$45.00
Electro Funk trailblazer Gary Gritness re-imagines Don Cherry’s late 70s and early 80s experiments through a synthed-out prism, reworking the standard jazz trio format into synth, saxophone and analogue drum machine for a one-take live session featuring a guest appearance from Malian Kora maestro Ballake Sissoko. - Bandcamp
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Label: Komos – KOS 004 LTD |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: France |
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Released: 2019 |
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Genre: Jazz |
$39.00
Lyon-based psychedelic jazz outfit Palm Unit follow up their recent tribute to Jef Gilson on the Supersonic Jazz label by highlighting the revolutionary side of French Jazz figurehead Henri Texier and his fascination with different folkloric traditions from around the world. The session stands as something of an ecological manifesto, recycling Henri’s original com- positions with new settings and arrangements, preserving Henri’s worldview but adding a dense textural base that pushes the session into more cosmic territory.Don’t Buy Ivory Anymore! - Bandcamp
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Label: Komos – KOS 003 LP |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: France |
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Released: 2019 |
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Genre: Jazz |
$39.00
Charismatic guitar savant Sibusile Xaba reframes maskandi and the avant garde into his own humanist manifesto.
With a vocal style that is part dreamscaping and part ancestral invocation, Xaba divines as opposed to plainly singing. Combined with a guitar style that is rooted in expressive picking, Xaba's music shatters the confines of genre, taking only the fundamentals from mentors such as Madala Kunene and Dr Philip Tabane and imbuing these with a mythology and improvisational intensity all of his own. The song TRIBUTE TO BAFO that features on this new record is an homage to Madala "Bafo" Kunene.
Maskandi, malombo, the desert blues and jazz all figure in Sibusile Xaba's expansive vocabulary, albeit through a magnetic individual filter. After the acclaimed release of ‘Opened Letter to Adoniah’ in 2017, Sibusile’s second album NGIWU SHWABADA was recorded in one continuous take at Studio Pigalle in Paris, France, in May 2019. It features his long-time musical companion Naftali on additional vocals.
Sibusile explains the philosophy behind this second album NGIWU SHWABADA ( I am of SHWABADA – a spiritual lineage) : ‘The record is a dedication to my ancestors for all the love, blessings and guidance they continue to share.These songs are conversations I have had with them, transmitted into songs to be shared with mankind. The elements of the record are waters & the great feminine spirit.’ - Bandcamp
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Label: Komos – KOS 008 LP |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: France |
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Released: 14 Feb 2020 |
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Genre: Jazz, Folk, World, & Country |
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Style: African |
$39.00
They first crossed paths whilst filming Damien Chazelle The Eddy series – they immediately recognized each other!
To our right, Randy Kerber, born in 1958, betrothed to the piano and keys at a very early age. At 19, he set off on tours alongside Bette Midler, Lionel Hampton and Don Ellis, major figures of jazz, the music he quickly became familiar with. He then accompanied musicians as renowned as Quincy Jones, B.B. King, Michael Jackson, Leonard Cohen, Whitney Houston, and Frank Sinatra. Yet it is on the silver screen that Randy Kerber made a name for himself and his fingers by taking part in over a thousand (1000!) full-length feature films. He played the solos in Forrest Gump, Titanic and La La Land, as well as orchestrating many scores, including Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Dark Knight, The Legend of Zorro and The Color Purple.
To our left, Jowee Omicil, born in 1977 in Montréal, a musician of Haitian descent. His mother died when he was just five years old. His father, a pastor, encouraged him to enroll in a music school at 15. He began on the piano but quickly opted for reed instruments – soprano an alto sax, clarinet…He has played alongside Branford Marsalis, Richard Bona, Marcus Miller, Wyclef Jean… and all together, has released five albums as a bandleader (4) or in his own name (1).
Antoine Rajon, head of the jazz label Komos, brought them together in the Studio Pigalle in July 2020. The result is the Y Pati album – thirteen pieces combining pure improvisation, fleeting moments, the desire to play, long dialogues, rambling duos, jazz antics, a nod to Miles, blues fantasies, a tribute to Jowee’s father or a tender gesture for Randy’s daughter. – Light in the attic
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Label: Komos – KOS 011 LP |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, 45 RPM, Album, Numbered |
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Country: France |
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Released: 11 Dec 2020 |
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Genre: Jazz, Classical |
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Style: Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation |
$48.00
This is the first stop on Sven Wunder’s musical journey. Wunder takes the listener somewhere around the easternmost part of the Mediterranean Sea, around the Levantine Sea, where he paints a colourful portrait and illustrates the regions flora through sound. The fruitage is a vivid bouquet where Wunder fuses colours and pigments by using traditional and modern instruments merged with arrangements and melodies that stretches from popular to folk music by portraying tulips, red roses, hibiscus, hyacinths, chamomile, magnolia, daisies etcetera. With both fine and thick brushes are these flowers being pictured in a both modern and classic idiom. The outcome is prismatic. It stands between Anatolian rock and European jazz-funk with ponderous drum patterns, groovy organs, far-out synthesizers, enchanting Saz and impetuous bass lines. Eastern Flowers sweeps through time and space and points towards the future. It could appeal both psych and prog listeners, folk or jazz aficionados and as well the gourmet hip hop connoisseurs. - Bandcamp
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Label: Piano Piano – PP1001 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: Sweden |
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Released: 2020 |
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Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul, Folk, World, & Country |
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Style: Jazz-Funk |
$39.00
Hot on the heels of their ‘Sampled Funk’ selection, the folks at Wagram apply the same approach to soul, lounge and easy listening, raiding the crates for those smooth grooves, gospel scorchers and tearjerkers that generations of producer have flipped for high quality hip hop and house. Perfect for wax nerds, sample spotters and bar DJs, this collection features jamz from Ray Charles, Timmy Thomas, Dusty Springfield and Etta James.
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Label: Wagram Music – 3391336 |
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Series: Sampled Collection |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Compilation |
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Country: France |
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Released: 5 Mar 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz |
$45.00
Beyond their highly sought after 1978 album Festa Para Um Novo Rei - home to the mystical jazz-funk classic ‘Vidigal’ and released on Philips’ iconic Musica Popular Brasileira Contemporanea series (MPBC) - little is known about Marcos Resende & Index, even to aficionados of rare Brazilian music. Far Out Recordings is immensely proud to present their previously unreleased self-titled debut album from 1976, contributing a crucial missing work from the glory days of progressive Brazilian instrumental music.
A prodigious child, Marcos Resende learned to play the accordion at the age of two, and taught himself the piano at six. In spite of his immense potential to become a musician he travelled to Lisbon in the 60s to study medicine, though he continued to explore his musical passion on the side, forming a trio which ended up opening for Dexter Gordon at the Cascais Jazz Festival in 1971. From here he formed the electronic oriented prog-jazz group Status, who opened shows for the likes of Elton John, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, but in spite of their relative live success they have no known recordings.
Now established as a highly regarded keyboardist, composer, and innovative electronic musician, Resende returned home to Brazil following Portugal’s Revolução dos Cravos in 1974. Inspired and invigorated by US jazz and British progressive rock he’d experienced while residing in Europe, Resende went all out acquiring a keyboard arsenal to be reckoned with, which included the Prophet 5, Yamaha CP-708 and Mini Moog. Determined to integrate his newfound inspirations with Brazilian rhythms and jazz traditions, he formed a new quartet with Rubão Sabino (bass), Claudio Caribé (drums) and the late great Oberdan Magalhães, of Banda Black Rio and Cry Babies fame. Marcos Resende & Index recorded their self-titled debut at Sonoviso Studios with the legendary sound engineer Toninho Barbosa, known as the ‘Brazilian Rudy Van Gelder’ whose impressive resumé includes the era defining classics Light As A Feather by Azymuth, Previsão Do Tempo by Marcos Valle, and Quem É Quem by João Donato. Marcos Resende & Index fits perfectly amongst these masterpieces, sharing both the timeless ethereal qualities as well as the progressive and futuristic ideals of Light As A Feather in particular.
