Buscar:piano

Two Underground London Jazzfloor hits from Paul Murphy's Jazz Room Records.

On the A side Latin Supergroup's wild and infectious "Caliente" with Paquito's Banging piano riff and heavy Bass Line action from Descarga originator Cachao overlaid with Driving vibes from Tany Gil and a Percussion Meltdown from Walfredo De Los Reyes.

On the B side the Vienna Art Orchestra provide a dark and mysterious version of the Bud Powell classic "Un Poco Loco" keeping that Be-Bop Afro-Cuban vibe but adding that East of the Border darkness you'd expect from a sound recorded at the time the city was on the Cold War fault line.

Gilles Peterson (Worldwide / Brownswood):

"Paul Murphy found almost every jazz dancefloor classic. He is the original messenger of jazz. He opened the door to an alternative way of being a Dj. The rest is history.

Previously known for his progressive trance works, van Wyk has spent a lot of his time as of late composing for the film industry. In 2013, his solo output switched to more pastoral forms of neo-classical leaning ambient with his first full-length Days You Remember, before moving into more piano-based composition for Attachment (2016) and Opacity (2017).

Threads does reflect some of his previous ambient works; however, the album shows van Wyk composing music for (and of) current times. There is a much-welcomed underlying beauty to Threads, but there are also threads of anxious- ness and unwavering intensity throughout its forty-minute run-time. It's an engaging listen full of texture where each piece takes you on an engrossingly escapist journey.

The International Feel label is back from an extended meditation. Well-rested and with a cornucopia of new ideas and records, IFeel is happy to announce the debut album from Charlie Charlie as the starting shot. „Little Things“ is the brainchild of Gabriella Borbély alias Bella Boo and Jens Resch better known as Chords. Born on a beach in Southern California instead of their hometown Stockholm, it is exactly what you would hope for such a record to be: pop music that is informed by hippie or counter culture and by a Balearic ethos (hence the International Feel address) that is free of blinkered definitions. In equal parts, the duo’s ten songs take the listener through honey dripping r&b, while respelling that certain Californian recording studio sound aesthetic, revisit vintage yacht rock and pop tropes as well as they are reflecting dance music influences in a broken, yet gold framed mirror. Most of all, it’s like a day dream that you don’t want to end. To quote our Italian friends from Edizioni Mondo: good listening experience!

Band info:
Charlie is Gabriella Borbély – also known as Stockholm's deep house virtuoso Bella Boo. Charlie is Jens Resch – also known as prodigious producer/musician Chords. The two Charlies met on a beach in Southern California and immediately decided to write a song together.
That first track was built on the sampled sounds of a rusty drainpipe. Charlie fired up a dusty ARP Odyssey and played a woozy solo over the drainpipe beats, then the other Charlie did the same, using that same legendary 70's analogue synth. When they realized the two separately recorded solos played together in perfect harmony, they knew they had to keep heading down their newly found, shared musical path.
Charlie & Charlie have since continued making music together, describing their common process as liberating, free-flowing, genre-less. "Little Things", their debut album, is made up of tracks recorded in Los Angeles and Stockholm, using that very same ARP as well as pianos, electric guitars and machines like the Prophet 6, the Juno-106 and the Syncussion SY-1. Vocal contributions come from the Charlies themselves as well as friends like Mapei and Julimar Santos.

Laidback summer vibes over a brazilian rhythm and a little brokenbeat anyone?
The London based artist Toma got you covered with his debut NothingCanEverBe.
RawMTs Interpretation of it is a 10 minute subaquatic trip taking you deeper and deeper for ultimate relaxation.
Now for the dancers: JKs Oldschool Remix is a LoFi workout with an irresistible groove in classic LOVEiT House tradition whereas Jo Pariotas Remix preserves the brazilian vibes and the vocals from the original but spices everything up with a phat housey beat, warm chords and some funky piano sprinkles on top. - morri313

Para One presents " Sundial ", the third extract from his new album SPECTRE: Machines of Loving Grace. After " Shin Sekai " and its commanding choir and drums, the chilling skies of " Alpes ", the producer points his arrow towards the heart. The track goes only up, from its hopeful arpeggio, a melodic bassline building higher floors, towering with layers of direct yet fine drawn synth chords. " Sundial " is wide and intimate, nostalgic, and confident at the same time.

