholly unaccompanied recital, with no overdubs or sound layering of any kind. Just him and this special Martin, two Neumann U89 mics and enough peace of mind across two separate sessions to make Pittsburgh the triumph that it is.
Compositionally, there are discernible families of songs on Pittsburgh: the rapidly flowing, intricately arpeggiated pattern pieces such as “Purpose of a Machine,” “Can Am” (named in honor of Stevens’ recently acquired American citizenship) and “Cocoon” (a thorough reworking of a piece first heard on Preverbal); the tranquil, hymn-like songs “Foreign Ghosts,” “Ending Is Beginning” and “Miserere”; and the grittier, more timbrally “outside” inventions such as “Ambler” and “Northern Touch.” Throughout, we hear a rich resonance and immediacy in Stevens’ touch, a flavor all his own, even as he draws inspiration from John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny, Marc Ribot and other jazz guitar greats who’ve made acoustic exploration a significant part of their legacy.
Source: Bandcamp
Idle Moments
by Grant Green
Released 1963 (Reissued Sept. 2021)
Blue Note
*****
This languid, seductive gem may well be Grant Green's greatest moment on record. Right from the opening bars of the classic title cut, Idle Moments is immediately ingratiating and accessible, featuring some of Green's most stylish straight jazz playing. Whether he's running warm (pianist Duke Pearson's "Idle Moments"), cool (the Modern Jazz Quartet's "Django"), or a bit more up-tempo (Pearson's "Nomad," his own "Jean de Fleur"), Green treats the material with the graceful elegance that was the hallmark of his best hard bop sessions, and that quality achieves its fullest expression here. He's helped by an ensemble that, as a sextet, is slightly larger and fuller-sounding than usual, and there's plenty of room for solo explorations on the four extended pieces. Pearson's touch on the piano is typically warm, while two players best known on Blue Note for their modernist dates mellow out a bit -- the cool shimmer of Bobby Hutcherson's vibes is a marvelously effective addition to the atmosphere, while Joe Henderson plays with a husky, almost Ike Quebec-like breathiness. That cushion of support helps spur Green to some of the loveliest, most intimate performances of his career -- no matter what the tempo, it's as if his guitar is whispering secrets in your ear. It's especially true on the dreamy title track, though: a gorgeous, caressing, near-15-minute excursion that drifts softly along like a warm, starry summer night. Even more than the two-disc set The Complete Quartets With Sonny Clark, Idle Moments is the essential first Green purchase, and some of the finest guitar jazz of the hard bop era.
Source: AllMusic
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Lewis Taylor
by Lewis Taylor
Released 1996 (Reissued 18 August 2021)
Bewith Records
*****
D’Angelo lost his shit over it. Aaliyah’s 3rd favourite track of all time is on it. David Bowie rocked up with it to a TV interview, declaring it “the most exciting sound of contemporary soul music”.
In 1996, Lewis Taylor released his self-titled masterpiece. A true modern classic, it’s an album that was years ahead of its time. Forget 25 years ago, it could easily have been made right now in 2021. An effortless blend of neo-soul, sophisticated pop, smart grooves and laid-back white funk, it enjoyed rapturous reviews from critics and music legends alike. But the album never managed to make an impact and given what was likely a token vinyl release at the time, the original records have long since been near-impossible to find. Lewis Taylor’s Lewis Taylor remains a holy relic for some and criminally unknown to most.
This CD-length album was squeezed onto a single LP for its original vinyl release. Simon Francis’s fresh vinyl mastering now spreads out the ten tracks over a double LP so nothing is compromised.
This sprawling psychedelic soul opus really is a forgotten should-be-classic. We know that there are those of you who know, and as for the rest of you, we’re a bit jealous that you’re getting to hear Lewis Taylor for the first time.
Source: Be With Records
Far In
by Helado Negro
Released 22 October 2021
4AD
*****
Whenever Roberto Carlos Lange puts pen to paper, his whole world stops, then rotates in an infinite loop. Time stands still as he romanticizes his inner fantasies. For over a decade now, Lange’s work as Helado Negro has incorporated more of these fantasies, constantly metamorphosizing to incorporate the frozen world he’s plucking from.
For many, his welcoming acoustic-based 2019 classic. This Is How You Smile was the introduction to his world. Helado Negro’s cosmic inflections have always pushed his listeners into foreign territory – ones that are not so much murky or bizarre, but do rely heavily on suspension of hardened beliefs. His music transcends what other more widely-received folk artists like Devendra Banhart or Jose Gonazález are willing to explore.
His latest, Far In, pivots slightly away from the stripped-down feel of This is How You Smile, swinging the pendulum back to his electronic muse for an upbeat and starry-eyed chronicle. It’s his longest album to date – and first for big league independent label 4AD. Over the course of an hour and some change, Helado Negro moves away from any kind of concept, opting instead to focus on his heart and love in a time of confusion and hate.
Lange’s shaped vivid new worlds with his music before, and Far In continues that through his usual hybrid approach of singing in Spanish and English almost evenly. Either way, he’s still inviting us to experience his world in all its vibrance. This isn’t a new direction for Helado Negro, he’s used a lot of the same ingredients on previous entries in his catalog, most notably 2016’s Private Energy, but for Far In he lets loose a lot more those embellishments.
Reflecting on the fruit of his childhood, “La Naranja”’s sprite linings are akin to that eruption of citrusy zest that comes from peeling an orange. The ethereal piano and violin fill our ears like the scent of the fruit does our noses, and Lange’s personification of the orange isn’t lost in translation either – we forget those left on the ground and in the gutters, but they are still oranges. If we don’t act, the oranges will cease to exist, even the dirty ones.
