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Sounds From The Ancestors
by Kenny Garrett
Released 27 August 2021
Challenge Records International
*****
Composer/saxophonist Kenny Garrett emerged as a distinctive voice on the national scene in 1978 with an undisputed aptitude for emotive melodic phrasing that led him to collaborations with Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey and Miles Davis.
With Sounds from the Ancestors, Garrett remembers the spirit of the sounds of African ancestors from church services, recited prayers, songs from the work fields, Yoruban chants and African drums, alongside tributes to Roy Hargrove and two drum pioneers — Art Blakey and Tony Allen — who all looked into the past to influence the future sound and evolution of jazz.
His music is characterised by technical facility, compositional flair, and an enviable ability to meld compelling rhythms with attractive melodies. All this remains as true as ever on his latest album.
As the album title makes clear, Sounds from the Ancestors explores his ancestral musical legacy, exploring a variety of musical styles from Africa and the African diaspora.
This is a similar approach to that taken by eminent young London-based musicians like Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia and Nérija, but with an emphasis on genres such as Afro-Cuban jazz, Black American gospel and R&B. Miles Davis’ album On The Corner is an accredited influence, but mostly for its inventive approach towards extending the jazz vocabulary. This is much more melodic music that sits comfortably within the modern jazz tradition.
In addition to Garrett’s group—Vernell Brown, Jr. (piano), Corcoran Holt (bass), Ronald Bruner (drums) and Rudy Bird (percussion)—the album hosts many guest musicians including vocalists Dwight Trible, Linny Smith, Chris Ashley Anthony and Sheherazade Holman.
The songs are all written by Garrett with the exception of a brief interpolation from John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. This appears in the initial stand-out track, Hargrove, that also features the greatest number of vocal contributions, including from Garrett himself, over a rhythm that steadily progresses from a hard bop beat in the tradition of Roy Hargrove to something more Coltrane-like.
Source: London Jazz News
MAN MADE
by Greentea Peng
Released 23 July 2021
Universal Music Operations
*****
outh Londoner Greentea Peng vibrates a little differently from the rest of us. Genuinely – her debut album was purposely recorded at 432Hz (and not the industry standard 440) because of the frequency’s much-discussed soothing properties.
Within lies a hazy miasma of jazz, righteous reggae, easy-going hip-hop and vintage neo-soul in which the echo effects of dub and the swirl of psychedelia hand off to skitters of drum’n’bass. “Krishna and Jah” keep watch over the recording studio.
Anchoring all these inputs and 18 producers is Aria Wells herself – her voice, featherlight even in anger, weary in the best way – and her concerns.
Free My People is self-explanatory. “Babylon, won’t play your game,” she sings on Maya, a standout. Suffer is a succinct track about the commonality of suffering, built on an elegant little recurring arpeggio.
Atmospheres, healing and processing society’s messages are the point here, rather than hits.
But Wells doesn’t lack for tunes, which ebb in and out. Dingaling in particular distils Greentea Peng’s essence into an accessible form.
Man Made can veer towards aimlessness and self-parody – “Eat some shrooms,” Wells sings, ruining the jazz piano vibes on Party Hard Interlude. But the overarching charms of this record aren’t overly diminished.
Source: The Guardian
DTx2
by Blood Wine or Honey
Released 25 June 2021
Bastard Jazz Recordings
****-
DTx2, the brand new album from Blood Wine or Honey, looks ahead to an uncertain future while drawing deep on the band's past experiences and influences. Written and recorded during 2020-21, it welcomes a host of new co-conspirators from Hong Kong, the UK and the US.
Jean Daval, aka Preservation (credits include Yasiin Bey fka Mos Def, MF Doom, RZA, GZA, Raekwon, KRS-One, Aesop Rock), provided truffle-hunted beats, synths and basses, which, when put through the BWoH mangle, emerged as 'Messenger'.
Superstar and old friend of the band KT Tunstall came to work with BWoH after they contributed a DJ mix for her lockdown ‘KTRave’ on Instagram. ‘Attraction’ was the result. Wonky bass, found-bounce beats and Buddy Rich drums smashed out by Tim Weller (Marc Almond, Future Sound of London, Goldfrapp, The Chemical Brothers, David Axelrod) resulted in a bonkers production with passionate vocals and layers of harmony.
'I Shall Rush Out As I Am' is a collaboration with legendary pop provocateur Paul Morley and Janice Lau of Hong Kong band David Boring. The track is based on the words and the spirit of sci-fi writer, satirist, literary critic and radical feminist Joanna Russ and took shape quickly, with tinges of A Certain Ratio and memories of Suicide, provoking Janice to an authentic scream-of-consciousness delivery.
Multi-talented London singer, musician and composer Kamal (Neighbourhood Recordings) took time away from being the Next Big Thing to transform 'Testing Time’ with funk-edged keys. Zoë Brewster, a key figure in the extraordinary ’90s Hong Kong music scene, contributed vocals.
Roughly divided, the album’s first set of songs make relatively short statements, punchily self-contained with common threads. The final four tracks, Testing Time, Embers, Embrasure and Echt Embrace disperse into flights of mantric fantasy, with quicksand time-signature shifts and key-changes emerging into a more introspective zone with a fervent pulse, a shift in energy: stamina over speed.
“During These Difficult Times. A clause so commonplace it’s a sardonic refrain. The hard times become the norm; the sentiment is redundant. This album is a mode of expression in a tight space—Hong Kong. The city is a limited but not limiting zone, a small world encompassing an infinite Mandelbrot set of Ballardian high-rise and hidden activity. It’s not a ‘lockdown’ album. In Hong Kong we’ve never been truly locked down, but shut in; isolated in a wider sense, provoking us to look outside the 2-person bubble and enlist some unexpected collaborators. We discovered, fittingly, that ‘DTx2’ encodes all sorts of things: it’s a human enzyme, a protein coding gene; a make of Yamaha electronic drums from 1996; a model of underwater drone.
It feels like everything has already been said but in the small spaces between all the monumental tropes there is, perhaps, room for some interstitial fauna; some remaining species of idea worth talking about. There’s a tone of agoraphobia, rather than fear of small spaces. It's dancing inside a wardrobe, a furtive, prohibited kind of fun. No one is supposed to be really having a good time. Things are very serious but there is life in small stories, stories in our small lives, our intricate journeys, reflections, interjections, modes of travel, heavy hold-baggage and carry-ons.”
Source: Bandcamp
Almeria
by Jessica Lauren
Released 4 May 2018
Freestyle Records
*****
Since the early 1990s, keyboard player Jessica Lauren has been a familiar part of London's alternative music scene. Jessica's keyboard skills have augmented the live performances and studio recordings of world renowned artists such as Jean Carne, Tom Browne, Dexter Wansel and James Mason, Japan's United Future Organisation, and UK soul diva Juliet Roberts.
Her previous Freestyle album 'Jessica Lauren Four' (2012) highlighted Jessica's minimalist approach, something rare and refreshing in the jazz world: she instills her compositions and playing with a refined sense of space which makes her music as much about what she doesn't play as what she does.
The albums' opener - Kofi Nomad is a deeply percussive afrocentric epic, featuring the beautiful baritone saxaphone of Tamar 'Collocutor' Osborn, one of the most in demand woodwind players working today, underpinned by a powerful foundation of percussion courtesy of Richard Ọlátúndé Baker, Phillip Harper and drummer Cosimo Keita Cadore.
Jessicas' amazing skill for writing simple, understated yet superbly memorable and catchy hooks remains undiminished. Highlights in this new collection are almost too numerous to mention, but Amalfi is a breezy bossa, which conjures up images of easy living days and sun dappled Mediterranean coastlines, whilst the angular and brooding Simba Jike has something of an Eddie Harris style deep, dark groove over which Jessica riffs and solos beautifully on grand piano - and Tamar once again blows freely, whilst 'level' Neville Malcolms' upright bass figure roots the entire thing in a solid, almost primeval sound.
The albums closing statement Argentina is a masterpiece of pathos and perfectly demonstrates Jessicas' approach which is almost akin to a minimalist architecture style of composing and playing, such is the strength of its atmosphere and subtlety.
Source: Bandcamp
All the Unknown
by Grandbrothers
Released 15 January 2021
City Slang
****-
On the leafy cover for their third album, All The Unknown, Grandbrothers invite the spectator to peer through the thick foliage of a hawthorn bush, seemingly powered by a similar sense of curiosity that informed their exploratory new record. Ditching the restrictions of their former setup, with their new record the Turkish-German / Swiss duo took a leap into the dense unknown—and landed on their feet.
The album maps out a wide-open soundworld of compositional possibilities for pianist Erol Sarp and producer / electronic engineer Lukas Vogel, who have been putting their modern and unique electronic spin on prepared piano since first forming in 2012. Forgoing the need to play every single note live, this new album sees the pair juxtapose the old and new once again, venturing further into the electronic cosmos armed with a grand piano, self-built computer-controlled mechanics, and a new sense of latitude.
Source: Bandcamp
This is a Mindfulness Drill: A Reimagining of Richard Youngs' 'Sapphie'
by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Released 25 June 2021
Jagjaguwar
*****
The great indie label catalogue revival is in full season as Mercury enters retrograde for the second time this year (which friends tell me is an excellent moment to reflect upon the past, with the universe rewarding patience and understanding).
In March this year, four decades of 4AD signalled in the mammoth compilation Bills & Aches & Blues, where their stars-of-new – the likes of Dry Cleaning, Maria Somerville and Tkay Maidza – reimagined their favourite parts of the label’s history, from Pixies to His Name Is Alive. 15 years behind them in time alone comes Jagjaguwar, gathering pace, with this discreet-at-first glance – but vital – offering as part of their own “JAG25” birthday celebrations.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s This Is a Mindfulness Drill is a quietly contemplative song-for-song rework of Richard Youngs’ 1998 album Sapphie: a record of remarkable purity and solace, originally released on Oblique Recordings before being picked up by Jagjaguwar at the turn of the century. Its three tracks of sparse classical guitar and voice span 37 minutes with a droning brittleness, never needless, both weightless yet battered and bruised, heart-breaking yet life-affirming for the folk revivalists and ambient auteurs alike. It’s the kind of record whose meditative brilliance you wonder and worry might escape you today, should 20 years of repeat listening be so inexorably woven into an album’s being that time is the only spade needed to bury an underground classic.
Enlisting the help of Moses Sumney, Perfume Genius and Sharon Van Etten, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s covers build on the original’s gentle fingerpicking into an abounding brass lull, always one restrained moment away from ecstasy. Sumney’s craquelure falsetto dismisses the modesty of ‘Soon It Will Be Fire’ for a concerto, turning exposition into an immediate soft centrepiece. The solitary sage at the heart of Youngs’ ‘A Fullness of Light In Your Soul’ is transformed from “Your picture is still on my wall”-era Daniel Johnston with Mike Hadreas’s gentle confidence, while Van Etten’s still vocals on ‘The Graze of Days’ swarm into mandatory deep listening.
Throughout a remarkable tribute, the only misjudged element is the edited album title. But in Youngs’ words, “reimagining anything is unimaginable”. Across a record heralded as one of the most important, unheard treasures of the last half decade of the twentieth century, what breaks through now is no less a mystery than it was then. Even framed in communality, in contradiction to Youngs’ solitary masterpiece, this rework of Sapphie still feels like a deeply personal thing, leagues beyond some cake and candles for Jagjaguwar.