The " Sundial " EP offers 3 remixes. Hot Chip draw first with a dance floor ready version, adding their own signature riffs and textures to the original canvas. The " Nodandanintheokotantan Mix " by England born / Berlin based Call Super chooses a playful replaying of the whole piece, changed into an array of micro percussions, reshaping the main melody from bits and pieces, until a plain piano enters the frame. Finally, Para One himself reworks " Sundial " and reveals even more the versatility of the original track, remodeling it into a manifest to dance, elastic beats and house music stabs in hand.

There’s liberation on the dance floor in the songs of Matthew Urango – glimpses of revolution that glimmer beneath the disco ball. “I want my music to bring people together,” says the Californian pop innovator, best known as Cola Boyy. “Because standing together is our best chance at fighting this shit show.” The shit show in question is a broken, brutal system the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist has witnessed up-close. Urango was born with spina bifida and scoliosis in Oxnard, California: a town in which almost 30,000 are estimated to live in poverty. Prosthetic Boombox, his eagerly awaited debut album, might at first glance seem a joyous confetti-burst of pop eclecticism, engineered to sound like “scanning between stations on a car radio, landing on all these different sounds and styles” as Urango puts it. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll discover a simmering sense of rebellion. “The working class are injured, struggling to pay rent and struggling to put food on the table,” he says. “I want to represent that.” Prosthetic Boombox
achieves that goal in a thrilling flurry of inventive indie, funk and soul: take Urango’s car radio analogy, place it in a time-travelling Delorean with Prince in the passenger seat, and you’re half-way there.

Look no closer than Prosthetic Boombox’s euphoric opener, the Avalanches-assisted ‘Don’t Forget Your Neighbourhood.’ The track – which Urango says mixes “the Beach Boys, French disco, house keys and ragtime piano, kinda like the Cheers soundtrack!” – ends with lyrics urging listeners to “fight for your town with your fist closed, strike it and make it more than just a memory.” It’s a reminder that the working classes need to “turn our fists against our oppressors instead of each other,” he explains. After that emphatic introduction comes a horn-laced funk wig-out titled ‘Mailbox’ – a song that gives Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia a run for its Studio 54-themed money, featuring rising Londoner JGrrey. Elsewhere, ‘Song for the Mister’ ventures into smooth R&B territory, before ‘Roses’ – a collaboration with Myd of Ed Banger fame – offers a bouquet of bustling disco guitars and infinite bisous of Connan Mockasin’s band drops in on the immaculate ‘Go the Mile’. Urango saves his most introspective moment for the album’s starry closer. ‘Kid Born in Space’, a cosmic collaboration with MGMT frontman Andrew VanWyngarden, sees the artist reflect on what he once had to overcome as a disabled person of colour. “I see them looking down on my dreams of being,” he sings tenderly. “I hear them making fun of my voice, but I keep on moving forward, I refuse to live in anyone else’s shadow.” Prosthetic Boombox, on this subject, is more than an album title – it’s a statement of intent.

“The message of my music is that our class is exploited, oppressed and murdered on the daily. That’s not right, and the system that enables that deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth,” he says. “The only way that happens is if we’re united. That’s the point of my music – to relate to people and unite them.” And what unites more than raucous, irresistibly danceable pop? Prosthetic Boombox is a riot of joyous grooves and catchy hooks for good reason. “I want to reach and spread my message to as many people as possible. You can’t do that if you’re some obscure motherfucker, you know?” he laughs. Don’t bet on him being an “obscure motherfucker” for long.

‘Ruminations feels like a direct line into the spirit of Right Now. Oberst reckons with having the fabric of his life ripped apart by a disease of the flesh he couldn’t control or understand. Perhaps that sounds familiar? He paints a startling picture of how surreal life becomes when backlit by illness… these songs are heartrendingly beautiful, filled with the beauty of day-drunkenness and Proustian flights into memory and waking up in the afternoon and realizing that, however imperfect the day is, it’s a day.’
– GQ (2020)

Conor Oberst’s critically acclaimed 2016 solo album, Ruminations, will be released in a double-LP expanded edition – featuring five bonus tracks, four previously unreleased, as well as an etching on side D – on Record Store Day, June 12; it will be made available widely in all formats on July 23. The five bonus tracks were recorded during the Ruminations sessions; while full band versions of them were released on the 2017 companion album Salutations, these solo acoustic recordings are now included for the first time on Ruminations.

