Als Sängerin und Pianistin glänzte Blossom Dearie nicht nur mit einer der ungewöhnlichsten Stimmen des
Jazz, sondern auch mit coolem Understatement und swingender, harmonischer Finesse. Dieser Albumklassiker von 1958 mit Gitarrist Herb Ellis, Bassist Ray Brown und Schlagzeuger Jo Jones verbindet zeitlose
Eleganz mit rhythmischer Leichtigkeit.
"I want nothing more than to be a loner," Emily Kempf sings early on Flower of Devotion, the new album by Chicago trio Dehd. It's a startling admission coming from a songwriter who, just a year ago on Dehd's critically acclaimed Water, wrote eloquently about the joys and pains _ more than anything, the necessity _ of love, compassion, and companionship. But then, "admission" isn't really the right word here, given the stridency of Kempf's tone. "Loner" is a declaration. The record ups the ante on Dehd's sound & filters in just enough polish to bring out the shining and melancholy undertones in Jason Balla and Emily Kempf's songwriting, even as it captures them at their most strident. Balla's guitar lines at times flirt with ticklish cosmic country, while at others they reflect the dark marble sounds of Broadcast. Kempf, meanwhile, establishes herself as a singer of incredible expressive range, pinching into a high lonesome wail, letting loose a chirping "ooh!," pushing her voice below its breaking point and letting it swing down there. When she and Balla bounce descending counter-melodies off one another over McGrady's one-two thumps, or skitter off over a programmed drum pad, they sound like The B-52s shaking off heartache. What makes Flower of Devotion so impressive is how its creation seems to have strengthened its creators, both as individuals and as a unit, even as they've stared down their own limitations. It's also striking just how much fun they seem to be having in the process. "It's okay to be lighthearted in the face of despair," Kempf says. It's a theme that runs through the album, from the opening back-and-forth build of "Desire" to the click-clacking chorus of "Haha," which finds them deflating their own history. Flower of Devotion was recorded in April and August of 2019 in Chicago. It will be released on Fire Talk Records on July 17th 2020.
With Atlas(t), French beatmaker ProleteR pushes his craft further, blending hip-hop beats, nu-jazz melodies, and world music samples into a globe-spanning soundscape. From Asian voices to South American rhythms, African grooves to Eastern European tones, each track unfolds like a new stop on the map. A vibrant mix of nostalgia, swing, and wanderlust, Atlas(t) is both a travel diary and a dancefloor invitation. ProleteR transforms global sounds into colorful, modern beats, a record made to spark curiosity and keep the needle spinning.
The song titles on Van Halen's aptly titled Fair Warning don't lie. The likes of "Unchained," "Mean Street," "Push Comes to Shove," "One Foot Out the Door," and more indicate the mood the band channels on its double-platinum 1981 record — the nastiest, darkest, and fiercest album of the group's storied career. For the fourth time in four years, Van Halen throws down the gauntlet to all challengers and emerges victorious.
Sourced from the original analog tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing, and strictly limited to 5,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP set plays with unfettered clarity, dynamics, and immediacy. Benefitting from superb groove definition, an ultra-low noise floor, and dead-quiet surfaces, this vinyl edition captures what went down in the studio with tremendous realism and involving presence.
Taking a more controlled approach in the studio and still completing everything in less than two weeks, Van Halen and producer Ted Templeman relied on studio amplifiers to direct the sound. Further diverging from the live-on-the-floor approach of its earlier albums, the ensemble also employed overdubs to great effect. The result: Dense, stacked architecture that underlines the hard-hitting tenor of the songs — and which comes alive like never before on this reference edition that looks as good as it sounds.
The premium packaging and gorgeous presentation befit the reissue's select status. Housed in a deluxe slipcase, it features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendor of the recording. Aurally and visually, it is made for listeners who want to immerse themselves in everything involved with the album, including the iconic cover art adopted from William Kurelek's haunting painting, "The Maze."
Isolated frames from Kurelek's childhood-inspired work — including a man bashing his head into a brick wall, a guy pinning down an adversary as he delivers bare-fist blows to his face and others watch with apparent glee, a boy tied down on a conveyer belt and being sent through the equivalent of a meat saw — adorn the front and back covers. The sunnier visual disposition of Van Halen's prior efforts gives way to something sinister and tortured, traits reflective of the music within. The band members, too, are visually depicted not in glamorous shots but in a serious black-and-white portrait in which the quartet is clad in black leather jackets.
