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From Shrine to Stax, Isaac Hayes to Gloria Ann Taylor, The Mad Lads to The Staples Singers, Detroit to Atlanta, Kendrick to Pusha-T, Dale Warren’s singular voice is the lone constant. Beneath the ethereal beauty of his productions was a genius crippled by his unbridled id. His ever-evolving 24-Carat Black project spanned the ’70s, producing a masterpiece and an unfinished follow up. Discovered in a storage space were Warren’s 1980s demos cut with grown n’ sexy divas Princess Hearn, Vicki Gray, and LaRhonda LeGette right before his untimely death at the age of 50. III is an unfinished symphony that peels away the final layer of Dale Warren’s mysterious oeuvre. – Numero Group

 With their third album ‘Fluid Motion’, Melbourne’s 30/70 are set to soar into higher territory as the face of Australia’s newest wave of soul-influenced brilliance. From the swirling opening pads of “Brunswick Hustle” all the way through to the sax-laden shimmer of “Flowers” at its close, ‘Fluid Motion’ is an instant classic, effortlessly shifting between neo-soul and languid, Dilla-esque tendencies, astral-facing jazz textures and authentic vignettes of UK club music history. It’s a formula that those already caught in 30/70’s celestial web are fully aware of; first defined on the local heat of their 2015 debut ‘Cold Radish Coma’ and majestically expanded upon with their critically acclaimed 2017 release ‘Elevate’ on Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section INTL (mixed by Hiatus Kaiyote’s Paul Bender). ‘Elevate’ did exactly that - elevating both the scope of the band’s sound as well as their standing in the local and international community. - Bandcamp

Transmission Suite - the highly anticipated new album from acid-house pioneers and electronic music legends 808 State is out now: a record that remains true to the forward-thinking ethos of this remarkable band three decades after they first formed.

808 State are without doubt one of the most important bands in electronic music. From their 1988 album debut LP Newbuild, (that won them notable early fans including Aphex Twin: “It was the next step after Chicago acid, and as much as I loved that, I could relate much better to 808 State. It seemed colder and more human at the same time”), through collaborations with Bjork and New Order, to the definitive Pacific State, their legacy and influence cannot be overstated. - Bandcamp

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Their new album Transmission Suite reflects the rich backstory of electronic music, but with 808 State being 808 State, they also deliver an innovative and forward-thinking vision. Put simply, Transmission Suite – their seventh album – effortlessly evokes the past, present and future.

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Graham Massey and Andy Barker recorded Transmission Suite, the first 808 State album since 2002, at the legendary former Granada Studios in Manchester. They worked at big, arced desks loaded with synths and defunct TV mixing equipment. 80 TV screens, blank and grey, lined the walls. The building holds special significance for the duo, who, like Joy Division and The Beatles, made their TV debut at Granada, performing their big hit "Pacific State" on Tony Wilson's show, The Other Side Of Midnight, in 1989. The studios are a part of 808 State's history.

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Like Granada, which will soon become a modern complex spanning bars, offices, hotel rooms, and flats, Transmission Suite straddles the past and the present. As well as acid, IDM, and electro bombs, influenced by the sounds coming out of Detroit and Manchester in the '80s and early '90s, there are footwork tracks and contemporary beat experiments, music partly inspired by the duo's love of the Manchester party and label Swing Ting, whose sound is a club-ready mashup of dancehall, reggaeton, garage and UK funky. The album has bags of character and is big on ideas. – Resident Advisor

Few albums in the canon of popular music have had the influence, resonance, and endurance of John Coltrane's 1965 classic A Love Supreme-a record that proved jazz was a fitting medium for spiritual exploration and for the expression of the sublime.

Bringing the same fresh and engaging approach that characterized his critically acclaimed Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn tells the story of the genesis, creation, and aftermath of this classic recording. Featuring interviews with more than one hundred musicians, producers, friends, and family members; unpublished interviews with Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison; and scores of never-before-seen photographs, A Love Supreme balances biography, cultural context, and musical analysis in a passionate and revealing portrait.