He turns his gaze to the stars for “Gemini and Leo” a twinkling dance number about two lovers lost in their own world together. They twirl in unison above the Earth, captured in the picturesque desire to “dance like nobody’s watching,” while the world below them is unaware. He gifts himself the space to spin on that axis for some time with “Aguas Frias”, resulting in a meditation on climate change that isn’t just relevant but also heartfelt and honest.
There’s a lot of comfort and warmth to Lange’s albums. He’s a beacon of hope in almost every instance, a rarity these days. Far In handles weighty themes outside of love, such as the apocalypse, but Lange’s gentility is what we take from it. His presence is always thoughtful, sincere, never forceful or selfish.
“There Must Be a Song Like You” asks for a translation of the self to actual song structure – what songs make you, you? Negro’s not asking you, he’s suggesting you look for it, determine what makes you whole and unique.
Far In has an inherent kindness to it. Lange embraces his music like a parent does their child, and through that tight-but-tender hold he hopes to transmit these feelings of hope and change to his listener – no matter whether their proverbial cup is full or empty. He shares this reciprocation in “Outside the Outside” when he insists “My world only opens, when your world comes in.” Maybe that’s what the title is meant to represent. How far in are you willing to dig to find your true self? Helado Negro wants you to find out.
Source: Beats Per Minute
Professional People
by Fehler Kuti
Released 25 June 2021
Alien Transistor
****-
German artist Julian Warner says that he adopted the performance identity Fehler Kuti when Marcus Siller, a Munich DJ, saw a photo of Warner's band on stage and remarked “Oh, it looks like Fela Kuti has a punk band. "Fehler" is German for "Error" or "Mistake", so although the name causes occasional confusion, it really shouldn't. It fits within the contemporary idom of artists inventing ironic monikers, practiced by the likes of Chet Faker, Seven Davis Jr., Kurt Vile, Joy Orbison to name a few.
Warner/Kuti's music benefits from the legacy nearly half a century's worth of German experimental rock music that was seeded in the work of experimental composers like Karlheinz Stochausen, and Terry Riley, progressive rock (Mothers Of Invention, Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart), progressive and free form jazz (Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis) and developed by pioneers incuding CAN, Neu!, Umun Duul II, Faust, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and others.
Warner/Kuti's major point of difference is his addition of purposeful lyrics, dealing directly and often insightfully with current social and political matters. Warner, has descibed himself as a "singing social antropologist" and his ideas, progressive and challenging though they are, are communcated in a voice of reason, rather than rage.
In Bandcamp notes for the album, he writes:
"Listen to these songs of infrastructure and appraisal of the welfare state. Join me in mourning the broken promises of prosperity for all. Send that “Ausländer“ (foreigner) of your mind to heaven. Colonialism fucked you up. Platform Capitalism is keeping you in chains. ... What about those dispossessed field hands harvesting your asparagus?
All is lost. The system is rigged. Because all histories, gestures and identities have been absorbed into this late capitalist apparatus we call diversity. It can integrate anything and anyone. It made me. It is the price of the ticket. And it is unable to challenge its own premise of an atomised society. As if you and I had so little in common.
They will try and help you. They will build you a museum for your history and an innovation hub for your future. I warn you. Don‘t let them give you a name. Resist appellation. Don’t get that German passport. Don‘t eat asparagus".
Source: Bandcamp
Talk Memory
by BadBadNotGood
Released 8 October 2021
XL Recordings / Innovative Leisure
****-
Canadian ensemble BadBadNotGood formed in 2010, moving between three and four members before establishing its current line up in 2015.
The band, comprising Alexander Sowinski (drums), Chester Hansen (bass) and Leland Whitty (guitar and woodwinds), met on the Humber College jazz program in Toronto. At the time, instead of working with traditional jazz standards, the group sidestepped and drew from hip hop and other contemporary genres to create a unique sound rooted in Black American music, but 2021’s Talk Memory pays homage to the musicians, composers and influences that first informed their work - and to capture some of the focus, energy and improvisation which is at the heart of their live shows.
The album includes contributions from a breadth of multi-instrumentalists including Arthur Verocai, Laraaji, Terrace Martin, Brandee Younger, and Karriem Riggins, with the album mix coming from Russell Elevado.
Another element is an expanded take on a contemporary counter culture book. The direction and sense of this publication will be preempted by a series of poster zines released with each single. The book is a homage to the structure and expanded take on meaning and information in something like the 1960’s Whole Earth Catalog.
Source: Bandcamp
Jazz Is Dead 009
by Ali Shaheed Muhammed / Adrian Younge feat. Roy Ayers, Marcus Valle, Gary Bartz, Joao Donato
Released 1 October 2021
Jazz Is Dead
****-
JID009 Instrumentals is another first class release from Jazz Is Dead, the ironically-named Los Angeles label curated by Ali Shaheed Muhammed / Adrian Younge.
As the title suggests, it's the ninth in this exceptional series, that has paid homage to and re-vitalised the work of the nine jazz greats it celebrates.
As they declared in the release notes for the second album, JID002 Roy Ayers, "The ... tracks on this album testify to the love not only of a legendary musician’s legacy, but to the vitality & necessity of this music and these sounds in the present era, a thread that will likely run throughout all of the upcoming releases from Jazz Is Dead Records."
Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge are best known for their collaborations with vocalists and MCs, but these two multi-instrumentalists and producers excel in their ability to conjure musical moods with or without vocal accompaniment.
Similarly, the musical legends that the two handpicked to collaborate with across this series are all jazz legends equally at home crafting unadorned compositions as they are collaborating with vocalists.
This double-LP collection presents exclusive instrumental versions of songs originally released on the previous Jazz Is Dead albums;
-
Roy Ayers JID002 (2020)
-
Marcos Valle JID003 (2020)
-
Gary Bartz JID006 (2021) and
-
João Donato JID007 (2021)
And JID's website has announced that the final chapter in the initial run of Jazz Is Dead releases, Remixes JID010 will be released on 3 December 2021.
Source: JazzIsDead
Suite: April 2020
by Brad Mehldau
Released 12 June 2021
Nonesuch Records
****-
Brad Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He described the album in his Bandcamp entry:
Suite: April 2020 is a musical snapshot of life the last month in the world in which we’ve all found ourselves. I’ve tried to musically portray on the piano some experiences and feelings that are both new and common to many of us. In “keeping distance”, for instance, I traced the experience of two people social distancing, represented by the left and right hand – how they are unnaturally drawn apart, yet remain linked in some unexplainable, and perhaps illuminating way. As difficult as Covid-19 has been for many of us, there have been moments of revelation along the way. “Stopping, listening: hearing” highlights that moment as well.
I’ve pointed to some of the strong feelings that have arisen the past month or more: “remembering before all this” expresses a bittersweet gut-pain that has hit me several times out of the blue, when I think back on how things were even just a few months ago, and how long ago and far away that seems now; “Uncertainty” hits on the feeling that can follow right after that – a hollow fear of an unknown future.
There’s also been a welcome opportunity to connect more deeply with my family than we ever have, because of the abundant time and close proximity. The last three pieces hit on that connection – the harmony we find with each other, making meals together or just horsing around. “Lullaby” is for everyone who might find it hard to sleep now.
Neil Young’s words in “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” have always been council for me, now more than ever, when he instructs: “Don’t let it bring you down/It’s only castles burning/Find someone who’s turning/And you will come around.” Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind”, a song I’ve loved since I was 8 years old, is a love letter to a city that I’ve called my home for years, and that I’m far away from now. I know lots of people there and miss them terribly, and I know how much that great city hurts right now. I also know that it too will come around.
Source: Bandcamp
We're OK. But We're Lost Anyway.
by Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp
Released 2 July 2021
Bongo Joe
****-
Founded in 2006 by Vincent Bertholet (Hyperculte), the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp is a large-scale project. Designed as a real orchestra, the size of the ensemble has varied over time. Now with 12 members, 14 in the past or 6 at the beginning, the ensemble has scoured the stages of Europe to demonstrate that the formula "the more the merrier" has never been more true than on stage.
Whether in prestigious festivals (Paléo Festival de Nyon, Fusion Festival, Incubate, Womad, Bad Bonn Kilbi, Jazz à la Vilette) or on the four albums released since its launch, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp a mischievous title in homage to traditional African groups - Orchestre Tout Puissant Konono n°1, Orchestre Tout Puissant Polyrytmo etc... - and to one of the greatest dynamizers of 20th century art) shows an incredible fluidity. The band embraces the forms of its musicians while pushing them to their limits. The result is a powerful, experimental, unstable and terribly alive, organic sound.
These characteristics can be found on We're OK. But We're Lost Anyway, fifth opus of the band. Built around twelve musicians, extirpated from their respective biotope, it develops a repetitive musicality which, deployed in successive waves, creates a feeling of trance. Mixing free jazz, post punk, high life, brass band, symphonic mixtures and kraut rock, their sound only goes beyond the limits of genre. Transcendental, almost ritualistic, the music is coupled with powerful lyrics, declaimed in rage against a world that is falling apart. Adorcist, hypnotic and post-syncratic, the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, far from Tzara's manifesto, is somewhere between Hugo Ball's phonetic psalms, a Sufi procession that turns into a brawl and a voodoo ritual, but always with a precision proper to the monomania of an asperger.
Source: Bandcamp
The Tower
by Jaga Jazzist
Released 2 July 2021
Brainfeeder
****-
Oslo's Jaga Jazzist new film and live album “The Tower” comprises live recordings of the four compositions that make up their ninth studio album “Pyramid”, recorded at the top of Økern Kulturtårn (aka Pex Tower) one of Oslo's tallest buildings, constructed in 1962 for telecom Standard Telefon for the extrusion of plastic-insulated high-voltage PEX cables. The band linked with director Sigurd Ytre-Arne to film an incredible live set capturing the transition from day to night as the sun set over Norway’s capital city.
“This was a beautiful night in August 2020 after five months in lockdown. It was the first day we met up and played the album together since recording it a year earlier,” explains Lars Horntveth. “The idea was to capture the sunset over our beautiful city while playing the new album from start to finish. Filmed, edited and directed by the supertalented Sigurd Ytre-Arne. We´re stoked that we captured this on film and looking forward to finally show it to everybody. Enjoy!”
Released last year on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder Records, “Pyramid” saw Jaga Jazzist taking a deep dive into post-rock, jazz and psychedelia influences. The album title refers to the building blocks which make up a pyramid, and how each of the four tracks – and their constituent parts – fit together. ‘Tomita’ is a nod to Japanese composer and synth player Isao Tomita, and ‘The Shrine’ alludes to Fela Kuti’s legendary Lagos venue. Lars says: “I felt that this album is a small symphony, each part containing its own rooms to explore.