Though he wasn’t short of offers to release the album, Resende felt record companies were de-valuing the time and effort he spent absorbing his influences while establishing a career in Europe, and perfecting his sound with his Brazilian bandmates, as well as the magnitude of the recording they achieved. As time passed, Resende become one of the most revered session keyboardists in Brazil, and played on records by Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, Carlos Dafé and Gal Costa, among many others; as a result his career as a bandleader took a backseat, and this remarkable recording has stayed below the surface til now. - Bandcamp
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Label: Far Out Recordings – FARO220LP |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: UK |
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Released: 29 Jan 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz, Latin |
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Style: Fusion |
$48.00
'An Insight To All Minds' is Kaidi's 3rd solo album under his own name, following several EPs and two albums for First Word; 2018's acclaimed 'It's A World Before You' and the re-press of his seminal 2008 sophomore album 'In Search Of Hope' last year.
For those that don't know, Kaidi Tatham is a legendary multi-instrumentalist. Once dubbed "the UK's Herbie Hancock" by Benji B, he's a virtuoso on the keys and a true innovator in sound production as one of the original creators of the Broken Beat sound. Over the years his musical prowess has blessed numerous projects, initially with the likes of Bugz In The Attic and The Herbaliser, and more recently with DJ Jazzy Jeff (through the PLAYlist projects), Andrew Ashong (on the acclaimed 'Sankofa Season' EP last year) and with longtime accomplice, Dego. This in addition to session work for artists such as Mulatu Astatke, Slum Village, Amy Winehouse, Soul II Soul and Leroy Burgess, along with First Word label mates such as Eric Lau, Children of Zeus and Darkhouse Family. Kaidi is also a revered DJ known for rocking parties globally, whilst his solo catalogue spans tons of EPs and releases for labels such as 2000 Black, Eglo and Theo Parrish's Sound Signature.
On 'An Insight To All Minds', Kaidi says it's "not about a destination, but a process. It's about how you drive, not where you're going. Nothing in this world can torment you as much as your own thoughts… We are all going through it. We can all feel what the next person is feeling, believe it or not. It's learning how to tap into it".
The album is comprised of an assortment of Kaidi's unique flavours - uptempo jazz-funk bruk, laced with rhodes, flutes, live bass and delicious percussion. Using that blueprint he moves effortlessly through latin and samba, half-step, deep afro house and a sprinkle of curveballs, all presented in Kaidi's inimitable way. – Bandcamp
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Label: First Word Records – FW228 |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, Album |
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Country: UK |
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Released: 2 Apr 2021 |
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Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Funk / Soul |
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Style: Broken Beat, Future Jazz, Boogie |
$60.00
Nicolás Jaar’s 2020 output so far amounts to three albums which, at first glance, have little to do with one another. First, he released a new collection under the alias Against All Logic, his Beyoncé-and-Kanye-sampling dance project, which clanged into the world like a soundtrack to the last party before February turned to March. Then the pandemic shuttered clubs and Jaar unveiled Cenizas, the long-awaited successor to his most overtly personal records, 2011’s Space Is Only Noise and 2016’s Sirens. Cenizas was a surprise: When it arrived, most of us had only been in quarantine for a few weeks, but Jaar’s prescient music sounded withdrawn and cautionary, using drawn-out ambient passages to explore an expansive sense of solitude. He may be putting out albums faster than we can get haircuts, but the 30-year-old nonetheless suggests Thoreau contemplating at Walden Pond, an artist in lockdown for reasons of conviction rather than contagion.