Ruminations was recorded in the winter of 2016, when Oberst found himself hibernating in his hometown of Omaha after living in New York City for more than a decade. He emerged with the unexpectedly raw, unadorned album, which NPR called one of his ‘most personal records… a collection of brave, dark songs… unmistakably moving and contain[ing] some of Oberst's best lyrics and imagery.’ The Sunday Times further said it was his ‘rawest album yet. Political and very, very personal’, calling Oberst ‘one of the best songwriters around’, and including the album in its list of best of the year.

“I wasn't expecting to write a record,” said Oberst in 2016. “I honestly wasn’t expecting to do much of anything. Winter in Omaha can have a paralyzing effect on a person but in this case it worked in my favour. I was just staying up late every night playing piano and watching the snow pile up outside the window. Next thing I knew I had burned through all the firewood in the garage and had more than enough songs for a record. I recorded them quick to get them down but then it just felt right to leave them alone.”

In the Nebraska studio he built with his Bright Eyes bandmate and longtime friend Mike Mogis, Oberst recorded all the songs in the span of forty-eight hours. The results are almost sketch-like in their sparseness, and they ultimately became the songs that comprise Ruminations. These tracks do not have the multi-layered instrumentation of the most recent Bright Eyes and solo albums: This is Oberst alone with his guitar, piano, and harmonica; the songs connect with some of the rough magic and anxious poetry that first brought him to the attention of the world.

The third release from Fred Laird was recorded during the period June 2020 and January 2021 on 24trk home studio recording. It is also the first album recorded purely as a solo artist with the occasional guest and draws more from a roots style music (trad it isn’t) than previous more psychedelic releases.
‘Inspiration for the album came from listening to the self-recorded primal music of Hasil Adkins and the first solo Link Wray album for Polydor. The idea of these guys just doing what they wanted back of beyond seemed more akin to me sat in a box room during lockdown feeding off a diet of Billy Chong Kung Fu horror flicks, David Lynch, Noir crime movies, Jean Cocteau and the works of Yukio Mishima.
Musically the sound draws from early Bad Seeds or Crime and the City Solution, Gallon Drunk, Bohren and Der Club of Gore, The Cramps, Hasil Adkins and various other trash inspired twilight creatures. I also wanted to try and create that spooky organ sound that dominates the midnight movie classic ‘Carnival Of Souls’, so there’s quite a lot of organ and piano going on. I also got my hands on a baritone guitar to give the songs more of a deep growly twang!
Vocals are provided by Daisy Atkinson for the Jean Cocteau dedication ‘Orphee’ which is the nearest thing to a pop song on the album and the echoey almost Sister Lover’s sound of the title track. I got sick of my own shit voice and I just thought a female voice would give it a more fragile ethereal vibe.
Mike Blatchford provides formidable saxophone to the album’s last three tracks which were recorded on his mobile phone 300 miles away and synched into the music. The big blasted swing blues of ‘The Big Duvall’ is a dedication to Andy Duvall of Carlton Melton – a big guy who needed a big song. Who knows how big the song could have been in a proper studio. I could have dedicated it to John Wayne but Wayne couldn’t chop down trees with his bare hands like Andy can….’

Soul Jazz Records’ new oxblood red coloured vinyl
LP (plus download code) issue of this very rare
deep spiritual jazz album, first released as a
private-press album in 1970 on flautist Lloyd
McNeill’s own Asha Record label in Washington
DC.
Lloyd McNeill is an African-American flautist,
painter, poet and photographer born in Washington
D.C., in 1935. His multi-disciplinary creative life led
to encounters and friendships with Nina Simone,
Picasso, Eric Dolphy, Nana Vasconceles and other
legendary cultural figures. Lloyd McNeill’s hypnotic
‘Washington Suite’ was originally commissioned as
a piece of music for the Capital Ballet Company, in
Washington.
McNeill grew up through the era of the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1960s and his life and work is a
reflection of those ideals. In the mid-1960s he
moved to France where he became friends with
Picasso, working with a number of émigré-jazz
musicians whilst living in Paris. In the late 1960s
he taught jazz and painting workshops at the New
Thing Art and Architecture Center in Washington.
In the 1970s he travelled throughout Brazil and
West Africa studying music and taught music
anthropology in the US.

