My first reaction when I saw the cover artwork of the forthcoming Thundercat album was this: This is madness! It wasn’t my intention to quote lines from Frank Miller, but the express joy at its most extreme. If this new record is half as mad, as in genius, as that look on Stephen Bruner’s face, he will easily surpass all the expectations one could have for that record. The list of collaborators seem to confirm we’re on the right track: Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa, Pharrell, Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, and Kenny Loggins. That’s right, Kenny Loggins!
Titled “Drunk”, the new album will hit stores on February 24th, accompanied by an extended world tour. Pre-order here!
If you haven’t had the chance to check out what’s likely going to be remembered as one of the top jazz albums of 2016, take a look at this recording from the Brownswood Basement. Also, let me tell you that Black Focus is finally available on vinyl again, so no more excuses!
And lastly, if you’re in London or plan to go around Christmas, make sure to go and see Yussef Kamaal play live at Phonox on December 18!
There’s probably no need to tell anybody about Yussef Kamaal anymore, the hype machine has been running for weeks. I don’t care too much about a hype anymore, there’s been to much of that in my life and oftentimes it ended in nothing but disappointment. Hype has sort of become a standard tool in our already oversaturated tool. The good news is, that Yussef Kamaal’s debut is impeccable. The pair concisting of United Vibrations drummer Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams aka Henry Wu manages to attract the heads as well as the new generation of jazz listeners, and they do so with the versatility and their ability to groove. Both qualities that have been lacking on other fore-runners of this new jazz revival, say Kamasi Washington’s much hyped album.
Listening to “Strings of Light” and “Yo Chavez” has been enough for me to click on that shiny buy button, but with every listen there’s a new tune that grows on me, that I didn’t seem to pay attention to at all. My favourite album this week and available through Brownswood.
We’re only one week away until Illum Sphere‘s second album “Glass” drops on Ninja Tune, and so the label reveals a third preview on their SoundCloud page. Not exactly a preview to the album, but a remix from one of this tracks, delivered by Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being.
For more Illum Sphere related news, make sure to check out his guest-mix on the latest Hessle Audio show!
Swiss label Ripl Music revealed the first piece from the forthcoming new record by Misel Quitno, his first original work since 2007’s Sleep Over Pieces Vol. 1 (which had Sassy J on vocals?!) If you didn’t know, Misel is a, erm, “good friend” of Dimitri Grimm otherwise known as Dimlite. You better read about their story over on the official release page, because I’m going to play a part in this 😉
The track above is only the first half of the new release, and we hope we don’t have to wait too long for the second one to be revealed. Get it directly on the Ripl Bandcamp shop!
On the occasion of the digital release of our new record, we wanted to remind you of Mike Slott’s remix of “Under / When Someone Is Drowning You…” (compare it to the original!). If vinyl isn’t your thing, and you even can resist the quality of a lovingly handmade product, you might be interesting in hearing it on iTunes, Spotify, Google Music and all those places. We thank you for your support!
The 13th installment of Rvng Intl’s FRKWYS series brings together synthesistsSuzanne Ciani, who has been recording and releasing since the early 1980s, and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who released her third album on Western Vinyl earlier this year.
Fortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in the small coastal community of Bolinas, California. The two had become close friends, bonding over their experience as woman musicians and, more unusually, their shared passion for the Buchla synthesizer. The music of Sunergy embraces this kinship, with Ciani and Smith respectively performing on the Buchla 200 E and the Buchla Music Easel, two modern configurations of the innovative instrument developed in the ‘60s by Don Buchla.
FRKWYS Vol. 13 will be out tomorrow (September 16, 2016) and can be bought directly from the label and all good record stores.
CDR X Dimensions is, as the name suggests, a collaboration between the long-running producer’s night CDR and Croatian festival Dimensions. Together they are about to release their first vinyl release, CDR X Dimensions: Dimension Sounds, which should be out later this month. One of the tracks featured on the record comes from an old favourite of our’s, London’s multi-faceted producer K15, and it’s probably reason enough to hit the pre-order button over at Juno.
If you follow our doings on social media, you might already be aware of our latest release: On September 2nd, we put out the second vinyl release on Nutriot Recordings, two remixes taken from Christoph El Truento’s 2015 long-player «a series of oopsie daisies and various other flora». One of the tracks on this 7-inch comes from The Reboot Joy Confession, former contributor to our podcast series, and a man whose great taste in music reflects in his own productions.
