Featured

"What a pleasure it's been over the past decade to look out and see audiences full of both newcomers and familiar faces, coming together to share music and each other's company!

Since 2006, seven tours and over 1,000 concerts in France and abroad, I feel like I've spent more time with you than with my own family. Indeed, you've become family - the most beautiful family imaginable. You've given me the purist artistic freedom, allowing me to take risks, explore any and every musical direction, even when they range wildly from one CD to the next and from one night to the next. Often, my live performances didn't feature music from the just-released album or the music you had expected to hear. And yet every time I was received with smiles, warm applause and open hearts.

It's thanks to you that I've found joy and fulfillment in music. Those concerts when you, my musicians and I shared so much are moments of grace. It's during these moments that I feel belonging, that I feel I've found my place in this sometimes hostile world. Ten years ago, those who would become my closest friends and collaborators asked me what I wanted, and I told them I wanted to share music, concerts, emotions, desires, hybrid styles, multitudes of musical directions, and above all, love. I dreamed of all this a decade ago… and it came true!

Thanks to this circle of people, their gracious help and astute stewardship I've been able to respond to the richness and emotion of life as simply as possible. First and foremost, my manager of 10 years, Jean-Louis Perrier. He helped me found my own record label, Mi'ster Productions. My thanks also to the person who introduced me to him, Alejandra Norambuena Skira (director of SACEM's endowment grants), and so many other kind and talented souls... This album is a way of remembering beautiful moments. I wanted to gather them together so I'd never forget just how lucky I am to have crossed your paths."  – Ibrahim Maalouf

By welcoming the beauty of imperfection and simplicity, Sven Wunder applies the timeless wisdom of wabi sabi on this musical journey. What you can hear is filtered through Ukiyo-e (which translates as “pictures of the floating world”), which illustrates everyday life, as well as through Japonism, the study of Japanese art, and more specifically its influence on European works. The result is a surface that creates an illusion by sound. The infusion of Min’yō with jazz rock, this hazy scene evokes the landscape of Monet’s ”The Water Lily Pond”, which depicts the painter’s Giverny garden, with a Japanese bridge, bamboo, ginkgo trees and the reflection of the sky in the pond. This illusion constructs both time and space.

-

The surface of the music, like the canvas of the painting, invents a journey between now and then by interpreting the idiom of folkloric and western art instruments. In this composition, the sound of the Western concert flute, which stretches back to the Renaissance and Baroque periods, evokes the sound of the bamboo-flute (”shakuchachi”), which reached its peak during the Edo period. The guzheng, also known as the Chinese zither, with a more than 2,500 year history, joins traditional Japanese folk melodies with modern pop percussion and 20th century electronic instruments such as the Moog synthesizer, Wurlitzer electric piano and electric bass.

-

This is the illusion that celebrates the fleeting nature of all things. A journey. A deep inhale and a slow exhale. It has a mix of jazz (both funky and progressive), East Asian and South Asian sounds. The idea of fusing these styles and reframing them with the aesthetic of wabi sabi is to reconnect with nature and concentrate on asymmetries and emphasize ornamentation to generate new ways of looking at the world, here and now. – Bandcamp

The Kraut Jazz Futurism compilation shows what's cookin’ in the new German Jazz scene. Young German bands and a few of the international musicians working in Berlin now. Fresh artists that combine Jazz, Kraut Rock, Afro, Hip Hop and Electronica in a new way.

The first part of the compilation came out last year and was described by The Wire as "a re-drawn map of underground Berlin. Refreshingly new, eccentric, badassed and sometimes funny."

This second part goes further. Similar to Gilles Peterson’s We Out Here compilation, where he shows mainly the new hip english Jazz artists, on Kraut Jazz Futurism Kryptox records head honcho Mathias „Kapote“ Modica puts together what’s hot in the new club jazz scene in Germany. And there is a lot cookin’ in Berlin right now. Kraut Jazz Futurism comes out on Kryptox. Sublabel of Gomma & Toy Tonics records. – On Bandcamp

Modern Jazz / Jazz Rock / Psychedelia group out of Finland, Helsinki. 2nd re-press of this amazing LP - Highly recommend checking it out!