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Months have passed and while COVID-19 continues to rage in the Americas, the Chilean American producer gives us Telas, a record in which he continues to explore solitude. Telas is the nominal successor to his 2015 film score Pomegranates, made in the vein of an ambient musician. But while Pomegranates was sprawling, Telas is a taut, exhaustively balanced work, although its four long songs add up to an hour of music. In the context of Jaar’s busy year, it signifies a continued blurring of his various roles—DJ, ambient craftsman, distinctive vocalist with an electronic toolkit—and the album’s deliberate structure and ominous mood indicate that Jaar can make direct, even political statements without sung lyrics or speech samples.
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The record begins with one of the blown-out horns that Jaar has been favoring recently, accompanied by percussion performed on wooden and metal instruments built by artists Anna Ippolito and Marzio Zorio. We’ve heard Jaar use custom-built devices before, on Cenizas and the latest Against All Logic record. Here, the objects—which have both a harsh metallic ping and a dull, quick decay—suggest ancient sounds, dusted and polished to seem startling and new. The rest of opener “Telahora” and its follow-up, “Telencima,” never command the listener’s entire attention, but they’re full of symmetrical passages, calls that wait minutes before they hear responses, and phrases that sound transposed from melodic to rhythmic instruments. Jaar has mastered the art of changing his stems mid-line, turning strings into bells and back again. One of Telas’ joys is the way he shifts his sonics fluidly and frequently, without the gridded template of a danceable beat. – Pitchfork
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Label: Mana – MANA 11, Other People – OP054 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Black, Vinyl, LP, Clear |
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Unknown, Album, Limited Edition |
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Country: UK |
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Released: 11 Sept 2020 |
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Genre: Electronic |
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Style: Abstract, Minimal, Ambient |
$60.00
Jazz is a conversation—an exchange of ideas between players, as well as between band and audience. Aside from pointing out, via the title’s wry joke, that the genre is very much alive, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge’s Jazz is Dead series has also revealed that jazz is a vital dialogue spanning generations and genres, and in each entry the duo’s hip-hop, funk, and soul roots engage with venerated players like Roy Ayers, Doug Carn, and Marcos Valle.
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The most recent entry pairs the duo with reedsman Gary Bartz, and it’s their headiest to date. Bartz has long been in dialogue with pop music forms—all the way back to his classic NTU Troop band of the ‘70s—so the octogenarian keeps step no matter what sound comes his way, grappling and assimilating without breaking a sweat. His horn slots readily into the simmering groove and scratching wah-wah guitar of “Blue Jungles,” while his melodic sing-song solo is every bit as dreamy as the shimmering keys and backing coos on “Day By Day.” No disrespect to all the mighty drummers behind Bartz back in the day, but it’s a real treat to hear Bartz weave in and around Muhammad’s head-knocking drums. The breaks are crunchy and sweet on standouts like “Spiritual Ideation” and “Distant Mode,” with Bartz revisiting the sort of warm, buttery tone that turned him into a jazz-funk star. Streetwise rhythm and smooth melody in a beautiful exchange. – Bandcamp
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Label: Jazz Is Dead – JID006LP |
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Series: Jazz Is Dead – 6 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP |
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Country: US |
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Released: 1 Apr 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul |
$45.00
London, England: Early 1970's. The airwaves ruled by a mixture of Novelty Pop and Glam by day, Progressive Rock by night. Down at the Disco every night finishes with Jeff Beck's “Hi Ho Silver Lining” if you're lucky, all 11 minutes of “Freebird” if you're not.
Not the best time to release an uncompromising and highly creative foray into Latin Jazz territory. The Robin Jones Seven “El Maja” unsurprisingly falls into that limbo known as “between the cracks”.
Cue a decade later, it's the beginning of the 1980's, a tough decade with tough dancefloors. Two-tone, Punk, Funk, Northern Soul and some Heavy, Heavy Dub. And Jazz. Jazz For dancing. Jazz for cutting up your mates with your moves. Combat Jazz. One of the essential tools for any aspiring Jazz DJ was this re-discovery; a dig from the dustiest part of the basement piece of wax that's just chock full of Latin Jazz Burners!
Back in the night of the day there was only one store that had a decent supply of these must have treasures: Fusions Records run by DJ Paul Murphy. “They came into the stock room and as fast as I could put them on the shelves they were snapped up.”
With originals now going for a wallet busting $400 (and up!) Jazz Room Records are pleased to make this long lost classic available once more.
A groundbreaking album, "El Maja" was released by The Robin Jones Seven in 1972.
Robin Jones: "My early recordings all crossed the lines musically between Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music. I made two such albums that were released by Apollo Sound in the 1970s: "Denga" and "El Maja". Uptempo, four hundred feet or more on the floor stompers like “El Maja”, “Carica Papaya”and the track that Robin himself said is the first recorded Samba tune in the UK: “Batucada Da Vida” are complemented by the Afro-Boogaloo of “The Wailer”, the soulful grooves of “Chant Afrique” and a particular highlight being the funk drenched “Atlas”. - Bandcamp
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Label: Jazz Room Records – JAZZR 004 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue |
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Country: UK |
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Released: 8 Jul 2020 |
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Genre: Jazz, Latin |
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Style: Afro-Cuban Jazz, Samba, Soul-Jazz, Batucada, Latin Jazz |
$65.00
Bassist, composer, arranger, and film scorer Jorge López Ruiz was the living embodiment of Argentine jazz history. This recording, which was done in 1967 with a big band led by López Ruiz, represents a monumental work in Argentine jazz. The work is a concept album that takes a critical stance on the chaotic political situation and the military regime in Argentina at the time. It was banned upon release and directly led to constraints being placed on López Ruiz’s subsequent activities. Musically, it represents the starting point of López Ruiz’s ‘musical world’, where he wholeheartedly reflects his spirit as a Latin American and Argentine citizen onto his music – jazz. This work is a masterpiece of 60’s big band jazz, which captures López Ruiz’s passion and rage – both as a musician and as a man in the face of an unforgiving reality. Its first vinyl reissue in half a century! – Light In The Attic
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Label: Pleasantville Records – 26 rue Pville |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo, Black Vinyl |
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Country: South Korea |
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Released: 2020 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Big Band, Modal, Post Bop |
$48.00
Paul Woolford sets the bar high. Like Babe Ruth calling his home run shot, in 2019 he took to Twitter to let fans know he'd put out four Special Request albums in one year. And then he did it, ending with the appropriately titled Zero Fucks. Naturally, he's applied this psycho dog ethic to his DJ-Kicks mix. His stated goal was to deliver a set that slots in alongside legendary entries like Claude Young's landmark 1996 entry.
From his vocal house team-ups with Diplo to the blistering jungle tracks he makes as Special Request—the retro hardcore alias that's taken over his life—Woolford comes up with a concept, then tailors his work to suit. (For Offworld, he wondered what would happen if Jam & Lewis signed to Metroplex.) As such, we'd be wise to keep his own description of his DJ-Kicks mix in mind: "I always saw the series as a benchmark of quality and a time-stamped gateway into an artist's state of mind," he writes in the press release. "For this volume, I wanted to focus on lush melodics. I kept that as a constant thread throughout, choosing only records I cherish... it's not a 'current snapshot' by any means, more of a chronicle of some of my all-time favourites."
Simon Reynolds' hardcore continuum essays for The Wire, the seminal theory of UK dance music developments from acid house to jungle and garage, contained exactly one reference to disco. But Special Request's DJ-Kicks moves from disco to house and melodic techno to hardcore and jungle, revealing the roots of his current sound. In the first segment, he revels in lush strings, Patrick Adams-style synths and lithe, soul-style musicianship. The admiration for these dance music building blocks is both explicit—the mix launches into motion with John Morales' timeless M+M remix of Alicia Myers—and implicit. Listen to the clear parallel between Morgan Geist's "Lullaby" and Special Request's own "Vellichor" a few tracks later.