Reviews:

“Along with Miles Davis's seminal album, Kind of Blue, saxophonist John Coltrane's A Love Supreme is undoubtedly one of the world's most influential jazz recordings. Recorded with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones over the course of one evening in 1964, the record "caught Coltrane at a pivotal point in his creative trajectory: the crystallizing of his four years with this renowned quartet, moments before his turn toward the final, most debated phase of his career." In A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, Ashley Kahn (Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece) covers how the album was made, where it was made, why it is so important and how it reached such a broad audience (it is one of the top-selling jazz albums of all time). Music fans and historians will devour the book, which is rife with anecdotes and commentary from Bono, Phil Lesh, Alice Coltrane (Coltrane's widow); black-and-white photographs; and previously unpublished interviews with Coltrane himself. It features a foreword written by Elvin Jones.” - Publishers Weekly

“Jazz writing appears to be moving toward high art, with Kahn leading the way. In his second study of a groundbreaking jazz recording (the first was on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue), he addresses the less obvious aspects of Coltrane's album, including the saxophonist's ideas and the actual recording session, interweaving them all with snippets of interviews with the Coltrane family and musical cohorts. Five brief sections, or interludes, discuss topics like the label that released the record (Impulse), the producer, and related poetry, while the epilog concisely summarizes the text. A Love Supreme, Kahn reveals, was a spiritual manifesto that touched countless listeners. Many issues come to the fore: the cultural movements of the mid-1960s, including expression of spiritual values, and technical musical challenges. Coltrane fulfilled his desire to record in one finite session without regard to commercial pressures. He was able to pull together much of his previous work and concentrate it in one piece. The only book-length treatment of the record, this is absolutely essential jazz history for all libraries. [This book's publication coincides with the Verve Music Group's release of an expanded, two-disc version of A Love Supreme.-Ed.]-William G. Kenz, Minnesota State Univ., Moorhea.” – Library Journal

“Coltrane was already a jazz colossus, acclaimed by peers, critics, and audiences alike, when he, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones recorded the spiritually informed four-part suite A Love Supreme, very efficiently and in sequence, on December 9, 1964, in recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio. After its release and much greater popularity than avant-garde jazz customarily enjoys, Coltrane became a spiritual as well as musical hero to every subsequent generation of jazz players and listeners. Here Kahn does for A Love Supreme what he did in Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (2000) for Coltrane's former employer's biggest hit, and because A Love Supreme was pivotal in Coltrane's career--he became the fountainhead of free jazz almost immediately after recording it--Kahn winds up writing the great saxophonist's biography again, more lucidly, if in less detail, than anyone has before. He injects fine sidereal pieces on Impulse! Records, Van Gelder, the prayer at the heart of the suite, the single live performance of it, and the recording's many editions over the years, which will soon include an augmented two-CD version, the only companion to this lucid, brilliant, resplendently illustrated book that could better it in aesthetic satisfaction. Ray Olson” - Booklist

"The emotions I experienced while reading Ashley Kahn's A Love Supreme gave me a feeling of beauty, elegance, excellence, grace and dignity. I congratulate him for a supreme effort well done." - Carlos Santana

About the Author:

Ashley Kahn is the author of critically acclaimed Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece; the primary editor of Rolling Stone: The Seventies, and a primary contributor to The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide. His freelance features on music and culture have appeared in the New York Times, TV Guide, MOJO, Newsday, The New York Observer, New Statesman (UK), Jazz (France), GQ (Japan), Down Beat, Jazz Times and many other publications. He was music editor at VH1, and has also been a concert producer and tour manager, working with a wide variety of artists from Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and Britney Spears, to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cassandra Wilson and Debby Harry and the Jazz Passengers.

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is the debut album by alternative hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released in 1990 on Jive Records. Although the album was critically acclaimed, it had little mainstream appeal. However, the album did earn the band a devoted following among the alternative hip hop community. The album was praised for its lyrical inventiveness and bizarre sense of humor, mixed with socially aware and literate message tracks.

One of three A Tribe Called Quest albums to be included in The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums, certified gold by the RIAA on January 19, 1996. The record was given the perfect rating of 5 mics in The Source in 1990 — according to Pitchfork, it was the first album ever to receive this honor.

“The group is marked for their social consciousness, but not merely because of their awareness, but their ability to wax simultaneously about politics and art. On "Push It Along", Tip traverses police brutality, community unity, and rap dreams in a few bars, managing to be an approachable advocate for responsibility without seeming didactic: "The pigs are wearing blue/ And in a year or two/  We'll be going up the creek in a great big canoe / What we gonna do? Save me and my brothers?/ Hop inside the bed and pull over the covers?/ Never will we do that and we ain't trying to rule rap/ We just want a slab of the ham, don't you know, black?" The lyrics are 25 years old. But were they released today they'd seem right on time, while being out of place—because all these many years later People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is more than a nostalgia artifact. It's a worthy listen, not because of what it was, but because of what it is.” - Pitchfork

A TAV Curator's Pick.

A Tribe Called Quest – Q-Tip, Phife Dawg (who passed away on March 22, 2016), Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White – the groundbreaking '90s group that forever transformed the urban music landscape, detonates new shock waves on their first – and last – new studio album together in 18 years, We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service. The landmark release represents the first new music from A Tribe Called Quest since they disbanded in 1998, after recording The Love Movement, their final album together. Renowned painter/photographer Richard Prince was commissioned to create the album's show-stopping cover art.