There is a Window Of Opportunity called life. A limited period of time, into which we must fit the quotidian activities of everyday life, our dreams, relationships, personal pleasures and self-discovery. Sometimes we contemplate our death, our impact on the world and the traces we’ve left. Biodiversity is one of the most serious issues of our time. We are currently experiencing a period of mass extinction mainly caused by human activity, e.g. overfishing, hunting and the spread of cities and agriculture.

-

It is said that we can’t understand our own death, but is it any easier for us humans to comprehend the scale of death associated with mass extinction, the disappearance of species? Every species is an important part of the ecosystem. Furthermore, with every extinct species, a mode of being is lost. With biodiversity being in such a precarious state, it might be easy to submit to feelings of resignation. Yet, for those who seek beauty, there is still beauty to be found. And there will be, I hope. Likewise, for those who wish to express their love and compassion for the world and for the life inhabiting it, the possibility is still there. The possibility of love having a home in a human heart. – A Message from Soft Power | Bandcamp

Originally released in 1973, the record sounds simultaneously vintage and contemporary. It is akin to something Madlib might dream up whilst lost in Japan collaborating with Min'yō players at a recording session. The record features some amazing shakuhachi (bamboo flute) playing by Hozan Yamamoto, which gives the music a haunting, dreamlike atmosphere. You can almost visualise the long grass blowing in the wind, and hear the bamboo rustling in the distance on a long hot summer’s day. Takeshi Inomata, Tadao Sawai and Kazue Sawai anchor the session. Takeshi’s exceptionally funky-drum work will almost certainly get some producers dusting off and firing up their MPC's. Whilst Kazue and Tadao work their magic on the koto (a traditional string instrument).

Though certainly not an ambient record, 'Jazz-Rock' has the same meditative, other-worldly quality that invites you to sit back, listen and be transported somewhere else. Unfortunately, until now the 'Jazz Rock' album is a scarcity that commanded a high price-tag only for the most hardened of record collectors. So it is pleasure to make it accessible to all, and we hope you dig this lost, obscure future-classic as much as we do. – Mr Bongo

 When David Axelrod's Rock Interpretation of Handel's Messiah was originally released in 1971, there was something of a trend in the meeting of hippie subcultures and religious themes. The enormous popularity of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell had opened the gates for legions of groovy Christians and flower children of the Lord, and an underground of psychedelic Christian folk artists was building to an apex around this time. Axelrod's intentions with Messiah were removed from these trends, as the record was more a continuation of the strange work he had begun with the Electric Prunes a few years earlier on concept records Mass in F Minor and Release of an Oath. As with these records, Messiah was Axelrod's attempt at psychedelicizing a mode of music he was obsessed with and, in his words, "making Handel more accessible." – All Music

First time ever official reissue of the second and last album by the legendary oriental and fusion jazz ensemble led by Leonid Atabekov, where folk and ethnic arrangements meet smooth jazz. Mastered from the original tapes, contains full-size insert with the band's history in English and Russian Languages. Check it out!

Limited edition release of this funky 70s jazz-fusion LP. Only 100 copies made of this forgotten Dutch gem. A must grab for lovers of vibraphone, Fender Rhodes and interesting percussion!

Earth Rot (1970) set Axelrod up for his final stage as an architect of jazz fusion and ensured that his productions would help future architects of hip hop. This reissue is a gatefold 2/LP containing a bonus second album with Earth Rot’s instrumentals, never before released. Axelrod himself requested the release of the instrumentals before his death; it was this request that started the process that led to the issue of his Capitol Trilogy on Now-Again, with his family and Estate’s participation and approval. - Now Again Records

Item description:

“Bram Weijters' Crazy Men is an adventurous take on Belgian jazz-rock and fusion from the seventies. The lineup of Crazy Men includes musicians who play in a wide array of contemporary jazz bands like BRZZVLL, Dans Dans, STUFF. and Internal Sun. The spark for this special project was ignited with the reissue of Koen De Bruyne's 'Here Comes The Crazy Man!' on Sdban Records in 2015. The original album was recorded in 1974 by pianist Koen De Bruyne who was initially active in classical music and worked as a session musician for artists like Will Tura, Johan Verminnen and his brother Kris De Bruyne. But in 1974 the 28-year-old Koen De Bruyne chose to focus on his own work and released his only studio album. The amazing result, 'Here Comes The Crazy Man!', is premium experimental jazz-rock. In that period, an inspiring crossover energy seemed to prevail in the Belgian jazz scene.” – Bandcamp

Item description: