Suche:mu project

French finest synth-pop band Bon Voyage Organisation release his second opus after a feature on Cocktail d'Amore 10 Years compilation.

"La Course" is a cinematic, synthesized and library-esque journey that could be a mixed-up between Italian early 80's productions and french 00's disco.

"This record marks the beginning of a new attitude towards recording," says Bon Voyage Organisation's Adrien Durand. "Switching from a busy studio that I shared to having my own very quiet cabin in the North West of Paris has inspired me to adopt a more meditative approach."

Whilst it's fair to say Durand has been constantly on the move for some time - be it touring or producing records for the likes of Amadou & Mariam, Papooz and Bagarre - there's a sense of new momentum, as well as stillness, that hangs over this record. One that's fully instrumental and as he describes being more free.

The band's trademark glistening production, disco flair, shimmering electronics and incandescent melodies still remain but a more intuitive and striped back approach was favoured this time around. Some of this attitude stemming from an evening opening for Kamasi Washington. "Because of the constraints of being an opening act we played as an instrumental quintet instead of our usual 9-piece band," says Durand. "We rehearsed the day before, our set opened with John Coltrane's 'Naïma' followed by a hard-bop ish version of Kraftwerk's 'Trans Europe Express'. It felt so good to perform that repertoire in that configuration that I had the vision of bringing this aspect of the band in the studio."

There was also a removed sense of pressure with this record - no major label expectation of a radio friendly record, combined with a deconstructed approach to songwriting. "Since 2014 I've been working mostly on projects involving a lot of conventional songwriting," Durand says. "I was keen on producing a record based on performance and atmospheres more than repertoire." He also sought inspiration from a perhaps unlikely source: The Arctic Monkeys. "I was really encouraged by them going out of their comfort zone on their last album - it really caught my attention in a Bowie / Berlin period way."

The result of the album is one that oozes the natural momentum of experimentation, texture, mood and intuition while managing to retain a sonic coherence. In a none-obvious and zeitgeist clichéd way, there is perhaps a more jazz-leaning approach to the record that weaves between soft subtle moments to the more atonal and experimental, all underpinned by sweeping, engulfing soundscapes and the usual touch of non-Western musical flourishes. This vibe came from a distinct lack of editing, says Durand. "In the studio we had everyone sitting in the same room - sometimes up to 6 players - and I never edited the playing. I just went on to record some additional synth and percussion, insert the soundscapes, and mix the record."

This less is more approach, avoiding indulgence and superfluousness, is something Durand can't help but feel is an artistic response to the pace of modern life. "There is a frenetic approach to everything," he says. "People want to binge on everything, expect ultra fast changes on any political cause etc. The response is a big comeback of things like the practice of meditation, yoga and ambient music." There are times when this record falls into the territory of meditative ambience, as on the immersive plunge one takes swimming through the beautiful 'Un Am Ricain En Danger'. It's an album to bathe in and to be carried along by, it's gripping by being so rather than fighting for your attention

Ultimately the record is one that feels it's been allowed room to breath, a sonic sphere in which musicians have been allowed to roam as freely and thoughtfully as the listener. "This record is about welcoming the music and being able to let each musician express themselves during the recording process," says Durand. "This is a valuable trade that takes time."

RARE RECORDINGS BY SEMINAL HIP_HOP GROUP TUFF CREW - This record is a double album vinyl set w/ unreleased bonus material/tracks. - Tuff Crew is known throughout the world as Philly's first Rap super group. They've toured extensively with some of the biggest names in Rap music such as Public Enemy, Run-DMC, Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane, Rob Base and LL Cool J. The response to Tuff Crew's music has been nothing short of stellar. On a national level, their single "My Parta Town" peaked at #23 on the Billboard Rap charts, while their album Back to Wreck Shop reached #74 on the Billboard R&B album charts. Estimates of Tuff Crew's global sales are in excess of three million units. Tuff Crew's body of work has resulted in a dedicated legion of fans across the world and their DJ Too Tuff has been the recipient of various accolades throughout his career. DJ Z-Trip advised that the technique of DJ Too Tuff inspired him to be a scratch DJ. Three time global DMC scratch champion DJ Q-Bert also notes Too Tuff as one of his inspirations. And A-Trak, Kanye West's DJ, has also voiced his adoration of the turntable techniques of DJ Too Tuff. Although Tuff Crew made an incredible mark on the musical landscape, they unfortunately fell victim to bad management and infighting. It was during this time period that DJ Too Tuff, the man behind legendary Tuff Crew sound, gathered the finest of Philly's underground MC's and began work on a solo project. The new Tuff Crew album, containing the finest of DJ Too Tuff's solo work, is entitled DJ Too Tuff's Lost Archives. DJ Too Tuff's Lost Archives will be highly sought after, and is destined to become an instant collector's item. For fans of of Eric B and Rakim, Public Enemy, Ultramagnetic MC's, Run DMC and Wu-Tang Clan, this record is not to be missed.