Source: Bandcamp
Now, You Know (EP)
by Rosie Lowe
Released 1 September 2021
Blue Flowers Music
****-
Described as a "mixtape" Rosie Lowe's new EP, "Now, You Know", the artist's first since her mid-2019 album "YU" (aside from appearing on Gotts Street Park's 2020 single "Everything"), is a soulful, entertaining and often playful set, that opens with the 54 second slowed-right-down vocal "Freedom". If intended to suggests that all that the EP was produced without too many concerns for content, then Lowe has no concerns at all when she gets serious again!
“Not being able to physically be in a room with people crystallised the opportunity to see this project through on my own whilst collaborating remotely with different people I love and admire wherever they were based,” Lowe explains in an official statement. “I felt a new sense of freedom to be able to create something away from a label schedule and it left me with this strong desire to create something that captured where I was at without overthinking it.”
Source: Albumism
Omegah
by 9 Horses
Released 6 August 2020
Adhyaropa Records
****-
Known for its virtuosic improvisations and wide-ranging stylistic flexibility, the experimental chamber ensemble 9 Horses features three outstanding instrumentalists on their new double album:
Joe Brent (mandolin),
Sara Caswell (violin), and
Andrew Ryan (bass).
The band’s performance is the result of organic evolution from the group's origins as an acoustic duo to its current revered status as acoustic/electric ensemble.
What began as a remarkable jazz-meets-new acoustic trio has blossomed as the band expanded its lineup, augmented its musical palette, and experimented with a variety of sound worlds. These include small chamber groups, avant-garde synth ensembles, and symphony orchestras. According to violinist Sara Caswell, Omegah reflects 9 Horses’s natural progression. “This record is the culmination of years of experimenting with band members, musical timbres, colors and styles. In a way, it portrays our group’s entire odyssey.”
The album is a continuation of the two previous ones: acoustic and electric textures ever-present, blending seamlessly with one another throughout. It stands as a musical representation of the breadth of the band members’ influences and experiences, from classical to jazz and laced with folk and pop sensibilities, and as always, largely improvised.
The music is complemented by the granular, glitchy digital percussion texture created by 9 Horses’s close collaborator, electronic sound design specialist Justin Goldner.
Hailed as “one of the truly exceptional musicians of his generation,” (The Bluegrass Special), mandolinist Joe Brent, formerly of Regina Spektor’s band and multiple classical ensembles and orchestras, has forged a career with unparalleled fluency across multiple genres.
Sara Caswell, the first woman ever nominated for a GRAMMY award in the category of ‘Best Improvised Solo’, is leading the vanguard of creative violin playing and is also a highly sought collaborative partner with the likes of Roseanna Vitro and Esperanza Spalding.
Bassist Andrew Ryan is an exceptional technician and improviser, as well as a regular member of folk musician Kaia Kater’s band.
9 Horses welcomed many of today’s top contemporary musicians to collaborate with them on Omegah, including pianist Glenn Zaleski, trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis, and cellist and producer/composer Emily Hope Price, to name a few.
Source: Bandcamp
Driftglass
by SEED Ensemble
Released 8 February 2019
Jazz re:freshed
****-
Formed in 2016, SEED Ensemble is a ten-piece project led by composer, arranger and alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi. Already a giant on the UK jazz scene, she is known for her work with all-female jazz septet, Nerija, (whose August 2019 debut album Blume, featured in SunNeverSetsOnMusic's February 2020 review) and afrobeat jazz group, Kokoroko (whose eponymous debut EP was featured in SunNeverSetsOnMusic's March 2019 review).
Cassie Kinoshi’s SEED Ensemble combines contemporary jazz with inner-city London, West African and Caribbean grooves, exploring the blend of genres through original compositions and arrangements. “SEED Ensemble is my way of celebrating the vibrant and distinctive diversity that has significantly influenced what British culture has become over the centuries".
Projecting this new musical vision are some of London’s most up-and-coming young jazz musicians essential to the modern identity of British jazz including tuba player Theon Cross, trumpeter Sheila Maurice-Grey, tenor saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael and one of London’s leading guitarists, Shirley Tetteh.
Across ‘Driftglass’, Kinoshi embraces styles both past and present to create something that we can call modern. Band members cut across race and gender with original compositions inspired by the social issues of our times
Musically, SEED Ensemble's output is thoroughly contemporary, and like fellow travellers in UK bands like Nerija, Kokoroko, Sons of Kemet, the music reflects the members' exposure to the musical melting pot of the London jazz scene.
The album’s title comes from American author and critic Samuel R Delany’s image of glass fragments washed by tides – which Kinoshi adopts as a metaphor for how the tides of improvisation and performance make compositions: “Evolve, grow, ebb and flow over time” - which certainly seems to apply to the SEED Ensemle's work: the musical influences may be broad and the players still mostly young, but the music is mature and timeless.
Source: Bandcamp
Wolo So
by Balimaya Project
Released 30 July 2021
Jazz re:freshed
****-
For those of a certain age, the musical scope and joyous intensity of Balimaya Project may recall the pioneering work of Osibisa, in the late 1960's. But Balimaya Project brings not only the rhythms of West Africa to the Jazz stage, but the traditional instruments too, often placing kora (West African Harp-Lute), djembe (West African drum - goblet shaped) and balafon (West African xylophone), dounoun (West African "talking drum") at the front and centre, alongside the Western (European) saxes and axes.