Source: Loud and Quiet
People Need People
by Nicola Conte, Gianluca Petrella
Released 26 February 2021
Edizioni Ishter
*****
New music forms contaminated by various genres characterize our globalized world’s recent history; the intertwining of individual experiences creates new collaborations, as in this specifc case. Sixteen years after the release of “New Standards” (2001, SCEP336) Nicola Conte meets again his friend and colleague Gianluca Petrella, an eclectic Italian jazz scene talent, open to new experiences and collaborations: this encounter let to the publication of three new 12” EP’s in only three years, plus the recent single “The Higher Love” and the release of “Let Your Light Shine On” by Nicola Conte & Spiritual Galaxy.
The exchange between the two musicians / producers takes place not only on a songwriting level but also on a research one: vinyl rarities, the diggin’ activity, the use of samples, sounds, rigorously vintage instruments and sounds deliver a product brave enough to communicate the club culture enthusiasm to conquer a new market capable of soliciting new interests in the nu-soul and jazz scene. From Detroit future dance to afrobeat and spiritual jazz through a nu-disco sound, the unique vibe of “People Need People” drags us in search of deep music in a spiritual and mantric context. In a peculiar historical moment Nicola Conte and Gianluca Petrella send a message of hope, of aggregation and Universal Love. A feeling of elevation and solidarity is shared Through Raashan’s poetry, something that can predict winds of change for humanity, a feeling that flows from a higher love.
“People Need People” is more than just a new album, it’s a collective experience wisely directed by Nicola and Gianluca that sees the participation of numerous artists from different parts of the world: Raashan Ahmad (USA), Nduduzo Makhathini (South Africa), Magnus Lindgren (Sweden), Débo Ray (USA), Bridgette Amofah (England), Abdissa Assefa (Finland/Ethiopia), Teppo Makynen (Finland), together with young Italian promising stars Davide Shorty, Carolina Bubbico, Tommaso Cappellato, Seby Burgio, Marco Rubegni, Pasquale Calò, and the already known Pasquale Mirra and Simone Padovani. “People Need People” is the mature fruit of an unstoppable and constantly evolving work of research and exchange that’s been able to break down every possible distance during its long and complex making-of process. The songs taken from the previous EP’s have also been further revised, reworked and expanded, with the addition of six new tracks. Looking at the past and fetching sounds, rhythms and instruments typical of
tribal / African traditions, soul / spiritual jazz and cosmic music from it, Nicola and Gianluca have performed an operation of strong contamination with modern electronic sounds, disco and hip-hop, creating a completely original hybrid. Their goal is to accompany the listener through a collective spiritual elevation path, guided by the only true universal language: music. In a historical period marked by contrasts, lack of communication and forced social distancing, “People Need People” proves to be even more essential and necessary.
Source: Bandcamp
Menneskekollekitvet
by Lost Girls
Released 26 March 2021
Smalltown Supersound
*****
Norwegian duo Lost Girls, artist and writer Jenny Hval and multi-instrumentalist Håvard Volden, release their first album after collaborating for more than ten years. Volden has been playing regularly in Hval's live band for more than a decade, and their duo project goes back to an acoustic collaborative album from 2012, using the moniker Nude on Sand. Instead of resurrecting the previous band, Hval and Volden opted for a fresh start for their 2018 EP Feeling, taking nomenclatural inspiration from the 2006 graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and comics artist Melinda Gebbie.
For their first LP, Hval and Volden booked an actual studio (Øra studios, Trondheim, Norway), which they had never done before. Recording sessions took place in March 2020, even if they felt like the material wasn’t really ready for recording. This left a lot to improvisation, and so Menneskekollektivet was created in-between set structures and the energy of collective exploration.
Perhaps this is what makes Menneskekollektivet unique: The quality of trying something, to see if the structures fit. In a way this is a more physical version of what Hval has been exploring lyrically over the past decade in her solo work. The title is Norwegian and translates to human collective, which adds to the feeling of a recording made as part of a strange, improvised performance project.
The music flickers; between club beats and improvised guitar textures; between spoken word and melodic vocal textures; between abstract and harmonic synth lines. Throughout the piece, Volden’s guitar and Hval’s voice come across as equals, wandering, wondering, meandering. Sharing the space.
The writing process began with short, more concise forms, but then Volden brought in experiments with seasick synth loops and drum machines, and the work went off on a longer durational tangent, inspired by chance and intuition. This allowed for an unfinished, raw feel, and the song structures and words were expanded and improvised in the studio. Hval says: “There are lots of late night ideas at work, begun as half-asleep, slack vocal takes on top of something really strange Håvard has sent me. We both record before we know what we’re actually doing.”
Lyrics has a peculiar place on Menneskekollektivet. Hval felt she couldn’t write anything for this music that really mattered, and she decided to concentrate on words as performed situations, sometimes just talking into the mic, sometimes finding rhymes or musical phrases and using them like a bot or music software. Yet they relate to each other, like the many repetitions of “making me in opposition” on Love, Lovers build emotional complexity like a club track would build intensity with its drum machine pattern. Volden’s guitar somehow works in the same mode, building intensity with lines that are sometimes jarring, sometimes harmonic.
In this way, Lost Girls leave both form and content, music and words, suspended in a piece in the puzzle of human performance. A human performance that resembles a rave party, but after the party’s over and the music has been switched off. What is left is a collective inner monologue: The ravers have forgotten that the night can end, and as the sun rises, they slowly turn to stone, or melt down to water, or they are in the middle of some other metamorphosis that is more than just coming down.
Source: AllMusic
What's Real? (Preview)
by JK Group
(Full Album due1 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.