Ex RSD LP on transparent red vinyl, gatefold sleeve with lyric inner sleeve and DL card. Final copies now reduced to £7.99. The tracks on this album have never been officially released before now. The eight songs on this album were recorded in 1978 on a 2-track stereo Revox A77 tape recorder. The recordings are unashamedly analogue, using one microphone and guitars plugged directly into the tape recorder. Bouncing down tracks irreversibly as they went on, forced to make creative decisions that could not be undone. Some hard choices had to be made with the mix, but with no record company meant no record company agenda. TV Smith & Richard Strange could write and record whatever they wanted – and did! It has been an enormous pleasure to rediscover these recordings, the result of a friendship of two artists emerging from broken bands and each about to embark on a lifelong adventure in words and music. TV SMITH - I wasn’t having a lot of fun in 1978 when Richard asked me to collaborate on a song he was writing called “Summer Fun.” I was in the final stages of songwriting for the second Adverts album “Cast Of Thousands,” a project that already seemed doomed to failure given an unenthusiastic record company, a band in the throes of falling apart, and a dwindling audience - but my creative juices were in full flow and I was ready for something different. I already knew Richard, of course, from the Doctors Of Madness, who I’d followed in the years before punk when I was still living in Devon and they were one of the few bands to come and play in the area. I considered them a warped poetic glam band with gothic leanings, and was slightly surprised when the song I’d been invited to work on turned out to be a kind of California surf pastiche. But I was game to get involved, and after we’d finished it and ventured forward with regular writing and recording sessions over the following weeks it soon became clear that “Summer Fun” was just a gateway drug, and the songs that were emerging from our combined forces were going to quickly become much deeper and much darker // RICHARD STRANGE - Watching the remnants of a musical dream being swept away by the juggernaut of corporate punk rock in 1976, I felt a combination of jealousy and resentment towards many of the key players who had been responsible for our demise. The Sex Pistols had supported my band Doctors of Madness early in their career and nicked not only our future but £12.00 from a pair of trousers in our dressing room in Middlesbrough Town Hall! The Jam, who supported us over four shows at London’s fabled Marquee Club, were how I imagined The Who would be if they’d joined the Young Conservatives. Warsaw, our go-to support band in Manchester, had just changed their name to Joy Division, and Johnny and the Self-Abusers, our Scottish flag wavers, had become Simple Minds. All were being feted by the all-powerful music press, while we were being buried. But there was one punk band for whom I never had anything but the greatest affection…The Adverts.

Ltd to 100 copies

Presented in a double vinyl gatefold edition with two beautiful paintings by Tenerife painter Sema Castro.

For fans of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and every single mystic brother and sister carrying the free spiritual jazz torch! Dive DEEP!

Spectacular mystical jazz infused psychedelics from Canary Islands’ cult band GAF.

Using a series of different add-ons to their (already obscure) band acronym GAF (Grifa Ambient Factory) such as Love Supreme Arkestra or GAF & La Estrela de la Muerte amongst a few, the Tenerife based band illustrate clearly what mutation or influence they’re feeding through (their mind) by the judicious use of these referential add-ons. Rotating around the vision of local lynchpin, Mladen Kurajica aka Bonni, Keroxen label head, festival organizer, producer and musician with numerous projects including helming the GAF outfit. The Love Supreme Arkestra variation here being the more Coltrane leaning (Alice rather than John) and Sun Ra- esque influenced thematic of the 6 piece band. Over a series of 7 huge sounding themes, we can hear twirling saxophones, trumpets, marimbas, modulars and rhythmic sections intertwining like flying spiral snakes over a burning sea of lava.

Recorded live and freely over a completely improvised jam session on a sunny afternoon in the mountainous region of La Esperanza in Tenerife, the band lets rip free of any previous albums particular sound choosing instead to purge into a world of musical liberation by embracing the aforementioned pioneers of the genre whilst unconsciously absorbing in their surroundings - as an additional inspiration for musical freedom.

The result really shines through its 74 mins of mind blowing adventurous music. A journey to the peaks of the Teide Volcano and down the green valleys, into the blue and black volcanic coasts of liberation!

