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Elevating, uplifting and beautifully arranged. Jasmine Myra's sophomore album Rising builds on the success of her

breakthrough album Horizons to deliver a major statement from one of UK Jazz's rising stars. Produced by Matthew Halsall and mixed by Greg Freeman (Hania Rani, Matthew Halsall, Portico Quartet), Rising delivers a confident and vibrant follow up that joins the musical dots between Myra’s influences Kenny Wheeler, Bonobo and Shabaka Hutchings while delivering something unique, beautiful and profound.

Rising is also the sound of a composer and performer growing in stature and adding extra layers of confidence and poise to both her playing and composing. Aided and abetted by Matthew Halsall who once again lends his production skills, Rising is fuller, richer and deeper as Myra develops her uniquely uplifting sound.



Much like my first album, Rising is a reflection of a period of my life. It is a continuation from Horizons, which was all about my experience during lockdown, and entailed overcoming my struggles with mental health. Following on from that experience, I set out to continue building my self-confidence. This album has an uplifting and spiritual sound, drawing influence from artists such as Makaya McCraven, Bonobo and Shabaka Hutchings.



Rising features the same core of musicians as Myra’s debut album Horizons (Gondwana records GOND052): guitarist Ben Haskins, drummer George Hall pianist Jasper Green, harpist Alice Roberts (who both also perform with Matthew Halsall) and bassist Sam Quintana who collectively bring a deft understating of the subtle textures of Myra’s music and perform with a collective empathy and drive that really pushes the music on a radiant journey. And a string quartet add gently elevating textures to Still Waters, Knowingness, From Embers and How Tall The Mountains.

Elevating, uplifting and beautifully arranged. Jasmine Myra's sophomore album Rising builds on the success of her

breakthrough album Horizons to deliver a major statement from one of UK Jazz's rising stars. Produced by Matthew Halsall and mixed by Greg Freeman (Hania Rani, Matthew Halsall, Portico Quartet), Rising delivers a confident and vibrant follow up that joins the musical dots between Myra’s influences Kenny Wheeler, Bonobo and Shabaka Hutchings while delivering something unique, beautiful and profound.

Rising is also the sound of a composer and performer growing in stature and adding extra layers of confidence and poise to both her playing and composing. Aided and abetted by Matthew Halsall who once again lends his production skills, Rising is fuller, richer and deeper as Myra develops her uniquely uplifting sound.



Much like my first album, Rising is a reflection of a period of my life. It is a continuation from Horizons, which was all about my experience during lockdown, and entailed overcoming my struggles with mental health. Following on from that experience, I set out to continue building my self-confidence. This album has an uplifting and spiritual sound, drawing influence from artists such as Makaya McCraven, Bonobo and Shabaka Hutchings.



Rising features the same core of musicians as Myra’s debut album Horizons (Gondwana records GOND052): guitarist Ben Haskins, drummer George Hall pianist Jasper Green, harpist Alice Roberts (who both also perform with Matthew Halsall) and bassist Sam Quintana who collectively bring a deft understating of the subtle textures of Myra’s music and perform with a collective empathy and drive that really pushes the music on a radiant journey. And a string quartet add gently elevating textures to Still Waters, Knowingness, From Embers and How Tall The Mountains.

"Disneyland After Dark" ist das neue Soloalbum von König Boris, Mitglied des aufgelösten HipHop-Trios Fettes Brot. Die musikalische Richtung weist ins Party-England der frühen 90er, frei interpretiert mit ganz modernen Einflüssen. Elektronische Rave-Sounds, mächtige Beats, melancholische Klangwände, düstere Harmonien und dicke Bretter. Darüber erzählt König Boris König Boris alltägliche Stadtgeschichten, mal von weiter weg betrachtet, mal tief in den Mikrokosmos hineingezoomt. Mal gerappt, mal gesungen, aber häufig auch stimmlich ganz wandlungsfähig in der Spoken-Word-Tradition. "Disneyland After Dark" ist eine mitfühlende Liebeserklärung an alle Menschen da draußen. Alle werden mit der gleichen Empathie behandelt, alle sind wichtig im Stadtbild. Die Worte geben ihnen eine Stimme, der Sound gibt ihnen eine Form. Das macht die Größ dieser Platte aus.