THIS LABEL IS:
Contributing to healing our natural world through planting trees and reforesting land back to rainforest in Australia in conjunction with Reforest NOW.
Source: Bandcamp
Kreuzberk KIx Vol. 1 (EP)
by Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange
Released 26 March 2021
Secretsundaze
*****
Whilst the club setting may feel detached from many of us at this time, Secretsundaze’s latest release, courtesy of the Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange, will transport you back to the depths of the dancefloor’s energy. A three track EP which is sustained by Ziggy Zeitgeist’s rhythmic consistency on the drums – his scintillating live performance at Church of Sound in August 2019 caught the eyes of the label, leading to the fruition of this project.
Ziggy’s impressive artistry is demonstrated by his ability to inject club levels of energy into his live performance, bridging the gap between the jazz influences from his work in 30/70 and the broken-beat elements of Z.F.E.X
His sonically ambidextrous ear has culminated in this compelling piece of work. Having met Berlin-based artist Wayne Snow at a record shop in Neukölln, the pair started jamming together at a converted office space in a building that was attached to a techno club. Their afterhours sessions were mixed with spontaneous trips to the club, allowing Wayne’s soulful vocals and Ziggy’s broken drum patterns to seamlessly merge with the darker, more heavy textures of the club environment.
Wayne’s silky offering on Something Special allows the serenading seven-and-a-half-minute meditation to unravel gradually, enchanting the dancer with its harmonious house beat, accompanied alongside interweaving melodic layers, from Finn Rees on keys, that build its trance. The spaced-out quality of this joint is followed up by the more hard-hitting Kreuzberg Kix, which Ziggy recorded in Berlin with his Melbourne crew throughout a week in the summer of 2019. The congas of Javier Fredes dictate the track’s tempo, allowing the live element to remain felt on top of the bass of Matthew Hayes. Lewis Moody’s keys create a multi-palleted sonic landscape, echoing that of Yussef Kamaal, injecting a loosened groove that neutralises the song’s heaviness.
Long-term label friend and NYC-based virtuoso GE-OLOGY exercises his brilliance on a flip of Kreuzberg Kix. He uncompromisingly instills a murkier club sensibility upon the soulful jazz foundations of this track, allowing the deeper textures to dominate with a rhythmic ease.
This gripping project incorporates a sonic width that will simultaneously appeal to the house heads whilst resonating with the jazz folk too. Secret Sundaze have delivered with bold execution, interlacing faraway musical elements with an effortless poise. A deep hitter for the dancefloors that beckon.
Source: Bandcamp
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Pyramid Pieces 1
by The Roundtable (Various Artists)
Released 2 August 2021
Rhe Roundtable
****-
Borrowing its title from an infamous Australian jazz composition, Pyramid Pieces is a compilation of Australian modern jazz. 1969-1979.
The album includes rare modal, spiritual and ‘Eco Jazz’ tracks from artists such as Jazz Co-Op, The Alan Lee Quartet, The John Sangster Quartet, The Brian Brown Quintet.
This is a long overdue compilation which documents a period of Australian modern jazz that flourished during the late 1960s and 70s. A brief yet vital survey which examines an isolated yet thriving vibrant scene that was largely unheard outside of its own country. Whilst many local musicians found success abroad in the UK or the USA, those that remained found limited support for jazz from the commercially-minded mainstream music industry, thus an empowered independent movement was born, represented by labels such as Jazznote and Horst Liepolt’s 44 Records.
This compilation is a showcase of this period and the various forms of modern jazz indicative of the scene, from modal and deep spiritual jazz through to avant-jazz film soundtracks and the unique sub-genre ‘Eco Jazz’ (a distinctive style which drew vivid inspiration from Australia’s natural environment). Featuring essential tracks from celebrated Australian jazz icons such as John Sangster and Alan Lee, the collection also asserts the importance of other often overlooked groups including Jazz Co/op and The Brian Brown Quintet amongst others. Pyramid Pieces is the first entry in a new series that will explore the largely unheard yet incredible sound of Australian modernist Jazz.
Source: Bandcamp
Eldorado
by Pat Jaffe
Released 20 March 2021
Patrick Jaffe
*****
Recorded in Reykjavik, Iceland, this is a highly impressive debut album from a thoughtful and sensitive musician. Melbourne pianist Pat Jaffe, 22, has nine of his compositions here, two of them accompanied by a string quartet. To describe the album, terms such as refinement and understatement come to mind. The music is peaceful and ruminative but, under an apparently seamless surface, there are substantial nuances which are very subtle and exquisite. In the two pieces which include the Siggi String Quartet, the strings are skilfully employed to effectively amplify the pianist’s most expressive moments. Jaffe is obviously an accomplished jazz pianist and arranger, but there are few signs of conventional jazz references, such as the blues, which some consider to be essential to jazz. Instead the flavour of the music suggests the twilight zone between jazz and contemporary classical music.
Source: Weekend Australian 20 March 2021
Struggle With Glory
by Harry James Angus
Released 1 March 2018
OP Records
****-
In the words of the artis: Struggle With Glory, continues to cross musical boundaries, transporting the classic Greco-Roman myths into a surreal world of old-time jazz and gospel music. If you like toe-tapping, humming in the aisles, sweating and wailing, but don’t particularly like going to church much, why not try shouting Zeus instead? Revenge, giant beasts in strange lands, the doomed love affairs of Gods and men, and the unstoppable torrent of fate is served up with the unmistakable sound of Harry's old dented trumpet.
Harry James Angus is an Australian singer-songwriter, trumpet player and guitarist, best known (along with Felix Riebl) as one of the lead vocalists in the beloved Melbourne band The Cat Empire, since joining them in early 2000.