Dena Miller grew up on a diet of folk before spending 6 years writing and exploring projects through Philly's punk scene, Oberlin's conservatory experimentalist and NY's DIY history before arriving at her debut album 'Woodpecker' . Think Waxahatchee, Told Slant & Moldy Peaches...
Black vinyl with inner sleeve lyrics & download.

Deer Scout’s debut full length Woodpecker is a record about memory and the subconscious. And like an unforgettable dream that keeps you puzzling over its riddles for days, it’s as packed with direct symbols as it is with ruminative haze. “I approach songwriting as a process of boxing things up, or putting away a time capsule,” explains front person Dena Miller, who wrote the album over a period of six years. It’s a culminating collection of the project’s many sounds and influences to date, from Philly’s punk cooperatives to Oberlin’s conservatory experimentalism to New York’s DIY history. At the center is Miller’s assured guitar fingerpicking and boldly clear voice, firmly grounded even as it gently probes uncertain emotional and musical terrain.

Raised by two folk musicians in Yonkers, Miller began recording songs as Deer Scout her freshman year of college in Philadelphia. There, she wrote Woodpecker’s earliest song “Synesthesia” about a train ride home from a basement show: “Night in the city / Big house on the corner / Her voice has the timbre of summers ago,” recalls Miller resonantly. After Miller’s transfer to Oberlin College, Deer Scout began touring DIY venues around the country and sharing stages with favorite artists including Waxahatchee and Told Slant. The twinned intimacy and intricacy of those two influences is reflected in the carefully adventurous arrangements on Woodpecker, which features, among other contributors, bass from close collaborator Ko Takasugi-Czernowin, cello from Zuzia Weyman, drums from Madel Rafter, and guitar from Miller’s father Mark—who also wrote the song “Peace with the Damage” and originally released it with his band Spuyten Duyvil in 2011.

Many of the songs on Woodpecker were written during periods of grief or change. “I used to sing myself to sleep as a baby and I think music still plays the same role in my life—it’s a way of self-soothing or seeking comfort,” explains Miller. “But there’s also part of it that comes from wanting to connect with people." Recorded and mixed primarily by Heather Jones at So Big Auditory in Philly with overdubs by Miller at home, Woodpecker is an exercise in portraying the incommunicable. “Cup”—about a relational psychology test called “a walk in the woods” that turns encounters with symbols into meaning—uses watery arpeggios, wintry strings, and roving bass to create a liminal sonic space, optimistic but tense. “Cowboy,” with airy layers of acoustic guitar riffs and Miller’s charmingly double tracked voice, takes its little fish, big pond inspiration from the character Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy. And “Afterthought,” with its unexpectedly bright resolutions, is about God, love, and the complexity of empathy; “Heaven isn’t watching us,” sings Miller candidly over pedal steel.

Though Woodpecker is a record about uncertainty and the unknown, it’s also about compassion and connection—as Miller was able to find over the course of writing and recording this next chapter for Deer Scout and first release for Carpark, which she’s excited to at last share with the world.

Artesian Sounds' first release in 3 years comes from Scissorwork. Lots of summer hit potential with house / pop crossover A Hundred Years, plus more functional tunes on the B side. B1 Flourishes is a leftfield bassy cut that works great as a warmup tool, and B2 Identity Crisis features peak time electro vibes.

Scissorwork was one of the first big names in the lo-fi house scene, having taken a break to find his sound over the past years, he returns with a matured sound that borrows from multiple genres with constant crossover appeal through his knack for earworm melody and composition.

Artesian Sounds returns from a similar hiatus, with label heads Aleksandir & Emre Can Swim having taken time to work on their own musical project over the past years. However, with 3 releases planned for 2022 already feauturing updated branding & artwork, new artists and exciting remixes, the label is looking to expand drastically.

The dance floor as devotional is a trope as old as the club itself. But, with her new album, Jesus Was An Alien, Perel subverts the stakes of our collective communion: Who are our arms raised to? Who are we seeking salvation from?

“Jesus Was An Alien is a discourse about whether Jesus was an actual alien,” she explains, “but also a social debate about what is and implies religion today.” She offers up her provocative second record – her first on Kompakt – as a soundtrack for the listener’s own journey through the intricacies and ironies of modern belief.

Picking up on the themes she brought to her debut, the 2018’s LP Hermetica on DFA, Perel has created ten tracks rich with spirit and allusion. Her influences are myriad, from the indie dance hitmakers of the early 2000s – Hot Chip, Simian Mobile Disco, Justice – to rave compilations that predate her ascent to the DJ booth, to more abstract inputs. Living with synesthesia, she says, “I feel emotions and colors piling up inside me, then there’s a triggering sound or event that opens a valve. My tracks are color streams that tell a story.”