"The extraordinary times in which we now find ourselves desperately call out for a new message from A Tribe Called Quest, and We Got It From Here... is that message," said LA Reid, Chairman and CEO, Epic Records. "For nearly two decades, it has been my deepest personal wish to add one more chapter to their incredible legacy. I am deeply honored that Tribe entrusted us with this historic and final album."

Queens, New York natives Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of Brooklyn, formed A Tribe Called Quest in 1985. The group is one of hip-hop's most legendary, beloved and revered groups of all time. Easily recognized for their unique approach to rap music by employing jazz infused soundscapes to Afro centric rhymes, ATCQ was largely responsible for the popularity of a new genre that dominated the East Coast sound of the early-90s. Sonically, ATCQ was a decisive and welcomed tangent of jazz, bass-heavy rhythmic vibes and eclectic sampling when compared to the mundane recycling of soul loops, breaks and vocals of their contemporaries.

Lyrically, emcees Q-Tip and Phife Dawg addressed social issues relevant to young blacks such as use of the n word and its relevance, date rape and other interpersonal relationships, industry politics and consumerism with infectious energy and fun and having a good time while still promoting positivity. ATCQ composed a number of successful singles and albums with their creative approach to rap music. In 1990, the group released Peoples Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Their sophomore effort, 1991'sThe Low End Theory, considered one of the greatest albums in hip-hop history, solidified them as legends.

In recent years, the anticipation for another ATCQ album has been building. Today, the power of the Abstract Poetic, Five Foot Assassin, and Mr. Muhammad is still evident in their dynamic stage shows and in the reception of their adoring fans. We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service finds the group paying respect to both their legacy and their fans and it's a cathartic moment for all. – Press Release

“It can’t be said enough how simply good this record sounds and feels. Everyone here shows themselves to be a better rapper than they have ever been before, but that still doesn’t capture the ease and exuberance of it all, how Q-Tip curls flows and words on “The Donald,” how Jarobi surprises with packed strings of rhyme at each turn, how Phife and Busta Rhymes dip effortlessly in and out of Caribbean patois and Black American slanguage. (And that’s not even taking into account Consequence’s inventive word marriages on “Mobius” and “Whateva Will Be,” Kendrick Lamar’s energetic angst on “Conrad Tokyo,” or André 3000’s and Tip’s playful tag team on “Kids…”) The music is decidedly analog, a refutation of polished sheen and maximal perfection; it’s an extension and culmination of ATCQ’s jazz-influenced low-end theory. But that doesn’t capture the bounces, grooves, sexual moans, random bleeps, stuttering drums that float throughout—like every classic Tribe album, it defies simple descriptions.” – Pitchfork

“A record rooted in anxiety and mourning, We Got It From Here remains musically as dark and electrically relaxed as 1996's Beats, Rhymes and Life and 1998's The Love Movement. With help from visionary producer J Dilla, those critically mixed, commercially sturdy records were moody, muted, experimental, deeply funky and remarkably prescient, but ultimately unable to wrangle the proper amount of attention in the shiny-suit era. We Got It From Here checks in with similarly off-kilter but undeniably grooving beats. Tribe utilize the Dilla innovation of letting samples clash at odd angles; they let a copy of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" skip endlessly until the real John pops in for a guest spot, and the drum beat to "Lost Somebody," one of the album's Phife tributes, doubles up and separates from itself like a Steve Reich phasing experiment before abruptly slamming into total silence. In a contemporary move, Tribe abandon the Nineties hip-hop format and allow for modern musical and melodic sprawl, like a guitar solo from Jack White, a psychedelic keyboard detour or a spiraling verse from Anderson Paak.” – Rolling Stone

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Beats, Rhymes and Life is the fourth album of the hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Released in 1996, it followed three years after the highly regarded and successful Midnight Marauders. This album is a departure from the joyful, positive vibe of the earlier albums and is regarded as the group's darkest album in content.

It reached number-one on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B Albums charts. – Wiki

“"Damn, we ain't prophets/And if you think so, you need to stop it." A Tribe Called Quest launch that fiery verbal projectile in "Get a Hold," a slamming, paradox-driven track from the group's near-flawless fourth album, Beats, Rhymes and Life. A denial that serves as confirmation, the couplet snaps and frames the essence of this collection: selfless social commentary sneaked in between immodest claims to greatness.” – Rolling Stone

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A TAV Essential Listening Album.