The album is brimming with tragedy, pathos and high drama as these ancient tales coming to life against a glorious blend of traditional jazz and gospel tropes, sublime playing and an enveloping warm production. On Paper faces is the tale of Persephone and Hades comes to life, Persephone was the daughter of the goddess of the harvest, and she was kidnapped to become Hades bride. Harry explains further, “what was different about this project was that I picked a story and then I wrote a song. There’s a song called “Light Of The Moon” which is about the Moon Goddess who fell in love with a simple shepherd and could only visit him when he was asleep. So he just slept all the time so this goddess could come and visit him!”
Another high water mark on the album is the thrilling “Kill The Priest,” the only song on the record that isn’t drawn from a myth, but is drawn from the first chapter of a famous book on mythology called call The Golden Bough, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. The author paints the picture of a Roman ritual, where the idea of a priest who guards a sacred place can only be replaced by the person that kills him. Harry continues, “So you’re the priest, but the whole time you know that at any moment the next priest that is going to replace him could be sneaking up behind him with a knife. I just thought that was quite an interesting concept.”
“I Saw Red” is another album moment full of drama and tension. Based on The Rage Of Achilles, which Harry describes as, “a really, really powerful moment in the Iliad.” “Up until this point,” he continues Achilles hasn’t joined the battle, he has sailed all the way over to Troy but hasn’t joined the battle because of some internal politics in his own camp. So all these Greeks are getting killed and he’s like the best fighter ever, he’s the hero, so everyone knows as soon as he joins the battle they’ll win, but he just refuses to join in. Not because he’s a pacifist, but simply because of pride. So essentially his love Patroclus is killed by Hector, so he flies into this rage and massacres everyone, it’s about the terrifying rage of Achilles, so that’s a great starting point for a song too.”
Source: Amnplify
Hotel Surrender
by Chet Faker
Released 23 July 2021
Detail Records
***--
Nick Murphy has had a peculiar existence since bursting on to the scene as Chet Faker working alongside Flume with his moody indie pop winning over a huge alt audience, before a back-and-forth of moniker shifts lost a few along the way.
Returning to his Chet Faker project in October 2020, Murphy has released his first album since the switch titled Hotel Surrender which is a 10-track reminiscent of his 2014 debut Built On Glass.
The charm of Chet Faker always has been the mix of sway-inducing funky and bass laden tunes, combined with Murphy’s dry, effortless and perceptively unimpressed tone. The defiant lyrics and dry and brusque vocals of single ‘Whatever Tomorrow’ underline that.
Hotel Surrender offers plenty of that charm, albeit at a slow pace which arguably lets the album down. Some high points are the carefree ‘Get High’, uber cool ‘Whatever Tomorrow’, sexy and swaggy ‘Feel Good’ and under-rated sixth track ‘Peace Of Mind’.
Murphy wrote and produced Hotel Surrender himself (like with Built On Glass), with the bulk of the tracks completed prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, but before the also the passing of his father, delaying its release.
He described the next part of the process as “mass therapy”, with that catharsis translating to a loosening of inhibitions, particularly shown on ‘Get High’ where Murphy has used his own piano skills for the first time with what he calls “drunken funk swing”.
Recognising that cathartic impact lyrically is always subjective, and for an artist who has flip-flopped between alter-egos, it feels like there’s an uncertainty from within about identity and a deep desire to define that.
But Hotel Surrender feels like Chet. Whether that’s a dramatic enough departure from Built On Glass may draw some critical attention but for the devoted they will enjoy his latest offerings.
Murphy has artfully constructed a textured album and offered up a bit more of himself. But you do leave wanting a little something more
Source: The AU Review
Still Slipping Vol. 1
by Joy Orbison
Released 16 August 2021
XL Recordings
***--
Countless fans of the UK underground can trace their best club experiences back to London producer/DJ Joy Orbison. You could fill an entire dancefloor with anecdotes about his tracks: the catharsis of synth-y debut Hyph Mngo; the curiously quotable vocal cut-ups threaded through Sicko Cell, Ellipsis and Swims; every baptism in the submerging bass of Brthdtt; the decade-long yearn for unreleased cult hit GR Etiquette, and the collective jubilation last March when it was finally released for charity.
While Joy Orbison’s earlier releases helped define an era of underground electronic music, they’ve never quite defined him. In recent years he has collaborated with rave luminaries Overmono and maverick saxman Ben Vince, hosted radio broadcasts both on Radio 1 and in Grand Theft Auto, and peeled far away from floorfillers on 2019 EP Slipping. He continues down a left-field path on this new mixtape: the first full-length project of his 12-year career.
The mixtape embraces its longer format, its tracks slipping in and out of one continuous stream. Gone is the spirit of sun-soaked festivals; the instrumentals channel moods of nocturnes and moments alone, prompted by Covid lockdown. Shades of ambient and electronica are mixed in with Joy Orbison’s slinky, slick brand of house, garage and techno, and the array of guest singers, poets and rappers sharpen the record’s most potent moments.
Voice notes from family members puncture the music with a simultaneous sense of new intimacy and innocuous familiarity. Along with beats that feel refined yet retro enough to have come via mid-00s German labels, they create a comfort that sinks into nostalgia perhaps too easily for an artist so committed to continual evolution
Source: The Guardian
Patchwork
by Sapphire Street
Released 27 November 2020
Groovecult Records
****-
Following 2020’s pandemic leaving their city to be confined to their homes, Melbourne locals, Sapphire Street took no hesitation in turning to their home studio to muster up a successor to their 2019 debut ‘Strawberry Glaze’. Almost as if perfectly timed to the emergence back out of lockdown, the now released ‘Patchwork’ is a saturated conceptualization of the peculiar year gone by.