Jesus Was An Alien is not just multicolored – it’s multi-lingual too, slipping in and out of tongues in a single track, sometimes dispensing with words altogether (the ecstatic breakdown of “The Principle of Vibration”). The album features Perel’s voice almost entirely but for her special collaboration with Canadian songwriter Marie Davidson on the title track.

“Jesus Was An Alien” stirs like a late-night revelation, a heady discovery awakened in the dark. Perel lays out a fiercely disciplined electro pulse, with Davidson’s proclamations growing more fervent over the song’s sensual stride. “I already said everything with my synthesizers and the melodies I created,” Perel explains of the collaboration, but “somehow she gave the song a voice I couldn’t.”

Perel drives further not only spiritually but sonically across the ten tracks, taking thrilling production risks: standouts include her breathy vocals atop a melodic piano strut on “Matrix;” the delirious blur of ghostly chimes and disembodied voices of “Religion;” and the retro radiance of “The Principle of Vibration,” in which Perel exhorts us to “come on and vibe” over an athletic riff and shuffling percussion.

“Kill The System,” meanwhile, hits the listener with tense acid pulses, building to only an imagined release and calls out the end of patriarchy. Album closer “Am Kanal” starts as a pensive cloud of a track, finally breaking into a rich textural rain of synths and stabs.

The variety throughout Jesus Was An Alien underlines Perel’s purpose in this latest project; she’s experimenting her way to answers – or maybe just more questions. After all, she says, “questions are the beginning of something new.”

The summer starts beating to our doors and now that the nightmare of the pandemic (looks like) is coming to an end, mysterious dj and producer Hal Incandenza has taken over the control of MM Discos in order to get the things warmer and rock the dance-floors and festivals around the world.

Besides his amazing skills as producer, Henry Saiz the man behind the project of Hal Incandenza, has also made his path in music as songwriter, musician, graphic designer and dj.

This time introduces us to "Incivitas", a killer track that oscillates between House and Nu-Disco ready to dinamite the peak time of the most selected clubs. Hypnotic, selvatic and very wild.

Things turn even wilder with "Ceremony", highly influenced by the legacy of Daft Punk while Marvin & Guy closes the EP with an epic italo-dance version of "Invicitas", if you wonder why the duo from Parma are one of the fitter guys when it comes to burn down the house, just have a listen.
Bomba EP!!

Part of IF Music founder Jean-Claude’s ever expanding ‘YOU NEED THIS!’ series of compilation albums, the London record shop impresario and DJ takes us on another scintillating musical journey, this time exploring the catalogue of German jazz imprint, Enja Records. Like Jean-Claude’s ‘Journey Into Deep Jazz’ series on BBE Music and his 2017 exploration of Black Saint & Soul Note Records before it, ‘IF MUSIC PRESENTS YOU NEED THIS!: AN INTRODUCTION TO ENJA RECORDS’ provides another impeccably curated and programmed selection of music, assembled by simply one of the most knowledgeable and passionate vinyl specialists in the business. Featuring performances by John Stubblefield, Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land, Don Cherry, Cecil McBee and Pharoah Sanders collaborator Marvin Hannibal Peterson to name but a few, this collection provides a great jumping-off point for Enja’s rich and diverse back catalogue. Founded in 1971 by Munich natives and jazz obsessives Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber, in its heyday Enja released albums by Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Tommy Flanagan and John Scofield, as well as Kenny Barron, Chet Baker, Abbey Lincoln, Bea Benjamin, Freddie Hubbard, to name but a few. Having firmly established itself as “a bastion of all things deep in jazz” as Jean-Claude neatly sums up, Enja also went on to issue early World Music projects from Abdullah Ibrahim, Rabih Abou-Khalil, Mahmoud Turkmani and many others, and it remains active to this day. “There is no doubt that to the uninitiated, a compilation introducing such an esteemed archive is well overdue” says Jean-Claude. “As with previous albums curated by us, this is just a soupçon of this label’s vast back catalogue, which we hope will lead the listener to discover new music and to search out more from this criminally underrated, class act.”