In his DJ-Kicks, Woolford plays some of his favourite tracks of all time, in the process revealing the DNA buried deep within his own productions. Following Symbols & Instruments' spacey '90s house cut "Mood (Tropical Dream Revisited)," Woolford drops LS1 Housing Authority's "Life Moves Fast," presumably a new alias of his own. The ethereal pads on both tracks bear a striking resemblance to each other. Similarly, the ahead-of-its-time bassline on Virgo's "R U Hot Enough," from 1985, could have easily served as a building block for a track off Belief System.
However, marveling over previously obscured influences feels like a somewhat pedantic way to enjoy this mix. That Morales Alicia Myers mix? It's the best opening track in recent memory. A fair share of listeners will be checking this mix for jungle and hardcore exclusives, and Woolford comes correct with a bag full of VIP versions, including a hoover-laden remix of FC Kahuna's 2002 trip-hop track, "Hayling," and two Tim Reaper VIPs of tracks off Zero Fucks. (The "Pull Up" VIP nearly improves on the fantastic original.) Sandwiched between these neo-breakbeat anthems is a Sonar's Ghost VIP of another extremely valuable track: 4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse's "Drowning In Her." From Kirk Degiorgio to AceMo, this mix is anachronistic, mixing the past and the present until they blur together.
There's an obvious emotional component to boshing on your favourite records. Woolford, a Loiner who takes a workman's approach to his prolific output, would almost certainly wince at the following comparison. But as a whole, his DJ-Kicks—prismatic and somewhat subdued—is enjoyable as dance music history, a peek into a prolific artist's hidden influences and, of course, a dance mix with impeccable flow that's also suitable for headphones. In the way that the Mona Lisa meets your eye from every angle, Special Request's DJ-Kicks works on nearly every conceivable level. – Resident Advisor
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Label: !K7 Records – K7394LP |
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Series: DJ-Kicks |
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Format: 2 x Vinyl, 12", Compilation |
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Country: Europe |
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Released: 19 Mar 2021 |
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Genre: Electronic, Funk / Soul |
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Style: Disco, House, Techno, Breakbeat, Drum n Bass |
$39.00
Alfa Mist is one of the driving forces behind a young and vibrant scene of UK musicians, who've taken on jazz as their musical narrative. On his new album Bring Backs the producer, self-taught pianist and rapper takes us on a sonic trip back to his beat-making past on the streets of East London, through the depth and musicality he discovered composing and playing jazz.
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2017 saw the release of Alfa's breakthrough record, Antiphon and the 2019's album Structuralism were both self-released on his Sekito label. His latest endeavour, 2021's Bring Backs, sees Alfa taking on new challenges. The record marks his first release for the label Anti and is also the most detailed exploration of his upbringing in musical form. - Bandcamp
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Label: Anti- – 7789-1 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: Europe |
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Released: 23 Apr 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz |
$39.00
Limited Edition of 700
The 3rd album from UK multi-instrumentalist, Robohands. Fuses elements of Jazz krautrock & ambient music. For fans of Khruangbin, Yussef Dayes & 70s library music.
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Label: KingUnderground Records – KU-072 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition, Stereo |
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Country: UK |
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Released: Dec 2020 |
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Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Funk / Soul |
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Style: Fusion |
$45.00
This week we present you with ‘Mosaic of the Orient’ to honour the memory of recently departed Lebanese musician, composer, songwriter, orchestra conductor, and reality television personality Elias Rahbani.
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During his prolific career, Rahbani composed thousands of pieces, including the soundtrack for some cult Middle Eastern film, TV series, and stage musicals. Additionally, he worked for the Arabic Service of the BBC and was the director and musical consultant of Radio Lebanon from 1962 to 1972. He also hosted the ground-breaking ‘SuperStar’, a pop idol talent show airing on Future TV from 2003 to 2008; effectively becoming a known personality within the Arabic entertainment industry. Among other things, Rahbani’s work won him several awards worldwide, including the Cinema award for International Advertisement Film Award in Venice in 1977.
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‘Mosaic of the Orient’ is possibly Rahbani most globally significant, innovative and creative record. First released in 1972, this wonderful compilation of Rahbani work includes a whopping number of musical instruments and was inspired by both European and pan-Arabic influences. This wonderful psychedelic vinyl is considered a rare insight into Rahbani’s early work and beautifully showcase the importance of both his cultural upbringing and European classical training in a wonderful mix of lush and exotic musical landscapes and catchy rhythms. We definitely recommend giving it a listen, not only to honour the memory of this remarkable creative but also to appreciate the beauty and boldness of this timeless record. – Batov Records
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Label: Right Track S.A.R. L. – LPGVDLRT-017 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo, 180g |
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Country: Lebanon |
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Released: 2018 |
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Genre: Funk / Soul, Folk, World, & Country |
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Style: Psychedelic |
$45.00
Throughout the early 1970s and ‘80s, vibraphonist Khan Jamal was a key figure in a wildly creative and largely underrecognized Philadelphia jazz scene. From Sun Ra’s Arkestra to Odean Pope’s jazz fusion outfit Catalyst to the free-funk experiments of Jamal and Byard Lancaster’s Sounds Of Liberation, this was a time when Philly was ripe with musicians playing forward-thinking, progressive jazz. With many of these acts recording for small independent labels, most records have gone out of print. This was the case with Jamal’s 1984 opus Infinity, long considered a holy grail amongst rare jazz collectors. Jazz Room’s reissue of the highly sought-after gem puts on full display Jamal’s brilliance as an instrumentalist and bandleader.
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Featuring a crew of heavy hitters—Byard Lancaster on flute and alto sax; Sunny Murray and Dwight James on drums; Omar Hill playing percussion; Reggie Curry on bass; Bernard Sammul handling piano duties; and Clifton Burton playing harmonica—the playing throughout the album is powerful, intuitive, and diverse. Stylistically, the album swings from the lush and optimistic Afro-Latin sound of “Nubian Queen” to the frantically-paced post-bop of “The Angry Young Man.” The album’s spiritual centerpiece is the hypnotic, Coltrane-inspired tune “The Known Unknown.” With its regal and majestic theme, as well as some truly inspired playing from Jamal and Sammul in particular, “The Known Unknown” speaks to the sheer quality of the music that Jamal and his cohort were making at the time. For many listeners, Infinity will be a worthy introduction to Khan Jamal and his work, and this reissue will go a long way in granting us access to what was, previously, a nearly-impossible-to-acquire classic. – Bandcamp
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Label: Jazz Room Records – JAZZR 006 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue |
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Country: UK |
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Released: 1 Apr 2021 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Modal, Soul-Jazz |
$48.00
On his collaborative album with Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, the producer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and archivist remains masterful by simply turning what he hears into something new and revelatory.
Sound Ancestors, his new album, is a rare entry in his vast catalog to be billed straightforwardly as a Madlib solo release, not a collaboration with a rapper, or a record by one of several fictitious jazz players and ensembles he’s invented, or an entry in an arcane thematic series. But it, too, is a joint effort, this time with Kieran Hebden, the electronic producer better known as Four Tet, who curated, edited, and arranged its 16 tracks from a body of hundreds of recordings that Madlib sent him over a period of two years. Their process reminds me of 2003’s Shades of Blue, which Madlib created by raiding the vaults of Blue Note Records, sometimes chopping the original jazz recordings intricately and sometimes letting them unfold for long stretches without much apparent editing. Now, Madlib is the one opening his archives, and Four Tet is the one listening and assembling. - Pitchfork
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Label: Madlib Invazion – MMS 044 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
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Country: US |
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Released: Jan 2021 |
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Genre: Hip Hop |
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Style: Instrumental |
$39.00
Since the 2011 debut of Dave Harrington’s revered Darkside project with long-time collaborator, Nicolas Jaar, Harrington has become one of this century’s most unlikely guitar heroes. Harrington blends avant-garde improvisational jazz roots to psychedelic touchstones like Jerry Garcia and David Gilmour, to sophisticated dance-floor burners.