This time round they delve even deeper into the realm of experimentation, whilst retaining their signature blend of classic and modern inspired psychedelia. With gigs being a lost commodity and unable to collaborate with fellow musicians, the band found themselves building up songs from their drums and guitar core. This along with a firm grasp on the whole process from engineering to cover art led ‘Patchwork’ to become a colourful journey of genre-bending riffs and grooves. All topped with contemplative lyrics and produced on their own hand-built speakers, Sapphire Street have encapsulated their signature “Wonderland of pumping psychedelic rock n’ roll” (The Freedom Arts Movement) into this new project to a degree that is unique to the band.
Sapphire Street's Bandcamp entry lists George Inglis (vocals, guitar, bass, synth, drums), Luca Soprano (drums, synth) and Shaun Samulenok (bass, synth) as the players on this release.
Source: Good Call Live
Nobody Gets Away
by Jazzparty
Released 23 July 2021
Remote Control Records
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When Loretta Miller’s glass-shattering, big band voice balloons from the jazzy, sax-rich funk of “Bad Dreams,” you know you’re in for a good time. On JAZZPARTY‘s recently-released sophomore album Nobody Gets Away, no dance shoes will emerge without heavily worn soles.
“We were really happy with what we did on the first record (2017’s Monday Night) and we wanted to keep going, following our love of making whatever feels good to us, whatever style and genre feels right,” explains Miller. “A lot of people get confused by our name, which is really frustrating. We’ve considered changing it, but it’s who we are. I don’t look at it like we’re a band who play jazz; we’re a band who play original music. We’re way more rock ’n’ roll and punk really.” Add to that a dash of gothic blues, doo-wop, garage rock and funk for an idea of what makes JAZZPARTY so intoxicating; with nearly five years gone since the band’s debut, the time was ripe for another release.
Source: Audiofemme
Protosynthesis
by Proto Moro
Released 23 July 2021
Remote Control Records
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Proto Moro is a Psychedelic Melbourne Jazz outfit comprising of Harry Leggatt aka Uno Lizard on Guitar, Jack Eden aka Madayana on Bass, Gene du Vergier aka Pearl E. Gates on Drums and Nikodimos aka Nikodimos on Woodwind.
After being first introduced to the world via Colour Club Records pandemic-produced album VA001, their contribution CLUB X received great attention from radio presenters in Melbourne and around the globe. Local stations Triple R and PBS championed it and Worldwide FM and dublab further solidified the track's success.
PROTOSYNTHESIS is their debut LP and touches on, jazz, funk, hip-hop, psychedelia and beyond.
After a successful sold-out residency at Melbourne's Colour Club, the band now present their opus to the masses.
Taking inspiration from other Melbourne acts such as Mildlife, ZFEX, Horatio Luna and 30/70, the band now carves their own space in the cities flourishing scene.
Source: Deejay.de
Flux (EP)
by Close Counters
Released 26 March 2021
Close Counters
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‘FLUX’ EP is a colourful array of four songs we made at the tail end of 2019 and the start of 2020. These tunes continue our deeper exploration of dance and house music, projecting positivity through rhythm and song writing. Having started playing live with a full band during the development of this project we have incorporated a lot more live playing in these recordings. With a background in jazz we thrive off the spontaneity of jamming and improvising when developing our music and are constantly trying to find the sweet spot between multiple musical worlds of groove.
Conceived originally in a Coburg studio and developed over lockdown sessions, the album features some of Melbourne's finest musical talent. Allysha Joy (30/70) and JAYDEAN deliver two stunning vocal features on SPEAK IN TRUTH and SOMETHING IN MY DRINK, taking the songs to another level level. Other notable contributions are Paul Bender's (Hiatus Kaiyote) infectious bass-line on UP AND OUT, Matthew Hayes' bass on SPEAK IN TRUTH AND UP AND OUT and Lucky Pereira on additional drums and percussion.
A host of friends along the way also joined in various forms across the 4 tracker and the sense of community with their peers helped them overcome the challenging few months past. Close Counters has created their most well rounded piece of artistry, that further showcases their diverse soundscape at the crossroads of soulful house, funk and broken beat.
Flux comprises:
Close Counters
Finn Rees - keys, synths, drum programming
Allan McConnell - keys, synths, drum programming
Collaborators:
Allysha Joy - vocals (Speak In Truth)
Lucky Pereira - percussion, drum kit (Something In My Drink, Speak In Truth)
Matthew Hayes - electric bass (Something In My Drink, Speak In Truth)
Paul Bender - electric bass (Up And Out)
CC iso choir on Up And Out: Allysha Joy, Tiana Khasi, Abbey Howlett, Warrigo Tyrrell, Chloe Sanger, Tram Cops, Finn Rees, Ella Lawry
Source: Bandcamp
Play Jazz 2
by The Rookies
Released 21 June 2021
The Rookies
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Describing themselves as "Melbourne’s favourite cult jazz band" the Rookies return with their 3rd LP, Play Jazz 2, a sequel to their acclaimed debut, Play Jazz.
This new collection of reimagined songs from the vast pantheon of jazz standard repertoire features arrangements of music by Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Ron Carter and Ornette Coleman, as well as a post-rock-tinged vision of Juan Tizol’s classic standard (and fan favourite at the Rookies’ regular Wednesday night residency) ‘Caravan’.
Following from the philosophical eclecticism of their last release (2019’s ‘Stay Weird’), the Rookies’ latest offering sees them return to their roots, delving deep into the history of jazz to unearth and reimagine hidden treasures by some of their favourite composers. Play Jazz 2 uniquely celebrates the modernism and free-wheeling creativity of the bandleader/composers of the 1950s and 60s.
The Rookies compriose:
Greg Sher - alto saxophone
Tom Sly - trumpet
Joel Trigg - piano
Oscar Neyland - double bass
Chris Cameron - drums and cymbals
Source: Bandcamp
Together
by Angophora
Released 4 May 2021
Music For Dreams
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Together is the sophomore album by ambient geonauts Angophora.