Tracklisting

Most known for his role as songwriter and lead singer of punk rock band
Pennywise, JIM LINDBERG has been making inspiring, thought-provoking
music since the 1990's
Musically, he is influenced by an array of genres from punk and folk music to old
school country and americana. Lyrically, Jim takes inspiration anywhere from
transcendental philosophers to real life events; seeking always to tell a story or
find the answers to life's big questions.
This acoustic solo project is the first from JIM LINDBERG. Produced and mixed
by Tedd Hutt (Gaslight Anthem, Lucero, Dropkick Murphys) it's full of heartfelt
songs, some rousing some sentimental, that are a departure for Jim but will
appeal to diehard Pennywise fans and fans of folky punk singers like Chuck
Regan and Frank Turner

The final installment of the electronic fusion projects that Walter Bachauer concocted for Klaus Schulze’s Innovative Communication label, Visions of Audio delves further into minimalist musique concrete, extending themes developed on Memorymetropolis in drawing on non-European vocal chants, here applied in dissociative layers. The diverse, complex arrangements include the symphonic synths of ‘Promised Land’ and the war-mode Sensurround of ‘1922 In Baku,’ as well as the obtuse loops of ‘The Final Ritual,’ the work inspiring future hitmaker Pilooski. Mondshine fans, Berlin School freaks and abstract electronica lovers should bag it.

Vinyl is limited to 500 copies on black vinyl, no download card. Sunzoom have been making a stir from their Liverpool base and this highly anticipated debut is not to be missed. Lo-fi and DIY in equal measure, the record was only conceived of 4 weeks into the first lockdown when songwriter Greg McVeigh decided that recording music was the only way to stay sane. Building a makeshift studio in the kitchen of his North Liverpool home (and deciding to name the new project SUNZOOM after a favourite Captain Beefheart track) Greg set about learning the processes of home recording from the ground up. The album theme draws upon the peculiar aspects of lockdown; isolation, spiritual introspection, longing to be somewhere else, weird dreams, drinking too much and takes the listener on a journey of escape. The songs move the record through fields, countries, time, space, memories and longings to finally end back at home in the reality of the four walls. Digging into some past unreleased recordings, poems, unfinished snippets of tunes and writing new songs (usually sung into his phone during months of daily beach walks with his dog) Greg began to build a record within the claustrophobic environment of summer 2020. Friends were able to collaborate (by the magic of old recordings and new parts sent via email) and in early 2021 Sunzoom entered ARK Recording Studios in Liverpool to add live drums and vocal parts subsequently spending a month mixing the record back home in the familiar surroundings of the kitchen where the concept first began. The result is a snapshot of the period that magically transforms personal and public strife into glorious pop-folk psychedelia.

Limited 300 180g white vinyl LPs with printed inner Discobag and digital download.

500 CDs in gatefold digifile sleeve.

Each drum controls a virtual musical instrument (synthesizers, samplers, arpeggiators, etc.) within Ableton Live music software that, in combination with a custom step sequencer developed with MaxforLive app, allows Davide to perform real melodies/electronic orchestration without the use of any backing track. 100% live. In addition to that, he also uses a microphone set up in the middle of the drumkit to capture the dynamics of the acoustic drums and translate them through an 'envelope follower' into electronic parts in several ways. About ‘Perceive Reality’: Opener Belief bursts the record into life, as skittering arpeggios spin across a vast open plain of pad synths, before the ground splits beneath it with thrashing drums. On Conceived, Davide creates a simultaneously dark and euphoric wall of crystallised sound, a cacophony of pounding drum hits and icy electronic stabs, with an intensity that continues into Collide. With its shuddering, cut-out reverbed synth pads split in two by crashing cymbals and snares, the song spins itself into a transformative cycling trance, before slowly fading and washing away into silence, only to be broken by Conjectures’ sudden cymbal slams and transfixed toms that roll like thunder into a frenzy, before their final lightning strike. On Subjective, arpeggios twist around beating kick drums and toms, quickly scaling to a furious yet tightly wound sequence that envelops the listener, before Relief, where the album finally takes the shape of a huge wave of calm, glimmering hope and reflection. About the concept behind this latest album, Davide says, “Perceive Reality is a vivid exhortation to deepen the relationship with reality, avoiding simple and often illusory visions. In a historical context that fosters the proliferation of dual information and visions, individuals are increasingly exposed to the danger of perceiving less the complexity of events, thus losing the training to express complex and articulated opinions, the result of a reflection, whether individual or collective. Without having the presumption of resolving epochal issues, the project alerts to the fact that univocal answers do not exist and that only by developing a path of knowledge and giving ourselves the opportunity to examine things in depth, can we enter into the relationship with the existing.” Press highlights so far: Video premiere on Rumore.IT (Italy).