In 2020, 4AD turned 40. Never one to be on time for a party, the label is
commemorating that landmark this year with the release of ‘Bills & Aches & Blues’.
The compilation features 18 of its current artists covering a song of their
choosing from 4AD’s past: a creative experiment rooted in the spirit of
collaboration and a snapshot of 4AD, 41 years after its inception.
‘Bills & Aches & Blues’ will be released on double CD and double LP. The
first 12 months’ profits from ‘Bills & Aches & Blues’ will be donated to The
Harmony Project, a Los Angeles-based after-school programme for children
from communities and schools that lack equitable access to studying the arts
or music.
‘Bills & Aches & Blues’’ 18 recordings contain fascinating connections
between artist and track. The earliest song chosen (by U.S. Girls) is The
Birthday Party’s ‘Junkyard’, from 1981; the most recent are the two Grimes
covers (‘Genesis’ and ‘Oblivion’, respectively by Spencer. and Dry Cleaning)
from 2012. Suitably, for the one band that bridges 4AD past and present, The
Breeders are all over ‘Bills And Aches And Blues. They’re covered three
times - ‘Cannonball’ by Tune-Yards, ‘Mountain Battles’ by Bradford Cox of
Deerhunter and ‘Off You’ by Big Thief, whilst The Breeders cover ‘The Dirt
Eaters’ by their ‘90s contemporaries His Name Is Alive.
Landmark songs such as ‘Cannonball’, ‘Song To The Siren’ and Pixies’
‘Where is My Mind?’ will feel comfortable to casual fans, however by
contrast, much joy can be found in the album’s surprise choices, such as Air
Miami’s ‘Seabird’ and the Lush B-side ‘Sunbathing’, covered respectively by
new signings Maria Somerville and Jenny Hval.
‘Bills & Aches & Blues’ is named, arguably (as Elizabeth Fraser never
published the lyrics), after the opening line of Cocteau Twins ‘CherryColoured Funk’. Perhaps too unique and uncoverable in their own right, their
legendary take on Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’, under the name This
Mortal Coil (along with Buckley’s pre-Starsailor acoustic version) informs
SOHN’s cover.
Some tracks unearth hitherto hidden shared DNA, such as Future Islands’
and Colourbox’s ‘The Moon Is Blue’; other tracks are more akin to
reinvention. Aldous Harding distils the melodic essence of Deerhunter’s
‘Revival’ and recasts it in her own uncanny image. U.S. Girls’ future-disco
‘Junkyard’ and Bing & Ruth’s neo-classical instrumental ‘Gigantic’ are even
more radical interpretations. Leading off the album, Tkay Maidza brings both
her Art Rap and R&B game, but also an unexpected ‘80s synth pop template,
to Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind?’, a perfect title for these chaotic times.

George Otsuka (or Ohtsuka), sadly passed away in March 2020, was one of Japan’s most renowned jazz drummers. ‘Sea Breeze’, released in 1971on the Union label, is his first record in quintet formation and is reissued here on a single LP housed in a gatefold sleeve.

And we can say that George Otsuka knew how to surround himself: Shunzo Ohno is on trumpet and Flugelhorn, Takao Uematsu on tenor sax and soprano, Takashi Mizuhashi on bass and Hideo Ichikawa on electric piano.

If all the tracks on this album are solid, included the astonishing cover of “Fool on the Hill”, it is especially “Sea Breeze”, the eponymous track opening the album that will make an impression. A super and long jazz-funk track where the five musicians, in perfect osmosis, leave each other enough space to express the full extent of their talent.

Recent copies of the original vinyl,which were only released in Japan have sold for £200-300.