Tough, aggressive, stark: Fair Warning comes on like a series of bare-knuckled punches to the solar plexus and boasts lyrical narratives to match. Though not a concept record, the concise album revolves around themes of roughing it on the streets and struggling to survive amid dim prospects. Singer David Lee Roth reportedly penned many of the initial lyrics after traveling to Haiti and observing extreme poverty. The characters and situations populating Fair Warning reflect hardscrabble existence, last-chance desperation, and underlying danger.
Witness the crazies, poor folks, and hunters of “Mean Street”; the former prom queen turned pornographic actress on “Dirty Movies”; the menace and vice of “Sinners Swing!”; the streetwise hustle of “Unchained”; the isolation and alienation of “Push Comes to Shove”; the desire for escape on “One Foot Out the Door”: A carefree California beach party Fair Warning is not.
Having said he felt angry and frustrated during the sessions, guitarist Eddie Van Halen uses the forceful arrangements as a playground for his seemingly unlimited arsenal. Supported by a crack rhythm section and a hyped-up Roth, he performs with an almost impossible combination of punk-like intensity, technical finesse, lyrical fluidity, and unbridled emotion. The virtuoso was increasingly butting heads with Templeton and seeking a freedom in the studio he believed denied him.
No wonder he plays like a bat out of hell. Listen to the rapid-fire manner in which he slaps the high and low E strings on the 12th fret of his instrument on “Mean Street,” instilling the tune with funk flair and metal-spiked sharpness. For the pouty strut of “Dirty Movies,” Eddie Van Halen contributes slide guitar magic made possible after he sawed off the lower portion of a Gibson SG so he could reach further down the fretboard.
Related intensity, urgency, and daredevil momentum punctuate the surging “Sinner’s Swing!” A heavily flanged, delicately melodic introduction frames the attitudinal “Hear About It Later,” among the most creative arrangements of Van Halen’s career. And do riffs come any bigger or magnetic than those on the high-wire kick of “Unchained”? As for the out-of-left-field “Sunday in the Park,” an instrumental composed on an Electro-Harmonix micro-synthesizer: Who but Eddie Van Halen to supply creep factor in such an ingenious way?
Despite selling fewer quantities than Van Halen’s prior efforts, Fair Warning remains for many diehards the record that epitomizes all of the band’s immense strengths —Roth’s manic energy and tongue-wagging humor, Alex Van Halen’s rhythmic heartbeat-in-your-chest bombast, and Michael Anthony’s lucid bass lines included. Arriving when the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and new-wave movements were taking flight, it signaled a shot across the bow from a band determined to stay a step ahead and provide proof nobody could touch what it delivered.
More than four decades later, Fair Warning still sounds that alarm.
Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series) Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records! Rolling Stone list of 500 Greatest Albums 265/500 for 2012 180-gram 45 RPM double LP Pressed at Quality Record Pressings Tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jacket by Stoughton Printing The Genius of Ray Charles, his sixth studio album, released in 1959 by Atlantic Records, eschewed the the soul sound of his 1950s recordings, which fused jazz, gospel, and blues, for swinging pop with big band arrangements.
Charles is joined bymany ringers from the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands for the first half of this program, featuring Charles belting out six songs arranged by Quincy Jones. "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Deed I Do" are highlights, and there are solos by tenorman David "Fathead" Newman, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, and (on "Two Years of Torture") tenor Paul Gonsalves. The remaining six numbers are ballads, with Charles backed by a string orchestra arranged by Ralph Burns (including "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'"). Charles' voice is heard throughout in peak form, giving soul to even the veteran standards. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, and housed in a tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jacket by Stoughton Printing.
Athens based Aris Kokou debuts on Cataleya Music with a seriously deep EP. Think Ron Trent, Coflo or vintage Osunlade. Kokou is a seasoned producer, who released Drum&Bass on Good Looking and Tech grooves on Plastic City Suburbia with Bill Makris in the early 2000s. In recent times, he has been making the sort of Deep, Soulful and Afro influenced House we hear on Kalypso’s Island. The lead cut A Woman is a swinging hip shaker with grooving keys and thought provoking spoken vocals from SingTrece. The keys really fly on the Instrumental. Azymuth with Moulton Music regular Phaze Dee has the sort of jazzy vibe that you would expect. The EP finishes with the gorgeous flute and guitar driven Sacred Kalypso. This is one of the deepest and most spiritually aware EPs on Cataleya Music so far!