Warm Currency is a new project by Sydney-based friends, artists and musician’s MP Hopkins and Mary MacDougall. Mary began working with MP Hopkins and Christopher Schueler in 2008 as Vincent Over the Sink morphed into The Bowles. ‘Returns’ was recorded in Mary's home during 2020-2021 and is their first release since 2012's The Bowles EP (Kye). Quietly intense folk music, song-poems, and concrète collages built from seemingly simple and delicate arrangements for guitar, keyboards, voice and tape. Recommended if you like Flaming Tunes, Nico, Alistair Galbraith, The Garbage and the Flowers.

Famed free jazz concert registration of an early New Direction for the Art performance. Recorded in 1971. Old-style Gatefold LP, with rare photographs & extensive liner notes by Alan Cummings.

The performance by Takayanagi Masayuki New Direction for the Art at the Gen’yasai festival on August 14, 1971 was an intense, bruising collision between the radical, anti-establishment politics of the period in Japan and the febrile avant-garde music that had begun to emerge a few years before. The ferocious performance that you can hear here was received with outright hostility by the audience, who responded first with catcalls and later with showers of debris that were hurled at the performers. Takayanagi though described the group’s performance to jazz magazine Swing Journal as a success, “an authentic and realistic depiction of the situation”.

In 1962, Takayanagi, bassist Kanai Hideto and painter Kageyama Isamu went on to form an AACM-style musicians’ collective called the New Century Music Research Institute. Every Friday, members gathered at Gin-Paris, a chanson bar in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo, to push the outer limits of jazz creativity.

But the pivotal moment for his music was the creation a new trio version of his New Directions group in August 1969, with the free bassist Yoshizawa Motoharu and a young drummer Toyozumi (Sabu) Yoshisaburō. Experiments eventually led to the creation of two basic frameworks for improvisation that Takayagi referred to as Mass Projection and Gradually Projection.

“La Grima” (tears), the piece that was played at the Gen’yasai festival, is a mass projection and listening to it, you can get a clear sense of what Takayanagi was aiming at. Mass projection involves a dense, speedy and chaotic colouring in of space that destroys the listener’s perception of time, and thus of musical development.

The ferocity of the performance of “La Grima” at the Gen’yasai Festival in Sanrizuka on August 14, 1971 was consciously grounded by Takayanagi in a particular historical moment, ripe with conflict and violence. A month after the festival, on September 16, three policemen would die during struggles at the site. This was the context that the three-day Gen’yasai Festival existed within. The line-up reflected the radical politics of the movement, with leading free jazz musicians like Takayanagi, Abe Kaoru, and Takagi Mototeru appearing alongside radical ur-punkers Zuno Keisatsu, heavy electric blues bands like Blues Creation, and Haino Keiji’s scream-jazz unit Lost Aaraaff.

New Direction for the Arts trio topped the bill on the opening day, playing an aggressive, uncompromising “mass projection” set of polyphonic improvisation. Alongside drummer Hiroshi Yamazaki and saxophonist Kenji Mori, Takayanagi soloed hard and continuously for forty minutes. This was performance as precisely calibrated metaphor: three musicians responding to the demands of the moment with instinctive force and fury, untethered by rules, leaderless yet not rudderless (the direction part of the group’s name was no accident). The piece was entitled La Grima – tears - and the fusion between the palpable anger of the performance and hopeless sadness of its title were also perfectly apt for the situation. This was a fight that the state was always going to win. Yet, by all accounts, the band’s set went down like a fart at a funeral. The band were showered with catcalls and debris throughout, and by chants of “go home” when the music finally came to an end.

However, looking back at the event in the year-end issue of Japan’s leading jazz magazine, Swing Journal, Takayanagi was surprisingly upbeat: New Directions brought a solid political consciousness to our performance and succeeded in an authentic and realistic depiction of the situation. But journalism revealed its superficiality in its inability to penetrate the core of the music. I don’t know much about anyone else, but we at least left behind a competent record.

It’s a fascinating statement in many ways. Perhaps on one-hand it can be read as stubborn, solipsistic and self-justifying, yet in conjunction with his statement in 1971 there are points that guide us towards an understanding of just what Takayanagi intended with his performance at the festival. As Kitazato Yoshiyuki has argued, it becomes an almost religious act, directed at the earth deities of the land. A union of anger, sorrow and malevolence that can be placed nowhere effective, all it can do is find expression and channeling. The forcible land seizures at Narita, the eviction of farmers from land that had been in families for generations, the destruction of communities: none of this can be prevented, not least by an artistic action. All that can be done is an attempt to mark the land itself, to soak it with the combined force of emotions and the volume of the performances, to bury something there that cannot be drowned out, even by the coming roar of jet engines.