180g vinyl 2LP set in deluxe gatefold sleeve with iconic pictures by jazz
photographer Francis Wolff. Originally released as The Jazz Messengers at
the Caf Bohemia Vol.1 (Blue Note BLP 1507 and BLP 1508.
One of the definitive bands of the hard bop genre, The Jazz Messengers’ soulful and hard driving sound set the benchmark of excellence in jazz. The present
set, recorded live at the celebrated Caf Bohemia in New York, was one of the
best from their early years.
This music originally appeared divided into two 12” volumes, whose contents
are included in their entireties on this 2-LP set.
“There’s excellent, cohesive trumpet by Kenny Dorham and piano by Horace
Silver that leaps into the emotions. Doug Watkins is equal to the never-coasting
rhythmic demands of Silver and the omni-cooking Art Blakey.”

A classic Vee-Jay side from 1965 that originally sneaked out on the Bay Area Wee label. The´original goes for around £100, the second Wee press for £75, while the Vee-Jay version is 50 quid a throw. That said, copies are few and far between these days.
Featuring an upbeat, brass-powered Temptationslike harmony with a call and response, a deep sax
wail and a piano motif pushing it forward towards a
glorious middle eight that breaks into a Gospel roll
out.
Powered by Ric-Tic-like drum rolls; a euphoric
soulful classic split into two essential parts.
The Ballads were a four-piece from Oakland,
across the bridge from San Francisco, featuring
Freddie Hughes, who would later sign to Wand.
The band themselves almost made it, charting in
1968 with the Willie Hutch-produced ‘God Bless
Our Love’ but this earlier recording is the business.
Both sides remastered from the original sound
source.

Transversales Disques proudly presents Archie Shepp – Live In Paris (1974), a never released before ORTF recording performed live at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio (Paris), remastered from the original tapes.
The musicians at the recording session were Archie Shepp (Saxophone), Noël McGhie (drums), Bob Reid (Double Bass), Pablo Kino (Percussion) ans Siegfried Kessler (Piano).
These exclusive recordings will be available as Deluxe Gatefold Tip-On Vinyl LP.

We're extremely proud to present HAPPENSTANCE, a sprawling jazz-concrète project produced by Johannesburg composer and double bass player Shane Cooper. Approached in 2020 by interdisciplinary arts space The Centre For The Less Good Idea to create audio work, Cooper drew on his network in the thriving South African jazz scene, bringing in Bokani Dyer (piano), Cara Stacey (bows), Daliwonga Tshangela (cello), Gontse Makhene (percussion), Jonno Sweetman (percussion) and Micca Manganye (percussion).

Two days of free-flowing composition, improvisation and investigative recording followed, with the results captured on a vintage reel-to-reel tape machine. This tape was fractured and reassembled by Cooper, bringing into surreal focus tiny ecosystems of sound, like curls of static clasped from the air and brought under the magnifying glass. The results - two long, standalone pieces - are dizzying, weightless; musique concrète melding with jazz-schooled virtuosity in a dubbed out bricolage of interludes and u-turns.

Recommended for fans of Abdullah Ibrahim, Tony Allen, Floating Points and Daphne Oram.

"The Shape Of Jazz To Come" - Ornette Coleman (as); Don Cherry (crt); Charlie Haden (b); Billy Higgins (dr)

It was John Lewis, pianist of the Modern Jazz Quartet, who brought Ornette Coleman to the renowned Atlantic label, having heard him play in Los Angeles. »Ornette Coleman is doing the only really new thing in jazz …« he reportedly said. The present initial Atlantic album was released just in time to coincide with the New York debut of the Coleman Quartet in November 1959. Lewis was sure that Coleman would open up new paths for jazz, and his opinion is reflected in the title of the album – "The Shape Of Jazz To Come". After the rather worn-out hard bop routine of the past years, this music was like a breath of fresh air. The fast numbers ("Eventuality", "Chronology") remind one of wildly hyped-up bebop. Other numbers ("Congeniality", "Focus On Sanity") juggle with catchy, almost folk like short motifs. This album contains two of Coleman’s most beautiful compositions: "Peace" and "Lonely Woman", which was later given lyrics and often heard in its vocal version. The Mulligan-Baker Quartet provided the model for the pianoless quartet – and when the band swings along once in a while with a moderato tempo, it is truly reminiscent of cool jazz. Be that as it may, the two wind instrumentalists just love the frenetic 'cry' and the intentionally 'imprecise' interplay. Clearly defined stanzas or traditional harmonic forms were not for them. The jazz musicologist Peter N. Wilson wrote: »A record, which is not unjustifiably so entitled« about this LP which was given 5 stars by the magazine Rolling Stone.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under pure-analogue