Vinyl gatefold jacket includes a 12x12 insert reproduction of the original LP jacket art.Recorded in 1956 and released in 1957, Supersonic Jazz is arguably the first long-playing album by Sun Ra and His Arkestra on his Saturn label. However, it was not recorded as a debut. Rather, the album was assembled from tapes recorded during a number of sessions at two Chicago studios (RCA Victor and Balkan), and several tracks had been released as singles before their inclusion on this album. (Sunny's first fully realized commercial album was 1957's Jazz by Sun Ra, produced by Tom Wilson on his short lived/soon to be defunct Transition label.) Prior to these sessions, Sunny was still arranging for the Red Saunders Orchestra and singer Joe Williams, in addition to arranging for and coaching doo-wop ensembles. As Sunny's ambitions achieved liftoff, the Arkestra coalesced, began building a repertoire (mostly of Ra's originals), and making forays into studios. Deciding it was time for commercial releases, Sunny and business partner Alton Abraham launched Saturn (sometimes called El Saturn) as a record company in 1956. As a first offering, Supersonic Jazz is a pinnacle Sun Ra release. While reflecting many prevailing bebop, Latin, and R&B conventions of the mid-1950s, it's evident that Sun Ra's musical voice and vision were starting to propel him away from the jazz mainstream. Biographer John Szwed finds on these recordings "characteristics which seemed alien to swing, bebop, or the new, more soulful and hard-edged music which was coming to be called hard bop."
DJ Boora is a Russian hip-hop head with a sample-driven style shaped by Soviet-era sounds and here he brings his class to Scruniversal's latest 7". Classic bits of gear like the SP-1200 and MPC define his approach here as Boora blends dusty loops and analogue realness with tight boom-bap swing, all served up with effortless finesse. 'Dedicado Ao Rei' has a sunny disposition with some Latin heat infusing the rolling breaks, then 'Party Groove' is a playful one with James Brown ad-libs and big chord stabs.
This is the first cover single from Swinging Popsicle, who are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year!
Side A features Aztec Camera's hit, showcasing their signature fast-paced guitar pop sound. Side B features a soulful rendition of
Laura Nyro's debut track. This is a loving album brimming with respect.
Lisbon-based duo Garoa—formed by Brazilian musicians Raphael Soares (drums, percussion) and Henrique Dias (piano, synthesizer, guitar, percussion)—craft an evocative soundscape that merges Afro-Brazilian rhythms with ambient textures. Their latest release, recorded in May 2024 at Estúdio Fetra, presents a free-flowing exploration where harmonies and rhythms unfold organically, avoiding rigid structures and embracing improvisation full time.
The album’s compositions are anchored by the interplay between Soares’ fluid percussion and Dias’ expansive harmonic approach. Tracks like “A Sandália Quadrada de Lampião” and “Xaxado de Chicago” weave percussive patterns reminiscent of Brazil’s Nordeste, blending them seamlessly with atmospheric synthesizers. “Baião de 2” and “Farofa e Cachaça” carry the unmistakable swing of Brazilian traditional forms, reinterpreted through Garoa’s lens of modernity and free flowing spontaneity.
Produced and mixed by Kellzo, the album captures the spirit of a collaboration that thrives on fluidity and openness. Garoa doesn’t aim for definitive statements; instead, they invite the listener into an evolving sonic landscape, where tradition and experimentation walk hand in hand.
DJ Popinjay balances fresh cuts with beloved favourites on his new one for the irrepressible Blur. The title track opens with silky keys and mellow percussion that capture the warmth of golden hour, while 'Whyalla' brings breezy pads and crisp beats to organic percussive. Reissued highlights like opener 'Take U' have filtered soul magic, and 'Not Too Shabby' brings dusty funk and jazzy cool, while 'So Much Fun' bursts with disco-fueled joy. The closer, 'Soul Searching' has swinging, Chic-style grooves and layers up endlessly playable house vibes.
This is the origin of Chiemi Eri, who continues to enjoy immense popularity across generations and borders.
Seven vinyl titles focusing on jazz are released simultaneously! Chiemi Eri, at the height of her powers, performs with the Delta Rhythm Boys, America's
leading male vocal group. This is a happy, swinging, and heated live recording!
You can't fault the quality of the slabs of heavy house that Dungeon Meat puts out. The label headed up by Brawther and Tristan da Cunha is back with more wagyu-quality rhythms, this time from the Berlin-based Tripmastaz. He's a master of crafting the sort of muscular beats that get floors in a sweat and whether solo or next to heavyweights like Ricardo Villalobos and DJ Sneak. Here he shows his dubbed out signature sound with the swinging, garage-inflected 'Off Da Waxxx', raw New York thud of 'Double Trouple', percussive skip of 'NYC x LFO' and rough and ready 'Tres Cabezas'. Tasty stuff, as always.