Until recently, it was thought that we had heard all there was to hear from Saâda Bonaire. The German studio project's 1980s recordings had been compiled on the now cult-classic double LP Saâda Bonaire, released by Captured Tracks in 2013. Though the group had continued working until 1994, founder Ralph "von" Richtoven had firmly stated that all of their post-1986 work was lost. Released now for the first time ever, 1992 compiles the band's long-lost early nineties material. Produced between Bremen and New York City, the 12 songs presented here capture the group's attempts at steering their trademark fusion sound (reggae, afro-funk, Eastern music, and sultry German female vocals) into uncharted nu jazz, trip-hop, and house territories. It's no surprise, given both the time lapse and the fluid nature of the project, that these recordings differ sonically from the 1980s material. 1992 finds Saâda Bonaire folding new influences from the time (house, hip-hop, rap) into their eclectic sonic universe. Vocalist Andrea Ebert's soulful voice -the result of a church choir background and an early love of American soul and jazz music- offset Stephanie Lange's laid-back, more German-sounding vocals. This unique interplay bolstered the band's new direction - evident in their inspired takes on James Brown's "Woman" and Syreeta Wright and Stevie Wonder's "To Know You Is To Love You". The American influence was also made literal via contributions by renowned DJ Matthias Heillbronn and rapper Jimmy Lee Patterson, both of whom lent some stardust to the tracks at François Kevorkian's Axis Studios in NYC. Unfortunately, the demo recordings were considered too bizarre for 1990s record label standards, and as a result were never published. As with all things Saâda Bonaire, the discovery of these discarded recordings feels like a sort of magical impossibility. It's been nearly ten years since the release of the last compilation, and thirty since the recordings were originally captured. That they still manage to sound fresh and avant garde is a testament to Saâda Bonaire's flair for creating pop music for past, present, and future outsiders.

Cologne-based, multi-instrumentalist and creative jazz powerhouse
Gianni Brezzo presents his full-length LP “Tutto Passa,” arriving via
Berlin’s Jakarta Records May 5th.
Gianni Brezzo is the jazz affiliated band / studio project headed by
Cologne-based producer & creative maestro Marvin Horsch, whose diverse musical profile is reflected both in his scene-hopping as well as his creative output. Besides producing cologne bands like Keshavara, Woman and Xul Zolar, Gianni has released a number of EP and LP’s since 2017, culminating most recently with “The Awakening” EP in 2021 on Jakarta Records. While Gianni’s works are usually instrumental only, “The Awakening” featured vocal appearances from Berlin/Tel Aviv based singer / producer J.Lamotta and soul singer Otis Junior from Louisville, Kentucky. Gianni’s tracks have consistently placed on Editorial Lists including Spotify’s “State Of Jazz” and “Café / Croissant”, and most recently was synced in an episode of Gossip Girl for HBO US.

Gianni’s new LP, “Tutto Passa” is a meditation around Marvin’s relationship to Italian culture, accompanied by research into Italian composers of the 60’s / 70’s such as Piero Umiliani, Stelvio Cipriani, Piero Piccioni and Armando Trovajoli to more recent work by Sven Wunder. Sonically rich, the album rides a sonic wave similar to some Matthew Halsall, Surprise Chef, El Michels Affair and BadBadNotGood all rolled into one beautifully luscious work. Jakarta is ecstatic to share such a career-defining work, arriving May 6th, 2022.

The albums 1st single, “Il Sole” will be released Wednesday, March 2nd with the LP pre-order announcement that Friday, March 4th to capitalize on Bandcamp Friday. The track is a perfect sonic voyage that encapsulates the growth of Gianni’s sound and gives a sonic peak into the LP. Subtle, yet lush layers of synths, horns, keys and strong, beat-driven percussion all ebb and flow together, bringing to mind the finest Library Themes of Umiliani, Sven Wunder, Janko Nilovic and others. Visualizer accompaniments for all singles provided by Robert Winter and his DIE OTTOS crew that perfectly captures the sonic mood.

The LP’s 2nd single, “Capture This,” will be released March 30th and is a splash of pure, groovy, jazz-funk. Instantly catchy, the track will have you imagining yourself in a movie that perfectly captures the musical themes: playful flutes, crisp, fluid guitar riffs, heart-pulling strings, all held together by a strong, swingin’ drum groove.