New Heaven, INTER ARMA’s latest album, is a compelling testament to perseverance, top to bottom. Its thicket of ever-dense layers of doom, death, and black metal occasionally let bits of light slip in, fleeting reminders to keep going amid the tumult. New Heaven marks a sharp turn for the band, showcasing some of the most extreme and angular songwriting INTER ARMA has ever laid bare. Known for their cinematic take on sludgy, extremely cavernous, and borderline psychedelic Metal, the Richmond band broadens their dynamics by seesawing between piledriving momentum and swirling oblivion. New Heaven crushers and conquers, and illustrates what INTER ARMA can truly be. Take the title track, with its hair-raising lead riff stemming from drummer/songwriter TJ Childers’ challenge to himself to write a nonsensically dissonant part that he ended up loving. The song spirals upward into a punishing Death-Metal march, Meanwhile, vocalist Mike Paparo’s stentorian bellows the bludgeon, above an impossibly complicated web of riffs and rhythms. From the get go, New Heaven and the opening title track eschews any restraint - INTER ARMA is completely unchained. Paparo’s keen and empathetic lyrics about innocent victims of war, addiction, and social apathy affirm that feeling, as a survivor grimaces at the carnage behind him and presses ahead best he can. “You stared into the brutish jaws of strife’s heartless device,” he growls into a chthonic blitz during “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” a late-album powerhouse. “And you turned your back to hell.” That forward march out of madness is New Heaven in an armor-plated nutshell. Though this is indeed another INTER ARMA triumph, it is not a triumphant album, meant to offer some glib or naïve assurance that everything will be fine. What evidence is there for that, really, either on a record where friends are forced into submission, addiction, suicide, or retreat to a world where suffering remains the lingua franca? No, INTER ARMA and New Heaven are too realistic and experienced for that. This is, instead, a record about enduring brambles and curses and lasting long enough to make something profound, honest, and even affirming about it all every now and again—exactly as INTER ARMA has on New Heaven. FFO: Amenra, Neurosis, Full of Hell, Cult of Luna, Yob, Primitive Man, Thou, Ulcerate, Mastodon, The Body, Panopticon

At once a hazy relic and a digital snapshot of the human experience, Your Day Will Come is the debut album from Chanel Beads, arriving April 19 via Jagjaguwar. The remarkable project announces the arrival of New York-based musician Shane Lavers as a new force in experimental music, capturing the many contradictions of modern existence and the strange infiniteness of the digital world. The songs feel like a memory in which you can't distinguish between what actually happened or what was a false reproduction in your mind - although the burning emotion remains intact. Lavers pushed himself to strip his own sense of ego from “Your Day Will Come”. Throughout, Lavers weaves in contributions from his live bandmates, singer-songwriter Maya McGrory (Colle) and experimental instrumentalist Zachary Paul, who offer their own layers of feeling. As McGrory offers a more full-bodied tone and Lavers often sings with his higher-pitched head voice, the two collaborators meet in the middle; it's an intermingling of identities or a subconscious pining for androgyny. In this slippery space, different perspectives merge together, and there's a sense of empathy and humility that arises from the blending of these voices. These days, Chanel Beads live shows see all three performers weaving together in absolute catharsis. This catharsis is pushed to its peak on "Idea June," which sees McGrory taking over lead vocals to project Lavers' lyrics. As McGrory sings, "The waves wash onto my shore," in a voice that's both earnest and digitally processed, it's as though she's speaking as a separate embodiment of Lavers. In under two minutes, the track of clunky acoustic guitar and gutting strings lands somewhere between detachment and kinship. Similar to the off-kilter structure of "Police Scanner," these songs are strangely affecting in their unfinished and liminal forms. Lavers, who is drawn to poor MP3 rips and transitional moments in DJ mixes, knows that these inexact musical artifacts evoke human imperfection. The title of Your Day Will Come could be read as a promise of the arrival of good karma, or it could be a reminder of one's mortality, said out of spite. Yet as Lavers unpacks the haunting feelings of the past that he must release in order to move into his future, he reminds us that grief and hope might be closer than they seem to the naked eye.