Led by composer/arranger and leading UK-based djembe player, Yahael Camara Onono and featuring members of bands including Kokoroko and SEED Ensemble, Balimaya Project intently synthesize and bridge London’s bustling jazz circuit with traditional repertoire and folklore of the Mandé peoples of West Africa, and in turn connect the music’s contemporary and ancestral forbearers. Featured artists include virtuosos Jali Bakary Konte (kora) and N’famady Kouyaté (balafon), Skanda Sabbagh (dounoun) and others.
"Balimaya" translates as the essence of kinship in Mandé’s Maninka language, referring to a family model in which history and shared experiences are superior to blood ties. The name reflects how the collective conceives of itself: as a family.
Balimaya Project articulate the complex experiences of being children of the African diaspora in the UK, connecting the future facing and the ancestral in the spirit of Fela Kuti's or Sun Ra's big bands before them.
Musically, Balimaya Project balances a thoroughly contemporary big-band jazz sound with the West African traditional music.
Source: Bandcamp
Loving In Stereo
by Jungle
Released 13 August 2021
Caiola / AWAL
****-
British electronic band Jungle is made up of producers and multi-instrumentalists, Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland who made a reputation by producing tasteful, club-oriented soul music that although tending towards muzak at times, earned them a Mercury Prize nomination in 2014 (losing out to Young Fathers).
Loving in Stereo is the third studio album, released after a string of recent sigles and three years after their second studio album, For Ever (2018). They involved of-the-moment producer Inflo (Michael Kiwanuka, Little Simz, SAULT) and for the first to include featured artists, with guest appearances from American rapper Bas and Swiss-Tamil musician Priya Ragu featuring on the tracks "Romeo" and "Goodbye My Love", respectively.
The album is , however as a whole discusses themes of "new beginnings, new love and fighting back against the odds". In an interview discussing the album, frontman Josh Lloyd-Watson stated: "When we write music there's hope. Maybe today we'll create something that influences people and changes the way they feel. If you can make something that lifts people, that's an amazing feeling." Speaking to RedBull, he added "We went through relationship break-ups on the second record, which was mostly about heartbreak and experiencing that in California. This time around, it was about being free. We found new partners so there’s a lot of lyrical content about love and moving on and getting through hard times. Now that was personal to us at that point, but then something happened in the world, which meant that we all went through hard times. So now it’s like it applies, it makes sense to everybody in some way."
Source: RedBull
The Sounds of Afrotronica
by Kaidi & NK-OK
Released 1996 (Reissued 18 August 2021)
Bewith Records
*****
With their debut album "The Sounds of Afrotronica" Kaidi (aka Kaidi Akinnibi) and NK-OK (aka Namali Kwaten) have shaken loose from their established roles in the London Nu-Jazz (aka Jazztronica) scene. NK_OK has been working as one half of prominent Jazztronica duo Blue Lab Beats alongside mult-instrumentalist Mr. Dm (aka David Mrakpor).
Kaidi has been playing saxophone for Tom Misch and Yusef Dayes.
The pair share a love of grime, jersey house ( a genre of house music originating in Newark, NJ), and experimental jazz and, while the new album remains consistent with their jazztronica background, which typically extends to funk, afro-beat of influences and interests has been broadened with the addition of rhythms and motifs sourced from african musical heritage.
However the album is an instrumental showcase for the duo, their mellow saxes, keyboards, drums and bass lines create a timeless funky flow.
One of the highlights of the album is their cover of Cameroon saxophonist and songwriter Manu Dibango's "Soul Makosa" - a huge international hit, covered by many artists after its release in 1972 and subsequently sampled by Michael Jackson ("Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", Thriller, 1982) and Rihanna ("Don't Stop the Music", Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). The tracks ahead of it on this album gently build a steamy mood. Another highlight is the cover of Marcos Valle's "Nao Tem Nada Nao"
Guests artists working with Kaida and NK-OK include: David Mrakpor (Mr DM, Blue Lab Beats); London raised trumpeter and composer Ife Ogunjobi; Amina Jabbar; American jazz trumpeter, composer, producer and vocalist Theo Croker; Cassandra David, Ferdant Bartley and Kokoroko trombonist, vocalist and composer Richie Sievewright.
Dawn Calling
by Don Glori
Released 4 December 2020
Nothin Personal
****-
An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase. Melbourne-based Don Glori, (aka Gordon Li), takes this concept and applies it to his name as well as his music. Deconstructing the sounds and elements of the music that he loves and recontextualising them into his own signature sound.
Carefully considered compositions that facilitate heavy doses of improvisation, Don Glori’s music reflects a deep fascination in jazz, house and Brazilian music. Tied together by his inimitable spirit and dedication to making it groove.
‘Dawn Calling’ is Don Glori’s first offering to the world, recorded live to tape over two sweltering summer days in February 2020, it captures Don Glori and his band at their best. They wear their influences proudly - touching on elements of jazz, broken- beat, house and Brazilian music. The record traverses between melancholic, textural landscapes with spiritual jazz overtones through to enchanting group vocals and again metamorphosing into synth laden grooves built entirely around the rhythm- centric marriage of the bass and drums.
From Don Glori:
“I was lucky enough to record this EP with some of my closest friends and oldest musical collaborators. I’m particularly proud of this body of work as I think it is a really accurate representation of my influences, what I was listening to, and the sort of music I wanted to make at the time.