For the next couple of weeks, Christoph El Truento’s «vs» is exclusively available from our Bandcamp store on black vinyl with screen-printed sleeves, as well as various digital formats.
For more than two decades, Joe Davis’ Far Out Recordings introduced the world to some of the most beautiful music to ever come out of Brazil. Among their early releases was the first CD release of José Mauro’s 1970 album “Obnóxious”, a record that’s rightfully been called “A holy grail” by Gilles Peterson. Unfortunately, little is know about Mauro’s life, it’s all rumours and speculation. What is known though, is that unlike many other rebellious musicians of his generation, he decided against fleeing the country during the military repression that lasted for two decades, a fact that serves as basis for more dramatic theories.
Despite all this sadness, there’s good news for fans of his music – and fans of Brazilian music in general. 22 years after the release of the CD version, Far Out announced the another reissue on vinyl and various digital formats (including CD) for September 23, 2016. If you need one reason to pre-order the album, listen to the touching “Exaltacão E Lamento Do Último Rei” below.
We’ve all seen plenty of artist portraits in our life, but seldom have they been as intimate and exciting as this one about Swiss DJ and selector extra-ordinaire Sassy J. Her mixes have been hard to ignore in recent months, as she’s been featured everywhere from Resident Advisor, Libra Mix, Dimensions Festival and most recently Crack Magazine, so it’s nice to find out some more about the wonderful being that she is. Big up to Inverted Audio for this lovely portrait on one of greatest out there!
If you haven’t pressed the play button yet, think of the video for “Beautiful People” as an animated version of the Mark Pritchard album cover, yet more music-video than those teaser animations that made the rounds before the album came out. The Michał Marczak directed video coincides with the release of the first single taken from the said album, and for those that haven’t heard it yet: it features Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on vocals. Order your copy on vinyl or digital from Bleep!
Also for those that haven’t heard the album, make sure to check out the wonderful radioshow by Mark, in which he plays 2 hours of music that inspired the album.
Most people will probably know Manuel Sepulveda for his work as Optigram, the name under which he designed pretty much every record sleeve put out by Hyperdub. That body of work clearly overshadowed his other operations, including co-founding and running the Citinite label for more than a decade. Today marks the 10th anniversary of their first release and yet it’s a sad day, since they decided to pull the plug and call it “goodnite”.
There’s a new website that let’s you revisit (or discover)twenty releases from the last decade, not all of them actually realised. Some of the unreleased music can be listened to on this special mixtape.
Jimmy Edgar – Hot Raw Sex (Complexxion remix)
Jesse Saunders – On & On (unreleased 1984 remix)
Lil’ Kenny – Straight to Your Head
Mynk Rychardz – Human Robots (Gosubs night dub)
Lil’ Kenny – Cyberlove
Robert O’Dell – Love Me… Can You Hear Me?
Gosub – Slave to You
Robert O’Dell – Miles & Miles
Gosub – Black Nova (AUX 88 remix)
Mynk Rychardz – Blastin
Complexxion – Intro 7
JLin – 808
JLin – Downtown
Rozzi Daime – Dirty Illusions
Mynk Rychardz – Hang Glyde
And if that ain’t enough, make sure to check Manuel’s radio show from last year, in which he played some more lost music from the label.
I don’t even remember the last talk about Dim Grimm’s “Cite” album, it has been way too long. The Swiss producer formerly known as Dimlite hasn’t updated the videos from that session in more than two years. I’m a patient guy, I can wait. If you’re not of the patient kind, I’ve got good news for you: Dim Grimm just uploaded a new EP to his Bandcamp page, his first official release in manyyears. That’s five tracks for only €4, do I need to say more? Go and buy this!
And if you missed it before, check out that Dim Grimm mixtape from earlier this year.
Let me give you a quick update on some mixtapes I enjoyed in the last couple of days, because it’s really been a while since we last did this.
In between her busy tour schedule, Switzerland’s finest DJ Sassy J put together a new mix for Dazed. Make sure to click that link and read the interview and catch her playing festivals all over Europe.
Speaking of festivals, the Dekmantel guys asked Andy Votel to contribute to their Selector Podcast series. The Finders Keepers label head delivers a two hours mix of “Turkish-only female funk/psych/disco/surf!”
And lastly check out a rare mixtape by broken beat innovator and producer extra-ordinaire IG Culture.