Midnight Marauders is the third album by hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, originally released in 1993 on Jive Records. It was released two years after A Tribe Called Quest's second album, The Low End Theory.

Midnight Marauders is also seen by many fans and critics as a classic jazz rap album along with The Low End Theory.

“Though the abstract rappers finally betrayed a few commercial ambitions for Midnight Marauders, the happy result was a smart, hooky record that may not have furthered the jazz-rap fusions of The Low End Theory, but did merge Tribe-style intelligence and reflection with some of the most inviting grooves heard on any early-'90s rap record.

The productions, more funky than jazzy, were tighter overall -- but the big improvement, four years after their debut, came with Q-Tip's and Phife Dawg's raps. Focused yet funky, polished but raw, the duo was practically telepathic on "Steve Biko (Stir It Up)" and "The Chase, Pt. 2," though the mammoth track here was the pop hit "Award Tour." A worldwide call-out record with a killer riff and a great pair of individual raps from the pair, it assured that Midnight Marauders would become A Tribe Called Quest's biggest seller.  …

A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders was commercially successful, artistically adept, and lyrically inventive; the album cemented their status as alternative rap's prime sound merchants, authors of the most original style since the Bomb Squad first exploded on wax.” – AllMusic

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People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is the debut album by alternative hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released in 1990 on Jive Records. Although the album was critically acclaimed, it had little mainstream appeal. However, the album did earn the band a devoted following among the alternative hip hop community. The album was praised for its lyrical inventiveness and bizarre sense of humor, mixed with socially aware and literate message tracks.

One of three A Tribe Called Quest albums to be included in The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums, certified gold by the RIAA on January 19, 1996. The record was given the perfect rating of 5 mics in The Source in 1990 — according to Pitchfork, it was the first album ever to receive this honor.

“The group is marked for their social consciousness, but not merely because of their awareness, but their ability to wax simultaneously about politics and art. On "Push It Along", Tip traverses police brutality, community unity, and rap dreams in a few bars, managing to be an approachable advocate for responsibility without seeming didactic: "The pigs are wearing blue/ And in a year or two/  We'll be going up the creek in a great big canoe / What we gonna do? Save me and my brothers?/ Hop inside the bed and pull over the covers?/ Never will we do that and we ain't trying to rule rap/ We just want a slab of the ham, don't you know, black?" The lyrics are 25 years old. But were they released today they'd seem right on time, while being out of place—because all these many years later People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is more than a nostalgia artifact. It's a worthy listen, not because of what it was, but because of what it is.” - Pitchfork

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A TAV Curator's Pick.

The Anthology is A Tribe Called Quest's 1999 greatest hits compilation spanning their entire career.

The compilation contains songs from all of their currently existing full-length catalogue, including People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, The Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders, Beats, Rhymes and Life and The Love Movement. It also contains Q-Tip's "Vivrant Thing", which was featured on the first music compilation for Violator Management. The song would also later be featured on Q-Tip's solo effort, Amplified.

The album cover features Erykah Badu with fluorescent stripes of green and orange reminiscent of the traditional colors of the Kente tribe of the north Congo.

“For those who haven't discovered that A Tribe Called Quest made several of the best LPs in hip-hop history, Anthology is a perfect way to encapsulate the trio's decade-long career into one manageable portion.  All of their best and biggest songs are here, from the early neglected joint "Luck of Lucien" to classic jazz-rap from The Low End Theory like "Jazz (We've Got)," and their 45-rpm peak with "Award Tour," all the way to their last big hit, "Find a Way," from 1998's The Love Movement.  Yes, anyone who enjoys hip-hop needs to own at least Midnight Marauders and The Low End Theory, but Anthology succeeds in delivering all the highest points from a great hip-hop group's career. The collection also includes the first solo track from Q-Tip, 1999's "Vivrant Thing." – AllMusic

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2016 release from the Harlem-based hip hop artist, a member of the A$AP Mob (along with A$AP Rocky and A$AP Yams). Always Strive And Prosper is the long-awaited follow-up to 2013's Trap Lord. The album features collaborations with Schoolboy Q, Future, Big Sean and others.

“Despite the strong production and features including Missy Elliott, Ty Dolla $ign, and Rick Ross, Ferg's latest is mainly about his wise observations on family, fame, and what comes next.” - Pitchfork

“Rap albums are inherently narcissistic, the product of one person’s values and interests, yet on Always Strive And Prosper, the secondary characters are every bit as fully drawn as the buoyant personality at the center of it all. Without succumbing to false sentimentality or restricting himself with the overly linear narrative structure of many of rap’s recent prestige albums, Ferg has crafted a tender tribute to the people he loves most. It’s not often that albums that bang this hard are this moving.” - AV Club

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