YES! We are a "BIG BAND"!!
A 20th anniversary original album featuring new members has been released on a two-disc vinyl set.
Formed in 2005 at the invitation of pianist Makoto Ozone, whose work transcends genres and continues to thrive on a global scale, the 15-member big band
"No Name Horses" has grown into a one-of-a-kind big band, thanks to its sophisticated ensemble built on longstanding relationships of trust, the diverse
original compositions of Ozone and the other members, and its boundless creativity and playfulness. The band has performed both in Japan and overseas.
In 2024, the band changed its name from "Makoto Ozone featuring No Name Horse" to "Makoto Ozone No Name Horse," and began activities under a new
lineup with the addition of three new members: Hidetaro Matsui, Yu Riku, and Shinpei Ogawa. This is the first album since the new lineup was released in
November 2024.
Returning to the classic big band sound, this album was created with each member contributing a new song, based on the concept of a superb swing and resonance.
Makoto Ozone "No Name Horses"
Makoto Ozone (p, org) Eric Miyashiro (tp, flh, picc trp) Akira Okumura (tp, flh) Shutaro Matsui (tp, flh) Yoshiaki Okazaki (tp, flh) Eijiro Nakagawa (tb)
Marshall Gilkes (tb) Junko Yamashiro (b-tb) Masanori Okazaki (as, ss, cl) Atsushi Ikeda (as) Toshio Miki (ts) Yu Riku (ts, fl) Yoshihiro Iwamochi (bs, cl)
Shinpei Ogawa (b) Shinnosuke Takahashi (ds)
Unter der Ägide des Produzenten Creed Taylor begann Wes Montgomery im Jahr 1964 seine Transformation vom reinen Jazzgitarristen zum ersten Crossover-Star. Nachdem er von seinem Debütalbum für das
Label, “Movin’ Wes”, über 100.000 Exemplare verkaufen konnte, gelang ihm 1965 mit dem zweiten Album
“Bumpin’” erstmals der Sprung in die Billboard-Charts. Begleitet von einem exzellent arrangierten Orchester unter der Leitung von Don Sebesky spielte der Gitarrist eine traumhafte Mischung aus balladesken
Standards, Latin-Stücken und bluesig swingenden Eigenkompositionen ein.
Unter der Ägide des Produzenten Creed Taylor begann Wes Montgomery im Jahr 1964 seine Transformation vom reinen Jazzgitarristen zum ersten Crossover-Star. Nachdem er von seinem Debütalbum für das
Label, “Movin’ Wes”, über 100.000 Exemplare verkaufen konnte, gelang ihm 1965 mit dem zweiten Album
“Bumpin’” erstmals der Sprung in die Billboard-Charts. Begleitet von einem exzellent arrangierten Orchester unter der Leitung von Don Sebesky spielte der Gitarrist eine traumhafte Mischung aus balladesken
Standards, Latin-Stücken und bluesig swingenden Eigenkompositionen ein.
2025 Repress
DJ Support: Kerri Chandler, Chris Stussy, Archie Hamilton, Fabe, Groovesh, Vlad Caia, Andrey P Ush Krav, Thor, Masimillano Pagliara, Dubtil, Reboot, East End Dubs, IULY.B, Josh Wink
Chris Stussy ‘A Glimmer Of Hope’ EP in now being re-issued due to demand on LTD edition transparent red vinyl.
Amsterdam based producer and DJ Chris Stussy has become one of the most eminent figures in the contemporary house scene of the Netherlands and across the globe over the past 10 years, racking up releases on the likes of Eastenderz, Moscow, PIV, Contstant Sound and most recently his own Up The Stuss imprint.
Leading the release is ‘Central Frenzy’, laid out across six and a half minutes with skippy percussion, a snaking bass groove, intricate synth sequences and sweeping vocal chants. ‘Riva De Biasio’ follows and tips the focus over to airy atmospherics a jazz-tinged bass groove and squelchy acid licks atop swinging drums.
‘Deviant Shadow’ opens the flip-side and merges an amalgamation of expansive dub chords and bouncy sub bass tones with a robust 4/4 rhythm. Lastly to round things out is title-cut ‘A Glimmer Of Hope’, wrapping up the release on a deeper tip courtesy of ethereal pad swells, metallic synth licks and shuffled drums.