Performed by:
Don Glori: Bass, Keys, Synths, Perc., Vocals
Tim Cox: Drums, Percussion
Lachlan Thompson: Saxophone
Selene Messinis: Keys, Rhodes, Synths
Ruby Dargaville, Hannah McKittrick Vocals (2)
Mackenzie Randall: Percussion (2)
Matt Hall: Vocals (4)
Source: Bandcamp
Rare, Forever
by Leon Vynehall
Released 30 April 2021
Ninja Tune
****-
Having made his name with his pulsating vision of deep house on 2014’s Music For The Uninvited, British DJ Leon Vynehall has found himself forging a sound brimming with ornate orchestral sounds, literary intrigue, and semblances of narrative that has been increasingly stretching deep house to breaking point.
With his insatiable thirst for idiosyncratic expression, it is clear Vynehall was always on a collision course with the genre, and that’s exactly what we get on Rare, Forever. More so than previous releases, the album sounds fractured and demented, with ricocheting beats seeping through like psychotic whispers during opener ‘Ecce! Ego!’, and the visitations of dub in ‘Snakeskin ∞ Has-been’ eerily unsettling.
Despite the pervasive delirium, Vynehall still finds apertures where he can anchor his sound around glistening arrangements, with the Bon Iver-like coda to ‘Alichea Vella Amor’ and the bridge of ‘Mothra’ both transcendent.
The album reaches its apotheosis in ‘An Exhale’, a deep, exhaustive spaghetti junction of intercepting synths and snares, weaving in and out of one another, before swallowing each other whole in a most marvelous union, echoing the image of Ouroboros on the album cover. It perfectly embodies this sublime soul-searching and all-consuming record that is recommended listening for deep house fans and non-fans alike.
Source: Loud and Quiet
Sundays
by Nate Mercerau
Released 24 September 2021
How So Records
****-
Created after a period of recording and road work with Jay-Z, the Weeknd, Leon Bridges, and many others, multi-instrumentalist Nate Mercereau’s second full-length release feels like a long exhale in sound, a meditation on what Aphex Twin called “surfing on sine waves.” Layered and sourced from live jams that took place on any number of L.A. weekends, Sundays is both experimental and formulated. It’s driving music, head music, landscapes with no discernible beginning, middle, or end, soothing sounds for drifters living in digitally disconnected times.
Starting with a series of percussive improvisations by Carlos Niño, Mercereau chopped them up and then enlisted drummer Jamire Williams and alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to improvise along with his edits at Lucy’s Meat Market in L.A. Throughout, electronic and acoustic sources bang up against nature sounds and further riveting improvisations.
Williams pours hot drumming over gurgling tones in “Every Moment Is the First and Last,” which suggests a gentle selection from the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds cut up, splattered, and splayed over ’60s-vintage Elvin Jones. Mercereau gives voice to analog synth moans not unlike Morton Subotnick’s Silver Apples of the Moon in “Absolute Sensitivity.” Spaghetti-western guitars, warbling sax, and roving tom drops open “Immersed in the Going,” which sounds like the Orb’s Alex Paterson and Larry Coryell chasing each other through a stew of whirring tape loops and string samples. The emotional synth cascades of “Truly Loving It” lead to the warm, saxophone-infused spirals of the closing track, “Access Point.”
Sundays trips the samples fantastic song after song, as happy fluffy tones merge with occasionally ominous atmospheres. Welcome to the state of dream, leave your mind at the door.
Source: Jazz Times
Stitches
by Nils Petter Molvær
Released 30 April 2021
Okeh/Sony
****-
Ambient/fusion trumpet star Molvaer has jettisoned the prog-rock sound of his 2012 album Baboon Moon, and switched to softer settings for his American-label debut, in a band including pedal steel guitarist Geir Sundstøl, and electronicist Morten Qvenild (of Susanna & the Magical Orchestra). He has certainly lost none of his signature credentials en route – such as his affectingly fragile trumpet tone, and subtle textural and dynamic sense. Molvaer and Sundstøl often ruminate in tandem here (notably on the four trance-like Intrusion tracks), or are unobtrusively tailed by woody percussion and tabla-like sounds, but the moods aren't all tranquil – Erland Dahlen's elemental drumming pounds under the shimmering harmonies and Molvaer's ballad-Miles whispers on The Kit, while edgy, rattling percussion rocks beneath Strange Pillows, and Bathroom stomps along with huge drum hits and bugged-trumpet chords. It's a fine band, a strong repertoire, and a striking new Molvaer statement.
Source: The Guardian (John Fordham)
enargeia
by Emily D'Angelo
Released 24 September 2021
How So Records
****-
Concept, character and cool – Emily D’Angelo’s debut album on Deutsche Grammophon encompasses everything that comes so naturally to this young Canadian vocalist. Her chosen title for this thoughtfully curated sonic journey comes from Hellenistic rhetoric and sums up the essence of the album: enargeia – in the artist’s own words – “a description so vivid it seems to conjure its subject into existence”.
D’Angelo has chosen music from the 12th and 21st centuries written by four composers – Hildegard von Bingen, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Missy Mazzoli and Sarah Kirkland Snider – several of whose works are presented in brand-new chamber/electronic arrangements. “Each track is born out of the previous,” explains the singer, “as the listener is guided through a progression, a cohesive and exploratory listening experience.”
enargeia was recorded in Berlin between December 2020 and March 2021 in collaboration with das freie orchester Berlin and conductor Jarkko Riihimäki, the Kuss Quartett and Matangi Quartet, and solo instrumentalists Wolfgang Fischer, Rene Flächsenhaar, Mikayel Hakhnazaryan, Frédéric L’Épée, Jonas Niederstadt, Marc Prietzel, Marion Ravot, Christian Vogel and Norbert Wahren. The album will be released on 8 October 2021.