At once a hazy relic and a digital snapshot of the human experience, Your Day Will Come is the debut album from Chanel Beads, arriving April 19 via Jagjaguwar. The remarkable project announces the arrival of New York-based musician Shane Lavers as a new force in experimental music, capturing the many contradictions of modern existence and the strange infiniteness of the digital world. The songs feel like a memory in which you can't distinguish between what actually happened or what was a false reproduction in your mind - although the burning emotion remains intact. Lavers pushed himself to strip his own sense of ego from “Your Day Will Come”. Throughout, Lavers weaves in contributions from his live bandmates, singer-songwriter Maya McGrory (Colle) and experimental instrumentalist Zachary Paul, who offer their own layers of feeling. As McGrory offers a more full-bodied tone and Lavers often sings with his higher-pitched head voice, the two collaborators meet in the middle; it's an intermingling of identities or a subconscious pining for androgyny. In this slippery space, different perspectives merge together, and there's a sense of empathy and humility that arises from the blending of these voices. These days, Chanel Beads live shows see all three performers weaving together in absolute catharsis. This catharsis is pushed to its peak on "Idea June," which sees McGrory taking over lead vocals to project Lavers' lyrics. As McGrory sings, "The waves wash onto my shore," in a voice that's both earnest and digitally processed, it's as though she's speaking as a separate embodiment of Lavers. In under two minutes, the track of clunky acoustic guitar and gutting strings lands somewhere between detachment and kinship. Similar to the off-kilter structure of "Police Scanner," these songs are strangely affecting in their unfinished and liminal forms. Lavers, who is drawn to poor MP3 rips and transitional moments in DJ mixes, knows that these inexact musical artifacts evoke human imperfection. The title of Your Day Will Come could be read as a promise of the arrival of good karma, or it could be a reminder of one's mortality, said out of spite. Yet as Lavers unpacks the haunting feelings of the past that he must release in order to move into his future, he reminds us that grief and hope might be closer than they seem to the naked eye.

From the propulsive immediacy of the bass and drums’ taut groove, it’s clear something has changed in Broken Chanter's world. Thudding, powerful odes to the strength of collectivity and togetherness, David MacGregor’s Broken Chanter bristle with energy and empathy on their incendiary third album Chorus Of Doubt. Recorded (and produced) by Paul Savage over 2023’s spring and summer months in Chemikal Underground’s in-house studio Chem 19, Chorus Of Doubt is fuelled by a burning desire to resist an encroaching, global tide of misery, informed by a wide-eyed sense of solidarity and the searing truth that a universal humanity is the only path out of darkness.

Featuring frequent collaborators Charlotte Printer, Bart Owl and Martin Johnston, Broken Chanter’s world is populated by hope and vitriol rendered in ecstatic rock music, terse agit-Funk and soaring choruses.

The most immediate Broken Chanter record to date, Chorus Of Doubt is David MacGregor’s open love letter to never giving up, a personal road map out of collective lethargy.

Introducing, the experimental violinist and performer Vanessa Bedoret.

The London-based French musician today announces that she’ll be joining, Scenic Route, a label renowned for selecting and nourishing rising stars for the release of her debut album, Eyes, due out on 8th of March 2024. Launching with a taste of what’s to come, today she also shares single “1/2”, a textural track that tells of the dichotomy between those who are selfless and those who are self-centred, and their need to merge as one. This duality is reflected in the industrial metallic echoes under Vanessa’s soaring vocals and the piercing strings of her chosen instrument, the violin.

Treating songwriting as an instinctive process, Bedoret transforms her deeply personal experiences into pure emotion. Not following any set narrative, Eyes takes the listener on a journey via their own experiences, prompting introspection through Bedoret’s hypnotic melodies.

Through the album, she awakens the audience's imagination, to open up their emotional response. On “Ballad”, a vague, loving lyrical letter to someone close, Bedoret’s heartbreakingly soft lament is barely audible over the dramatic atonal strings. She flips her narrative again in the titular track, “Eyes”, so the listener empathises through her isolated violin, and takes on her anguish, not needing to understand the full story.

Bedoret began her classical training at age 6 and on completion at 18 she embraced the thrill of playing guitar in punk bands, and like many at the turn of adulthood, was quickly captured by the allure of the dancefloor. Her far-reaching taste doesn’t stop there, she also counts black metal to opera and from eurodance to IDM as inspiration. Her deep understanding of musical form elevates her experimentation to a truly unique sonic experience, one that never strays too far from her original love of classical music.

With only a string of releases under her belt via independent labels like Laura Lies In and Archaic Vaults, her refined skillset has meant she’s been in high demand for both solo shows and collaborations. These accolades include playing violin with New York avant garde collective Standing On The Corner at The Serpentine, as well as a part of Kahil El’Zabar conducts MOKI at the ICA, and Linder: Another Music in a Different Arcadia at the Design Museum alongside artist Linder Sterling, Naima Cherry, Maxwell Sterling, Kenichi Iwasa & Ella Frears.