The third single is the stunning, swirling, thematic track “Rising Of My
Mind.” Careful layers of harmonized brass, flutes, percussion ebb & flow, bubbling up to the acoustic surface like sonic ripples effortlessly bursting from Gianni’s auditory palette. Only reaching the tracks full crescendo more than 2 minutes in, “Rising Of My Mind” is on that finest jazz tip, raising Gianni’s musical caliber into the skies.

Focus track is the effortlessly smooth, soulful jazz-funk piece, “Torino.” Certified fresh, the progression gives you that euphoric, elated feeling, like you’re finally arrived at that special place you never knew existed, but were always meant to find.

“Tutto Passa” is a project with a variety of moods ranging from Arthur
Verocai and David Axelrod inspired arrangements to lush, thematic jazz progressions with a swingin’ percussive edge. It’s a timeless release, one that would sit just as well in 1972 as it does in 2022, and one that, as Gianni says:
“…reflects exactly the feeling I had last year when I was in Italy with my own family. As a musician, I was looking for the challenge of a more orchestral approach on this album, which I hoped to achieve with my arsenal from the Cologne jazz scene and the support of musicians from around the world.”
Besides online promotion from the label and artist profiles, the album will further be promoted by external agencies within the US, UK & Italy

After the successful start with the release of “Follow The Master” by Substantial, Origu teams up with Misfit Music for a 7” by the trio of Kayohes, V3RB and Rusher, two MCs from the US and a producer
and filmmaker from Germany. “Some Way, Some How” gives you powerful raps from V3RB over a deep rhodes-filled instrumental, as “March On” enters your ears with a mellow horn-sample and a stomping drumbreak. Both MCs shine with lyrical skills and clever wordplay, and DJ S.R. delivers some on point cuts.
File alongside your Lord Finesse and Black Moon records.

V3RB, Kayohes & Rusher:
In the late 2000s German producer and filmmaker Rusher and MC and producer Kayohes from Albuquerque, USA, met over Myspace and shortly thereafter united with V3RB to start working on musical projects. Ironically, V3RB, originally from California, and Kayohes met in Germany, while V3RB was on Army duties and Kayohes lived there for a few years. They have maintained their skill trades eversince. With Rusher in the mix, and travelling back and forth between his homecountry and the States for his film projects, it was easy for the three to keep up their artistic operations, recording tracks and making videos.

Submit to the beauty and sorrow, the poetry and power, of the sitar — that plucked string instrument with the long neck, pear-shaped gourd and origins in the courts of the Maharajahs of medieval India. Marvel at the astonishing prowess of Jasdeep Singh Degun, a sitarist who is steeped in the North Indian classical tradition — indeed, in the musical traditions of the Indian subcontinent — and proudly born, raised and based in Leeds, north of England. In May 2022, Jasdeep Singh Degun releases his debut album Anomaly on Real World Records — a project showcasing an almost preternatural musicality, a way with technique, improvisation, composition and collaboration that will dazzle purists and newcomers alike. Its twelve tracks range from inspired sitar solos and duelling sitar and guitar to all stops out cinematic journeying. Music rooted in the ancient repertoire of raags, the frameworks used in the improvised performances of Indian classical music, and delivered with contemporary flair

Repress !

(November Collective Title) Meditative but heaving with energy, Son Lux's third full-length weaves disparate elements into songs both strange and welcoming. On the heals of being named NPR's 'Best New Artist of the Year', Son Lux has created an album that sits as comfortably next to the compositions of Stravinsky, John Adams, David Lang and Ben Frost, as it does to those of Jamie Lidell, Björk, Flying Lotus, and Radiohead. Equal parts producer and composer, Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott) bridges an unusual gap between old-world music theory and next-level experimentation. Meditative but heaving with energy, 'Lanterns' finds a peculiar congruency between futuristic soul and ancient sentiment. Driving orchestral electronica (Lost It To Trying, No Crimes) is placed alongside creepy minimalism (Pyre), often starkly juxtaposing densely layered arrangements with Lott's fragile voice. In recent past Son Lux has gained notoriety both for his s/s/s project (with Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti), and from being named NPR's 'Best New Artist of the Year'. His third full-length album, and his first for Joyful Noise (Kishi Bashi, Sebadoh, etc.), positions Son Lux at the helm of an impressive ensemble of instrumentalists and singers, including Chris Thile (The Punch Brothers), Peter Silberman (The Antlers), DM Stith, Lily & Madeleine, Darren King (Mutemath), Ieva Berberian (Gem Club) and yMusic (Dirty Projectors, Bon Iver).