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: May 1959 at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, CA, by Bones Howe

Production: Nesuhi Ertegun

For more than five decades, John McLaughlin has deployed his peerless guitar technique, compositional gifts, and imagination in service of a deeply personal higher calling, forging a vast legacy unmatched in improvised music. Now as the world reels from the toll of the ongoing viral-induced global lockdown, McLaughlin reflects on both the perils and potential of this challenging moment with ‘Liberation Time’. Characterised by both joy and reflection, ‘Liberation Time’ finds McLaughlin harnessing his frustrations and redirecting that energy. “The result,” he explains in a candid liner note, “was an explosion of music in my mind.”. Unusual for McLaughlin’s recent projects, ‘Liberation Time’ is not the work of one fixed ensemble. With physical proximity no longer a prerequisite, McLaughlin drew upon decades of experience as a bandleader to select musicians best suited to each composition. “That is a choice that can only be made correctly if you know how the musicians play,” he explains. “Not just how well they play technically, but how they play intuitively. Only then can you make the right decisions.” “As the Spirit Sings” introduces the album by contrasting churning rhythmic tension (stoked by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Sam Burgess) with McLaughlin’s soaring guitar figure - all underpinned by Gary Husband’s subtle,expansive piano. Knotty post-bop figures form the basis of “Right Here, Right Now, Right On,” one of the most jazz-inflected performances McLaughlin has laid down in some time, featuring Nicolas Viccaro (drums), Jerome Regard (bass), Julian Siegel (tenor saxophone), and Oz Ezzeldin (piano). It is impossible to ignore the profound brotherhood that exists between the members of 4th Dimension - McLaughlin’s current ensemble, which includes Husband along with Etienne Mbappe (bass) and Ranjit Barot (drums). They are featured on the soulful “Lockdown Blues,” a playful refraction examination of blues tropes first released last summer to benefit the Jazz Foundation of America.

Glamourama Records Classic Lps On 180g Vinyl + 7” Bonus Single On Colored Vinyl Included Inside (plus bonus track “I Gotta Know”. Package includes an exclusive collector’s re-release of a very rare 1960 single including the hits “It’s Now or Never” and “A Mess of Blues”. ELVIS PRESLEY vocals and guitar, plus: Scotty Moore (guitar), Bob Moore (bass), D.J. Fontana or Buddy Harman (drums), Floyd Cramer (piano), The Jordanaires (backing vocals). Recorded at RCA’s Studio B, Nashville, Tennessee, March 20 & 21, 1960. Hank Garland (guitar), Boots Randolph (saxophone & claves), Charlie Hodge (vocal harmony). Recorded at RCA’s Studio B, Nashville, March & April 1960. Produced by Steve Sholes & Chet Atkins. 7” SINGLE: ELVIS PRESLEY, vocals and guitar; Scotty Moore (guitar), Hank Garland (electric bass on “A Mess of Blues”, guitar on “It’s Now or Never”), Bob Moore (bass), D.J. Fontana or Buddy Harman (drums), Floyd Cramer (piano), The Jordanaires (backing vocals), Homer “Boots” Randolph (sax) added on “It’s Now or Never”. Recorded at RCA’s Studio B, Nashville, April 4, 1960 (“It’s Now or Never) & March 21, 1960 (“A Mess of Blues”). Originally issued on the single 7” RCA Victor 47-7777 in 1960