How to describe this Sydney, Australian duo’s (consisting of Max Santilli and Jacob Fugar) sound when the comments on Bandcamp already do such a perfect job? Music for watching waves; music infused sharply with crushed ants and Eucalyptus; like climbing into one of those gaping holes in a big Mountain Ash that a possum has inhabited with a collection of mid-century synths.
I could add to the epithets: ‘soundtracks for turning off your iPhone’ or ‘new age John Fahey’ or something like that but I think you get the point. Angophora’s music is deeply in touch with nature and its correlate moods, in inspiration and in evocation.
We’ve got nine tracks of ambient pop, at times probing a sort of jazzy post-rock. Departing the electronically premised sound of their debut, Together finds its footing in more acoustic steppes. The two central figures are the acoustic guitar (played by both) and the percussion (Max) but listen closely and you’ll hear piano, electric guitar, synths and other various bits and pieces drifting around. Guitar figures sailing through unspoiled firmaments. Shaded percussion attending reverbed washes so you can feel the wide open spaces configuring around you. Everything ebbs and flows in gentle layers. It’s balmy, meditative, not to mention totally gorgeous.
‘Angophora’ is the botanical name for the Sydney red gum tree, an emblematic piece of the distinctive East Australian nature. Both Santilli and Fugar grew up in the semi-rural outskirts of Sydney. The connection with the natural environments of the bush fostered here is what they seek to articulate through music.
The duo first met in 2014 and started jamming in Santilli’s dad’s garage in Kenthurst. Pursuing a shared interest in electronic gear, they quickly began to incorporate synths and drum machines into sessions. A sound crystallized between them and the songs recorded during those years became their debut LP, Scenes, released in 2018 on Ken Oath Records.
By the time of that release though, they had already drifted towards a more organic sound, with a growing appreciation for acoustic instruments and Santilli picking up various ethnocultural percussion styles. This leads us to Together, the result of 4-5 years of intermittent sessions and sound work culminating in a focused stretch during 2019 in which all these works were recorded. ls
Source: Bandcamp
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Creak-whoosh (Estonian, Ingrian and Votian song re-imagined in Australia by Olev Muska and Mihkel Tartu)
by Kiri-Uu
Released 16 June 2021
Stroom
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There is an overarching hypothesis that music and place are inextricably linked. Where the ancient folksong may be regionally grounded, migration and modernity have confused this notion. Who owns what is by definition the music of the people and not of the composer? Passed down by generations and subject to revision, reappraisal and re-telling, music develops over time in the public domain; new routes providing new understandings.
In the words of Charles Seeger this is the concept of the folk process.
‘Creak Whoosh’ is a collection of choral ballads originating in the Finno-Ugric regions of Estonia and Ingria, electronically adapted predominantly by Olev Muska and Mihkel Tartu, based around the contemporary arrangements of Veljo Tormis. Originally established as ‘Kiri-uu’, the project was undertaken by the children of Estonian refugees, most of whom grew up over 8,000 miles away in the metropolis of Sydney, Australia.
With the majority having never visited the land of their ancestors prior to the tour of 1989, the first generations reshaping of these ancient folk tales conveys Seeger’s process amidst displacement and its subsequent fringe-culture. Fusing modern recording technologies and synthesised instrumentation with themes of nature and eternity, for a short time the Kiri-uu choir dictated their own unique reading of Estonian music for the Australian market. Love and family, swamps and forests, seasons and desire: ‘Is it the moon or the sun or a rainbow, or are they the stars in the sky?’
Source: Bandcamp
Naming & Blaming
by The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra
Released 30 November 2018
HopeStreet Recordings
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The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra
Naming & Blaming
Hope Street Recordings (39 mins)
This is the second album from the Melbourne-based Public Opinion Afro Orchestra and it is unabashedly Afrobeat. The group take many cues from the 70s style, from the instrumentation to the groove to the long-form structure of the pieces. Of course it's political too, full of pointed criticisms of Western foreign policy and imperialism as well as Australia’s colonial past and neo-colonial present.
The thing with Afrobeat is that it hasn't yet stepped out of Fela Kuti's shadow; it may never be possible. For modern bands, comparisons are unavoidable, and who can compare to Fela? That’s why the stand-out points of this album are when the group break from tradition. Whether it’s the dubby trombone solo on ‘No Passport’ or the straight-up jazz sax of the title track, it’s these little bits of difference that really stand out. Most of all, it’s the contributions of the rapper MC One Sixth that make the sound fresh – the rhythms and riffs of Afrobeat are perfect vehicles for rap, and One Six’s lyricism fits well with the themes of the style.
With Naming & Blaming, the POAO capture that classic Afrobeat sound, while mixing things up just enough to not be just another Fela clone project.
Source: Songlines Magazine #147, May 2019
Limbs - for Wildlife
by Moonshoe
Released 30 January 2020
Moonshoe Records
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In the midst of bushfires ravaging the country on an unprecedented scale, Sydney’s Moonshoe have reached out to their coterie both at home and abroad for a benefit compilation. Tapping 21 tracks, the mood here spans quiet optimism and incised rage, often providing a reflexive reflection of the local flora and fauna that have been decimated by the fires. Whether offering a sense of solace or a headspace for a brief respite, the music here feeds into the beautiful solidarity being displayed across Australia’s musical community and further ashore; aside from a number of names from Sydney and Melbourne, RAMZi, Nummer and Max Abysmal have all contributed tracks.
100% of the profits of this compilation will go to WIRES, to provide immediate relief and help foster resilience in the future
Source: Bandcamp
Marigold Avenue
by Luke Yeoward
Released 8 July 2021
2000black
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Luke Yeoward is an artist and producer based in Melbourne, Australia.