For her solo performances, she’s shared stages with Standing on the Corner, Ekaterina Bazhenova-Yamasaki, Philomème Pirecki, John T. Gast and Nexcyia to name a few. She’s also performed as a duo alongside musician Severin Black in support of their collaborative EP release, First Passage / Excommunicated.

Through the lens of a life lived to it’s fullest and one that does not shy from experiencing the rawest of emotions, it’s clear that Bedoret has a nack for translating personal observations into cinematic crescendoes. The field recordings throughout only heighten this feeling adding both a grounding and other worldy sensibility. Lyrically, she allows you to peek into her private world and for a fleeting moment letting you lock eyes with hers, asking what do you see?

This debut is a glowing experimental work that purrs with a distinctive narrative. Vanessa Bedoret is a promising new act, ready to take 2024 by storm.

Velella Velella, the debut solo album from I:Scintilla's powerhouse vocalist Brittany Bindrim, showcases her versatility as an artist. From moody, ethereal ballads to gritty dance bangers, Velella Velella explores themes of transcformation, the darker side of human nature, While Bindrim's vulnerable, unapologetic lyrics showcase themes of self-discovery, empathy, apathy, disillusionment, & growth

In the sway of a rural breeze, Ian Hatcher-Williams' vocals soothe and enchant the listener on his self-titled debut album as Lamplight, which recounts his odyssey from a child raised in a Virginia cult, to a burned out tech worker in New York, and then back to Virginia, happily married to his childhood friend. Throughout the album, Hatcher-Williams explores identity as it relates to where a person is from and evolves with where they live, and how that facet of self is further compounded by the amount of agency one has over where they call home. Hatcher-Williams wrote and recorded what would become Lamplight, attempting to process and distill some of his experiences into songs. Though the album has moments that hint at the antique lace and creaking floorboards of traditional folk, Lamplight skews modern, in part thanks to Kevin Copeland's (Lightning Bug) deft production. Hatcher-Williams met Copeland while living in Brooklyn, and as they got to know each other, he revealed that he'd spent years playing in bands before his career took over his life. Copeland's encouragement, in tandem with the concurrent changes in Hatcher-Williams' career and domestic life, gave him the confidence to revisit this part of himself that felt unfinished.

For the past five years, Projekt Ruiny has been rejuvenating abandoned and decaying industrial landmarks by using them for concerts, exhibitions and discussions. This refusal of disuse also defines the character of SILO by Kolektív Ruiny, which disposes of all aspects of such cultural urban exploration besides the two most monumental >> sound and time.

The trio of musicians // sound artists kept returning to sugar and brewery silos in Rimavská Sobota in southern Slovakia for over six months to listen to their sounds and reply with improvisations. The silos' ambience proves that these places in a state of decay are living environments that hear plenty themselves, both from outside and inside, and spread what they hear wholeheartedly.

Kolektív Runy builds on this acoustic generosity with a combination of empathy and boldness. The attitude is most apparent on the few tracks that are musically harsh, but still offer the same discernible respect towards their industrial venues as the most serene pieces on SILO. It is an homage to these places, teeming with attention and care, and the ninth release by the devout label Weltschmerzen.

The Body & Dis Fig are a natural pair. Each has pioneered instantly recognizable worlds of sound all their own that defy any traditional categorizations or boundaries. The Body, Lee Buford and Chip King, continually challenge any conventional conception of metal, collaborating with myriad artists and from the folk-leanings of their work with BIG|BRAVE to their groundbreaking work with the Assembly of Light Choir to the intensity of their collaborations with OAA or Thou. Dis Fig, aka Felicia Chen, pushes electronic music into dark extremes, from warped DJ sets to avant production, from being a member of Tianzhuo Chen’s performance-art series TRANCE to being the vocalist with The Bug. The Body and Dis Fig find kinship in reimagining what it means to make “heavy music”. Their debut Orchards of a Futile Heaven is the perfect synthesis of two forces, twisting melodicism and intoxicating rhythms, layering a dense miasma of distortion with intense beats and a soaring voice clawing its way towards absolution.