Sam Prekop's eponymously titled LP is a study in pop nuances. Simultaneously transporting the listener from mild climes and swinging palms to darkened skies and wind blown steppes, the record will be easily recognized by fans of The Sea and Cake. Known to many as the singer and main songwriter for said group, Mr. Prekop is assisted on this release by Chad Taylor (Chicago Underground Duo), Josh Abrams (ex-Roots, Town and Country), Jim O'Rourke (Gastr del Sol) and Archer Prewitt (The Sea and Cake). Those expecting to find more of the computer beats and trickery found on The Fawn and Two Gentlemen are in for a surprise. Whilst prevalent on "Faces and People" - (a lucious groove overlayed by cornet and guitar), the computer takes a back seat to real strings, drums, piano, electric piano and organ as well as electric and acoustic bass. The subtle grooves, a trademark of The Sea and Cake records, are still present here as Sam and his band blend West African rhythms with a bit of soul, jazz and pop. The resulting record is something wholly original, elegant and earthy. A cauldren, if you will, of sweet smelling and enlightening stew. So line up, grab a spoon, and dig in. All the ingredients and intoxicating aromas necessary for an auditory feast are contained within.

Tonnon produced the album with longtime collaborator, and The Beths’ guitarist and producer, Jonathan Pearce. Tonnon wrote the bulk of the songs during an extensive period of touring after the release of Successor - a period where Tonnon performed with Nadia Reid in Europe, The Veils in the USA, and The Chills, The Phoenix Foundation and Don McGlashan in New Zealand. The pair workshopped songs between tours, often recording new parts as the live versions developed.

Tonnon and Pearce recorded between 2017 and 2020, and in that time, Tonnon’s practise evolved heavily. He incorporated new technology into his set, including the Wellington-designed Synthstrom Deluge, which allowed him to adapt his set for new performance environments;Art Galleries, Museums, even New Zealand Fashion Week. He took that technology further when he collaborated with the Otago Museum on the immersive show for Planetariums, A Synthesized Universe, which travelled to Arts Festivals around New Zealand in 2019.

Creating a music video for ‘Old Images,’ which explored a lost passenger train network, Tonnon came to the idea for a new experience-based show called Rail Land. It took audiences on railways to reach distant community halls around Aotearoa. The show saw Tonnon combine historical research and spoken word narrative, with the immersive lighting and musical technology he developed for A Synthesized Universe. In March, Rail Land finished a three-night run at Auckland Arts Festival, cementing Tonnon’s move to the concept show.

Over time, Tonnon and Pearce’s production moved further from the traditional rhythm sections that powered songs like Successor’s ‘Water Underground.’ In their place came off kilter electronic rhythms, like the beat in ‘Two Free Hands,’ and textures that blur lines between organic and synthesized sound. Guitars are set against synthesizers, and drums against drum machines in ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Peacetime Orders,’ which Tonnon also used in his soundtrack for RNZ’s 80s spy-themed podcast The Service. In ‘Leave Love Out Of This,’ a ballad starts with a piano and a string quartet, but ends in a wall of electronic sound.

The constant has been Tonnon’s lyrics. Whether singing about evolution and the future of work in ‘Two Free Hands,’ the television industry in ‘Entertainment,’ or environmental disaster and regulatory failure in ‘Mataura Paper Mill,’ Tonnon has followed a distinct approach to subject matter, description and phrasing that have seen him longlisted for the APRA Silver Scroll three times.

Tonnon’s explorations of local government and civic infrastructure in his work - an unusual preoccupation for a songwriter, have taken new meaning in his adopted home of Whanganui, where last year, he was elected by councillors as Whanganui District Council’s representative for public transport.

After Tonnon moved to Whanganui, and Pearce toured almost constantly after the success of The Beths’ first album, the pair conducted their collaboration over distance, but with key sessions at Pearce’s Karangahape Road studio, including drums and bass with long time band members Stuart Harwood and David Flyger, a string quartet led by Charmian Keay and arranged by Matthew Bodman, and additional drums with The Beths’ Tristan Deck.

As Leave Love Out Of This is released, Tonnon and Pearce find themselves in very different places to where they started, working on Auckland’s Karangahape Road, close to the venues like Wine Cellar and Whammy Bar where they regularly performed. Back in New Zealand since Covid, Pearce has had to adjust to being in one of Aotearoa’s best-known bands, while Tonnon, when not working on conceptual shows, wrestles with how to restore civic infrastructure to a post industrial city in the regions.

Created over a life-altering period of, Leave Love Out Of This is the culmination of years of experimentation and development - with new technology, new sounds, and new ways of creating, and performing music.