Luke fell in love with music from a young age and taught himself to play on the acoustic guitar handed down to him by his mother. He began as a street performer in Rotorua, New Zealand at 10 years old, and his musical river flowed through his teens and twenties carving its way through different projects, genres, and territories.
Growing up in New Zealand meant the sounds of reggae would echo from fish’n’chip shops, parties and passing cars on the daily. This soulful music would seep into Yeowards DNA while he was cutting his teeth in street punk bands during his formative years.
MARIGOLD AVENUE, was self engineered and produced during the lockdowns in Melbourne 2020.
“The moment I found out we were going into lockdown at home for over a month, I thought fuck it, I’m making this reggae record. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and this music has been a big part of my life since I can remember. It’s healing and uplifting music to me. I wrote and recorded almost everyday for a month to get the bones of it together, then I hired PLUTONIC LAB (HILLTOP HOODS) to play drums remotely from his studio and I built up the tunes from there. As the rhythms came into fruition, I reached out to some artists I knew and/or respected from around the world. I was lucky enough to be able to work with some incredibly talented contributors like LEE ‘SCRATCH’ PERRY , TIPPA LEE, Jesse and Roger of THE AGGROLITES and Maddie Ruthless of THE FAR EAST, to name a few.
Source: Triplej Unearthed
Jazz Is Dead 8: Brian Jackson
by Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, Brian Jackson - Jazz Is Dead 8 Brian Jackson
Released 5 August 2021
Jazz Is Dead
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Brian Jackson's name may not be as readily recognizable as former musical partner Gil Scott-Heron's, but it is impossible to overstate his importance in the jazz-funk pantheon. For a decade between 1971's Pieces of a Man and Real Eyes (1980), their final co-billed outing together, Jackson served as co-composer, architect, arranger, and musical director for the Midnight Band, all while playing keyboards, flutes, drums, and contributing background vocals. In writing music to suit his partner's voice and musical character, he created a sound that intersected jazz, funk, soul, poetry, and polemic with earworm hooks, sophisticated melody, and massive grooves.
Though Jackson has appeared on many recordings since, JID008 is his first date as a leader since 2000's wonderful Gotta Play. Further, this was the first album recorded for JID back in February 2019. Label heads Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge cite Jackson's work ethic and creative inspiration as a primary influence in developing the blueprint for the Jazz Is Dead aesthetic.
This quartet includes Jackson on Fender Rhodes, monophonic synthesizer, and alto and C-flutes, with Malachi Morehead on the trap kit, and Muhammad and Younge playing various basses, guitars, clarinets, and saxophones.
The vibe across these eight jazz-funk songs is gauzy and atmospheric but in the cut. Opener "Under the Bridge" offers a martial snare, fingerpicked electric guitar, and Muhammad's rolling bassline guiding the flow. Jackson waxes modal on alto flute above the Rhodes. He punctuates the slithering groove with synth flourishes while dialoguing with Younge and Muhammad. Combined, they expertly layer four separate lyric ideas on top of one another. First single "Mars Walk" and the succeeding "Young Muhammad" are deeply funky exercises anchored by wrangling basslines and rolling drum breaks. On the former, Rhodes and synth entwine along a humid, reverb-laden vamp, while guitar haltingly puts forth a pointillistic harmonic plank. The latter resembles a soundtrack cue. Jackson offers a spidery, swirling clavinet to meet Younge's grand piano as cracking snares, organic percussion, reverbed, droning clarinet, and a walking bassline push it all forward. Jackson plays only the alto flute on "Nancy Wilson," which unwinds like a lost outtake from John Barry's score for Midnight Cowboy. Muhammad's bass delivers harmonic counterpoint from the jump as the flute solo provides a master class in harmonic economy. "Baba Ibeji" contrasts a sunny Rhodes with a skeletal funk vamp as the quartet plays incremental harmonic extensions. Closer "Ethiopian Sunshower" threads post-bop and Latin jazz through a startling array of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms provided by Morehead. Layered flutes, alto saxophone, and electric bass assert a lush, bossa-inspired melody in a daisy chain of cadences. On first listen, Brian Jackson JID008 sounds almost amorphous in its deliberately articulated indefinition. Those notions are quickly dispelled with repeated spins. What ultimately emerges is a canny, somewhat impressionistic aural portrait balanced by intricate, multivalently charted lyricism, framed in gorgeous, spacious textures and an imaginative, meaty, seductively rendered beat vocabulary. This is one of the finer entries in the Jazz Is Dead series.
Source: AllMusic
Solid Gold
by U-Roy
Released 16 July 2021
BMG
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The late reggae icon U-Roy was the first DJ to bring sound system toasting into the recording studio, so it’s appropriate that Solid Gold U-Roy – his final album – plays like his definitive songbook of the genre’s classics: Queen Majesty, Stop That Train, Wake the Town and Man Next Door are brought up to date with contemporary instrumentation without losing the spirit of the originals. The high point is a joyously berserk take on Every Knee Shall Bow, with U-Roy and Big Youth skimming freestyle lyrics across a sizzling hi-stepping tempo, an overload of horns and random SFX mixed by Scientist.
U-Roy: the singularly musical toaster was a vital part of reggae's bloodline
Lloyd Bradley
Read more
Even on the tracks that don’t feature such an illustrious collaborator, U-Roy – in his late 70s at the time of recording – is at the top of his game, always toasting the track but never letting the song get in the way of his impressionistic approach to lyricism. Vocal sidekicks Shaggy, Rygin King, Santigold and David Hinds understand the mutual benefits of tag-team toasting and flourish in the presence of a true great, although Ziggy Marley and Richie Spice haven’t quite grasped their role in proceedings, bringing an introspective energy ill-suited to the collaborative atmosphere. Other weaknesses lie in S