Orchards of a Futile Heaven’s walls of sputtering texture and tectonic booms are soaked in the reverence and melancholy of sacred spaces brought to life by palpable intensity by Chen’s voice. Crafted during a time of personal fragility, the album’s devastating force lies beyond any of the expected noise and abrasive textures typically associated with both The Body & Dis Fig. Suffused with a raw vulnerability and a longing for catharsis, Chen’s voice searches for escape in the midst of oppressive atmospheres as if determined to find relief from guilt. “Eternal Hours” patiently unfurls waves of surprising sounds, whispered undulations that are punctuated by sudden crashes, all beneath Chen’s haunting harmonies. “Dissent, Shame” evokes grief and shame with a minimalist drone dirge that gradually builds to an enchanting choral passage. King’s guitar on “Holy Lance” matches the uncanny drone of Chen’s accordion in an all-consuming blast, Chen’s voice transforming the moment from anguish to defiance and empowerment. The album’s arc finishes with “Coils of Kaa” acting as a kind of propulsive exorcism, breaking through a suffocating air before the funeral procession of “Back to the Water” lays the album to rest.

While sampling has long been essential to each, The Body & Dis Fig deftly meld their differing approaches to sampling and creating extreme sounds until the boundaries are entirely blurred. The two found kinship in their desire to find new avenues to make heavy music that looked beyond tropes of metal and electronic music by merging the two. “I always wanted the heavier stuff but I also didn’t really like heavier guitar music,” says Buford. “None of it really felt quite heavy enough to me. A human can’t be as heavy as a machine.” Chen counters, “I love the balance. You could never connect to just a machine as well as you could a human. Which is why the combination is so potent for me. I don’t want to hide. I think nothing connects you more empathetically than another human's voice.”

Orchards of a Futile Heaven affirms The Body & Dis Fig as skilled sound sculptors who have an exceptional ability to make deeply affecting music, bracing as it is touching, harrowing as it is awe-inspiring. Together, the two have harnessed their expansive artistry to make music that is profoundly emotional, and staggering in its beauty.

toechter is an all-female trio operating from Berlin. toechter’s 2nd full-length album »Epic Wonder« sees its classically trained members blend elaborate string arrangements with ethereal indie pop and delicate rhythms. Katrine Grarup Elbo, Lisa Marie Vogel and Marie-Claire Schlameus exclusively use analogue sound sources (such as violin, viola, cello, and their voices), which were then electronically processed.

Named after the Greek god of the wind, toechters 2022 album »Zephyr« exhaled deeply with concurrently invigorating and confusing sounds. »Epic Wonder«, their second album, was created in the spring and summer of 2023. Playing with forms and contours, the music sounds like the awakening of something new. One seems to be listening to an ongoing conversation, an exchange about what music could be, where it wants to go and how it contributes to our view of life. It all rests on a simple premise:

»Every sound you hear in our universe comes from us. The string trio is the core of toechter, the starting point of all our work.«

Those looking for new worlds of sound can find them in the work of this classically- trained musicians. Whether they add voices or percussive instruments, sample the sounds, or manipulate them electronically; ultimately they are exploring the string trio's place in a world shaped by the digital.

»Prelude« opens the album, seemingly a conversation, yet not only between humans. We catch the word ›love‹ which soon morphs into pure sound images, while a violin theme tentatively takes over. Is it the dawning of a new day? The chorus of sound transforms into a fascinating rhythmic figure, creating a club-like experience that fades out in delicate structures. A perpetual transformation.

According to toechter, »Epic Wonder« is all about making connections. Connections between people, animals, plants, fungi, rocks, soils, oceans, ice caps, stars, and planets. One imagines oneself in a folk-pop song of the 60s, or even blown around by Morricone's desert wind:

»The world as we see it is in desperate need for a deeper understanding; for compassion, for empathy. We have to understand that we are all part of the same organism. Epic Wonder is a dream, a wish, a longing for kinship between all species that share the world - all that is alive.«

The acoustic throbbing and knocking in »Sea Of Serenity« makes you think of encounters with mythical creatures or planetary oceanography; and out of the mechanically clacking groove of »Shift Souls« a gentle, but steady movement awakens with voices that seem to sound from the depths of the sea. Everything is in flux, floating in and out of dimensions and elements.

The album ends with »Mercury«, spherically elegant and almost science fiction-like. Here, a pizzicato melody leads us back to the baroque, simultaneously representing a detail of intertwined sonic worlds, while the steady, housy baseline develops its driving theme.