While his latest album Pure Imagination, No Country doesn’t necessarily sound like a Darkside record, it exists at a different axis in the same continuum. Harrington uses guitar as a lead voice, sculpting and creating a new core language with a gifted cadre of players including vibraphonist Will Shore, synth bassist Andrew Fox, drummer Samer Ghadry, and post-rock polymath Lars Horntveth of Jagga Jazzist. – On Bandcamp
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Label: Yeggs Records – YEGGS-004 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, 180 Gram |
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Country: US |
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Released: 01 Feb 2019 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Fusion |
$45.00
The story of Perception takes root in a series of chance meetings, which seem at first glance unlikely, between musicians from differing horizons, be they geographic or esthetic. Jazz Magazine was spot on with an article from the period entitled, "Perception, four conceptions", before detailing the origins of the musicians (Hungarian for saxophonist Yochk'O Seffer, German for pianist Siegfried Kessler, French for bassist Didier Levallet, Franco-Vietnamese for drummer Jean-My Truong). It then looked at their varying backgrounds (classical academic training for the first two, an improvised apprenticeship on the jazz scene for the third), in order to point out the seemingly contradictory and perhaps complementary directions which would unite in a singular identity. None of this, however, was clear from the start as the group began as a trio with a different saxophonist, before stabilising to the first core quartet.
Having been remarked on in 1970 by Gérard Terronès, who was already producer of the cult Alors! (Michel Portal), Célesphère (Burton Greene) and Basse Barre (Barre Phillips), Perception was thus given a timely opportunity to record their first album on his Futura Records label. This eponymous opus, illustrated with a drawing by Yochk'O Seffer, is the first of a fascinating trilogy. It puts the seal on those complementary contradictions with a lyrically incandescent free jazz, made up of startling interactions between complex harmonies and disjointed rhythms. - SouffleContinu Records
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Label: SouffleContinu Records – FFL051, Futura Records (2) – GER 19 |
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue |
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Country: France |
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Released: Oct 2019 |
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Genre: Jazz |
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Style: Free Jazz, Avant-garde Jazz |
Aalely's appetite for traditional rhythms contextualized in non-tradition sets him on a path not taken by many selectors here, inevitably resulting in intriguing mixes and unpredictable sets. Press play for a deep dig into the abyss via heavy percussions, dub, exotique sounds and hypnotic rhythms.
For number seventeen, we have Ahmad Khaliq aka Barren Sector serving up a highly compelling 4x4 odyssey that makes you long for giant speakers and a space to lose yourself in. His meticulous attention to detail comes across with his selections, and it's met with an astute sense of energy, emotion and intent that drives the mix forward. Press play for a well paced journey through that ever elusive zone between deep listening and body moving, and click here for the interview & tracklist.
Tidal Waves Music is a Belgium based record label that focuses on releasing gems that might have been under the radar within the vinyl community with no limitations of style and genre. You would have probably seen Tidal Waves titles swimming in our Funk / Soul / Soul Jazz section - they sure know how to choose what's groovy and bring it out for a surf. This is our attempt at showcasing some of the LPs you might have missed while digging at the Vault!
The 16th entry to our mix series is brought to you by Isa Ong, the man behind the stunning Claude Glass debut on Syndicate late last year - Isekai. His contributions to local music have reached far and wide via his long running, deep involvement in bands like Amateur Takes Control, sub:shaman and 