D’Angelo’s starting-point in creating enargeia was the work of a musical and intellectual luminary, the medieval Benedictine abbess, scientist, poet, composer and visionary Hildegard von Bingen. As she recalls, “I discovered her music as a kid, when I was singing in choir, and I was transfixed. I’d never heard anything like it before, yet it all sounded so familiar and organic.” Hildegard’s influence runs like a thread throughout the album, whose works, says the singer, all have in common “the sense of expansiveness in her compositions, the multi-disciplinary expression of her ideas and her belief in music as a heightened communicative mode”.
D’Angelo’s concept of the music she performs is the combination of words, rhythm and pitch: “No matter the style, it all comes down to these three things”, and Hildegard von Bingen’s work exemplifies this in its essential quality as “a single vocal line and the text”. The composer’s two pieces on the album, one in praise of divine wisdom, O virtus Sapientiae, the other an antiphon to the Virgin Mary, O frondens virga, are heard in arrangements by two outstanding contemporary American composers whose original work also features here: Sarah Kirkland Snider and Missy Mazzoli. D’Angelo brings a radiant purity to the Latin lyrics and unadorned vocal lines of both new settings.
If Hildegard marks one point in the long history of spirituality in music, Missy Mazzoli marks another in her Vespers for a New Dark Age. For D’Angelo it’s “a completely different take on the spiritual element of music”. This 2014 work in fact replaces the texts of the traditional Vespers service with secular poetry by contemporary American writer Matthew Zapruder, while at the same time preserving the ritual and repetitive qualities of the original. Both the Vespers pieces and the two excerpts from Song from the Uproar, Mazzoli’s chamber opera about the extraordinary life of Swiss explorer, writer and Sufi Isabelle Eberhardt, highlight the dramatic flair that has already brought D’Angelo such glowing reviews for her operatic performances.
The element of character is further explored in the presence of the classical figure of Penelope in the song-cycle of that name by Sarah Kirkland Snider. Inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey, it tells of a woman’s husband, veteran of an unnamed war, who returns, brain-damaged, after a 20-year absence. “Ruminating on themes of memory, identity and returning home”, says D’Angelo, “these works show how art, literature and history can serve as a gateway to understanding the present.” She infuses her interpretations of the three extracts presented here with dark, haunting colours, while her clarity of tone, notable throughout enargeia, brings out every nuance of Ellen McLaughlin’s emotive lyrics.
Past and present co-exist too in the work of the Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, “whose use of bowed instruments as a drone”, notes D’Angelo, “harkens to medieval music but through a modern, ambient lens”. In Fólk faer andlit, part of the composer’s 2020 response to the plight of refugees in her native country, D’Angelo’s voice soars above winds and strings in a line of plainchant-like simplicity, while her gleaming vocals are used to stunning effect in Liður, an extract from Guðnadóttir’s award-winning music for the TV series Chernobyl.
The album showcases a host of musical collaborators, notably Jarkko Riihimäki who has arranged many of the pieces, creating a broad range of sensitive accompaniments that offset the singer’s rich tone with everything from a single cello to a 20-piece string orchestra, and ultimately broadens into electric guitar, bass and drums while D’Angelo duets with herself in the final work, Snider’s The Lotus Eaters.
Source:Deutsche Grammophon
Mozart: The Piano Sonatas
by Mitsuko Uchida
Released 2001
Universal Music
*****
Anaïs Reno is a New York City-based jazz singer making a sound that is getting noticed for her interpretation of jazz and the Great American Songbook. Reno received the Julie Wilson Award, won the Inspiration Award at the Songbook Academy Competition; the Adela and Larry Elow American Songbook High School Competition given by the Mabel Mercer Foundation, and received the Forte International Competition’s Platinum Award at Carnegie Hall. She began singing at eight and started performing at the age of ten. Reno’s performance roster includes an array of jazz and cabaret venues, including Birdland Jazz Club, the Friar’s Club, the National Arts Club, the Players Club, Carnegie Hall, and the annual Cabaret Convention at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Reno is now making her recording debut at the age of 16 called Lovesome Thing.
Lovesome Thing (sings Ellington & Strayhorn feat. Emmet Cohen) contains twelve songs by two master writers: Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and Billy Strayhorn 1915-67), all backed by a group of jazz musicians led by pianist Emmet Cohen. He also made the arrangements with Reno. “I have a very personal relationship with these songs,” says Reno. “Somehow, I believe that the music of Ellington & Strayhorn understands me. This is why I want to honor it.”
“Mood Indigo” opens with a bluesy statement from Cohen before Reno’s smooth, warm, and strong vocals enter. Her tone is a beautiful mix of cabaret and straight-ahead jazz. Her vibrato recalls the twenties, but her phrasing and use of dynamics will grab your attention first. Juliet Kurtzman takes a stirring violin solo that is vibrant and sonically pleasing. Reno’s convening of the emotions of the lyrics and her sultry sense of time is something way beyond her years and a gift that will undoubtedly continue to garner her praise and awards.