»Creating the music for the album, we allowed ourselves to waft away with the aspiration that connections are possible. Sometimes dwelling on subtle, yet marveling phenomena like the evening fog covering a valley on Midsummer, sometimes on grandiose splendors like the genesis of mountains or the birth of a child - letting interactions and encounters with other beings float through the musical universe as drips of emotional perceptivity.«

For the visual manifestation of »Epic Wonder«, toechter has engaged with Finish up-and-coming lens-based artist Aino Kontinen. Her work will grace both the cover art of the album and accompany the first single and video as an ephemeral tale in motion.

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Highs and lows, anger and joy, belief and doubt reflected in raw and honest
observations of Martyn Joseph's sojourn and the state of play today. A stripped
back acoustic render reflects his weapon of choice that has provided hope and
solace and a commentary of companionship to a worldwide army of ardent fans
for decades through his passionate commitment to social justice, mystery, and
love.'From a vast goodbye to a small hello' he writes in 'Folding', the opening song
of surrender and resilience, and where else would you find an album calling for
the elimination of a tyrant alongside a call for greater love and empathy.
Embracing the contradictions and beauty with a fearless pen, Joseph continues
to cut an impressive path. If you're looking for truth, these songs will anchor you
to a horizon of hope.

Formed in 2017, Flycatcher’s ability to construct sing-a-long melodies and gut-punching instrumentation, while also tackling the dissonance of depression and difficult relationships, proves their power in casting an empathetic, universal eye.

The New Jersey-based quartet, made up of Greg Pease, Justin VanNiekerk (guitar), Jack Delle Cava (bass) and Connor Carmelengo (drums), are known for their undeniably anthemic arrangements. Albums Other Things (2018) and Songs for Strangers (2019) garnered acclaim for their ear-worm choruses, tight textural dynamics and propulsive, driving percussion.

“Sono Stato Un Agente CIA” (1978), also known as “Covert Action”, is a twilight film directed by Romolo Guerrieri and set in Greece, starring David Janssen, in the role of a former Central Intelligence Agency agent who became a writer of incendiary books on prostitution and drug trafficking, flanked by Maurizio Merli, a colleague in possession of some compromising tapes, sentimentally linked to the romance novel character played by the seductive Corinne Cléry. The two are involved in a murky game: the stars and stripes secret services intend to eliminate those who could spread the dangerous content of the military plan designed to stem the advance of communism, to be implemented through the assassination of government officials.

It's not among the most famous crime stories. It's not even a real action movie. “Sono Stato Un Agente CIA” benefits, however, from the admirable compositional talent of Stelvio Cipriani. His soundtrack, released for the first time in full vinyl version, reveals an npredictable versatility. His 'classic' style expressed in the course of the scores for previous 'poliziotteschi' is enriched here with disco suggestions and Hellenic exoticisms. The writing on the staff of the Roman composer is effective and empathetic in commenting on every fold of the dark and violent story. A simple and catchy theme, even danceable. The atmospheric situations with guitars and synthesizers. Some funk echoes, tension peaks, melancholy notes. The constants of success.

KID FRANCESCOLI, leader of the French Riviera Touch is back with the stellar album SUNSET BLUE out Sept 22nd 2023.

After a first sold-out world tour (over 200 concerts in Europe, USA, Asia...), and successful hits such as Nopalitos, Blow Up or Moon (now certified diamond, with more than 200 millions streams), the Marseille-based producer, crooner and multi-instrumentalist, Mathieu Hocine, is eager to share his most accomplished LP ever. This fine collection of soulful songs honor his Mediterranean roots, with elegant and pop melodies. His most recent success and the creation of his first original soundtrack with AZURO, installed him as one of the best French songwriters of his generation, with a unique signature sound.

"I live in Marseille, I spent my childhood in Corsica, I have Algerian origins, my first vacations with friends were in Barcelona, vacations with my first girlfriend in Roma,... Then, I had the chance to perform in Morocco, Greece, Turkey and Egypt: each time I spent time in the Mediterranean region, the people I met there made me feel like I was part of the same country. This shared multiculturalism is really comforting, it has its own poetry and strength, bringing uniqueness and empathy to the people. It is essential for me. I love my city: it’s the perfect place to feel good with sun, sea, family, friendships, love... It gets me emotional, bringing tears with a smile".

With his new musical gem, Mathieu Hocine unveils 11 elegant tunes of his finest craft: sunbathed French Touch (Run Run, 1986), romantic chillwave (Corsica), uplifting synthpop (You Are Everywhere, Like Magic), electronic-soul (Casino Soul), cinematic disco (Solaris), cosmic R&B (Sweet and Sour, Take Time), … Everything is in this record.

For the first time ever, Kid Francescoli paid tribute to his mixed origins with his collaboration with world-renowned lute and mandolin player Hakim Hamadouche (Rachid Taha, Patti Smith, Brian Eno, Tricky...), whom added Algerian patterns to the introspectives songs Drift in Blue and The Morning After.

"My ambition is to create pictures in people's heads with music, to transport them instantly into a movie"

SUNSET BLUE is an instant-crush album: crystal-clear, strong, personal but universal at the same time.

It's an ecstatic soundtrack for this moment when time is suspended, the golden hour when everything seems possible. It feels like Love is in the air, you're living your best life and you're at the right place at the right time. This album embodies this magic moment where we would like to last forever… Like an epiphany, Kid Francescoli's new album is a moment of pure pleasure, a soothing way to escape reality.

"I see myself as a melodist.I would like my music to feel like velvet. There's something cinematic, classy about it, and yet comforting. It's very simple, popular and synonym of love and passion"

His friend French 79 co-produced the album, while the american rapper Bamby H2O brought his NYC swag (on Sweet & Sour), Stan Neff (Polo & Pan, Kungs, Christine and the Queens...) took care of the mix and Alex Gopher (Daft Punk, The Blaze, Bon Entendeur...) added a final touch of magic when mastering. Nicolas Despis (known for his work with Etienne Daho, Hoshi, Juliette Armanet... and many famous French rappers) later joined this dream-team to craft custom-made artworks. SUNSET BLUE is a deeply personal quest, a human adventure for Mathieu Hocine (whom explores his maghrebian origins, his feminine side, his subconscious space, ...). It's a male's work, but don't get it wrong, this LP would be nothing without women’s touch : Julietta (on Run Run and Take Time), Sarah Gaugler from Turbo Goth (on You Are Everywhere and Like Magic), and iOni (on Drift in Blue).

“Music has this magical power to broaden your vision of the world. It's fascinating because, like dreams, it's the kind of irrational things science can't explain and that makes life exciting."

Planets aligned perfectly on this project and thanks to this five-star cast of collaborators, Kid Francescoli achieved his personal holy grail : he orchestrated a great 21st century pop-music album.SUNSET BLUE is a new turning point between organic and electronic, both a mediterranean travel and a Californian dream, a bridge between Ennio Morriconne and modern electronic music.

Also, while it might be called SUNSET BLUE in honor of the sea and the Portuguese / Brazilian concept called “saudade”, but it is a really optimistic album, whose true colors would rather be "yellow-orange-red" in nod to the sun.

Created in the midst of the world tour, SUNSET BLUE is a direct result of the lives’ energy and fans’ joyful vibes: going back in the studio after smiling, singing and dancing with people all around the world inevitably gave Kid Francescoli the desire to retranscribe this ecstatic feeling in music. This album is a sensitive experience, from sunrise to sunset, from first track to last one. It’s an exploration of an everlasting summer, reaching its climax in the very final seconds of the track Corsica, making us want to press play and dive into this jewel all over again.

A beautiful cosmic trip, whether you like to stay in bed cocooning, to travel far, far away or to dance ‘till dawn, to catch the first rays of light.

Make sure to catch Kid Francescoli on his next world tour to have a good time.

Japanese Jazz legend Tsuyoshi Yamamoto's new album, A Shade Of
Blue, undoubtedly reflects his love of the piano trio, a group configuration that in jazz history began in the 1940s with Nat King Cole and then was developed in the 50s by innovators like Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, and Bill Evans Yamamoto's highly experienced trio - which has a combined age of 215 years -
features bassist Hiroshi Kagawa and drummer Toshio Osumi.

A Shade Of Blue reveals the three musicians' incredible musical chemistry; listening to the ten tracks they've recorded together, it's as if they breathe, think, and feel as one person; such is the musical empathy between them.

A Shade Of Blue will be released by evosound on MQA-CD, SACD- Hybrid MultiChannel, 180g Double Vinyl LP (audiophile pressing), available on the 27th October 2023.