“Take the “A” Train” is a swinging arrangement of this well-worn standard that gives the jazz fan a real chance to dig into Reno’s phrasing, rhythm, and articulation. Her phrasing is unique and playful, with a rhythmic placement that is swinging and defines the swing feel. Her articulation is never more evident than her chorus of scatting. Here the jazz fan will be pleasantly surprised and right at home with this young lady’s grasp of swing articulations. Saxophonist Tivon Pennicott also performs a solo of style and taste. Reno and her fellow ensemble members do bring new light to this standard, and it is also a great closing track.
Lovesome Thing marks Reno’s debut on the jazz recording scene and is no doubt being well-received. Her intriguing take on these standards have carved out her own niche and point of interest in a very average and crowded field of singers—an excellent choice of material and a well-arranged set performed by an outstanding cast of musicians.
Source: The Jazz World
Mozart: The Piano Sonatas
by Mitsuko Uchida
Released 2001
Universal Music
*****
Philips edition of Mitsuko Uchida's recordings of all the Mozart piano sonatas is a great package for anyone who hasn't heard her celebrated performances of these or may have only heard one or two.
Uchida brings a lightness of touch and approaches the pieces as if she were playing on an instrument more like what Mozart would have had, rather than its modern, sturdy descendent.
There is also a deliberateness and care given to each phrase, adding a delicate nuance here, a smidgen more drama there. Even in the most dramatic of the sonatas, the Sonata in C minor, K. 457, and its preceding Fantasy, K. 475, the mood hints at the drama of Beethoven, but is not played with anything near the intensity of Beethoven and always carries the good humor of Mozart. In the Sonata in D major, K. 284, the listener can easily hear Mozart the symphonist or opera composer just by the way Uchida voices and balances the music under her hands. It's an extremely satisfying set of performances.
Source: AllMusic
What's Real?
by JK Group
Released 1 October 2021
La Scape
*****
JK GROUP IS:
A collective of forward-thinking "jazz" musicians from Australia. We owe our thanks and gratitude to the founding mothers and fathers of the music people call jazz. We respect and continuously study their legacy whilst embracing our current surroundings in making music that honestly reflects our time and space.
THIS RECORD IS:
The second batch of tunes we hit record on, though the sessions could not have been more different to the first. Where The Young Ones was meticulously planned, this recording was made on a whim as the busy touring musicians happened to line up their respective touring schedules at the same time. Many of the songs were just sketches, musical experiments that were leaping off out of the territory of the first record and pushing the sound in a number of different directions at once. Some tunes were still in progress right up until the moment of recording, and one was written on the spot in the studio. There was no focus or talk of outcomes for a future release. As with all experiments, some songs did not make the cut. But the selections that have made it onto this vinyl really capture the magic and spontaneous energy of the session with the musicians in full flight, in sync. We welcome Phil Stroud to the collective to offer up a rework of one of these tracks, and further deepen the dialogue between jazz and electronic music.
THIS MUSIC IS:
Conceived, written, recorded, and printed on land that historically belongs to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We acknowledge the traditional owners and pay our respects to Elders, past, present, and emerging.
Source: Bandcamp
For Those I Love
by For Those I Love
Released 25 March 2021
September Recordings
****-
ll first albums come with some kind of backstory, but the backstory of the eponymous debut by For Those I Love – the pseudonym of Dublin-based songwriter/producer/vocalist David Balfe – is more harrowing than most. Recording was under way when Paul Curran, his best friend and fellow member of Burnt Out – an artistically ambitious punk collective who attracted attention in Ireland for their visceral depiction of youth in the working-class Dublin suburb of Coolock – killed himself. The opening track, I Have a Love, breaks the fourth wall to striking effect, three-and-a-half minutes in: “A year or so ago, I played this song for you on the car stereo in the night’s breeze / This bit kicked in with its synths and its keys / And you smiled as you sat next to me.”
Mired in grief, anger and bewilderment, For Those I Love is the second album in 18 months to deal with Curran’s passing: fellow Dubliners the Murder Capital said that “every single one” of the songs on their 2019 debut When I Have Fears “related back to his death in some way”, while the album shared its title with his favourite Keats poem. But while the Murder Capital set their lyrics to icy post-punk and raging guitar noise, Balfe’s key inspiration is the bedroom dance music and spoken-word vocals of the Streets. There’s an echo in his delivery of the spiky, heavily-accented sprechgesang approach favoured by the vital current wave of Dublin punk bands, the Murder Capital and Fontaines DC among them, but Balfe shares Mike Skinner’s fixation on apparently mundane details and his fascination with drunken, blokey high jinks, although it’s worth noting that For Those I Love offers a far starker, even nihilistic take on the old Geezers Need Excitement theme.
Balfe sets Curran’s death against a backdrop of late-teenage incidents and scrapes. He never allows the listener to forget that drink and drugs are a temporary escape, and never fails to underline exactly what they’re an escape from. Birthday is a grim depiction of Balfe encountering the body of a murder victim on his estate when still a child; The Pain or Top Scheme vaguely recalls Plan B’s Ill Manors in the sheer, scourging force of its class-conscious anger: “Our troubles and complaints are justified / it’s just numbers and stats until it’s your life.” In fact, he ends up taking issue with Skinner’s breezy approach. “Getting out seems no stage … I’ve felt this way since Turn the Page,” he snaps, a reference to a track from Original Pirate Material that urged the listener to forget the past and “walk away”. “There’s no walk away,” he adds, pointing out that it’s impossible to move on if you’re deprived of the opportunity to escape your surroundings.
Source: The Guardian (Alex Petridis)