$39.00
José James spent a decade reshaping jazz with the genre-blurring verve of a crate-digging beat guru, before becoming a solo R&B star. The last couple years he lived in Bill Withers' shoes - recording and touring his legendary songbook for the Lean On Me project. Now, the satin-voiced songwriter's latest is No Beginning No End 2, a sequel to his 2013 album that resurrects the bold eclecticism audiences first fell in love with. After the Bill Withers tour, James recalls: "I wrote a thing on Instagram saying I was thinking about No Beginning No End 2 and people went insane. They wrote thousands of comments about how the first one changed their life. I don't sit around and think 'my work is so important' so that was kinda nice."
Things are a little different this time around. For one, while the prequel was James' Blue Note debut, this is his first set of new music for his own label/collective Rainbow Blonde Records. Secondly, the album is full of collaborators who are auteurs in their own right: Laura Mvula, Aloe Blacc, Ledisi, Lizz Wright, Erik Truffaz, and Hindi Zahra, to name a few. Thirdly, with the backing of a wildly talented band held down by rhythm sections in Los Angeles and Brooklyn (befitting Rainbow Blonde's bicoastal status), the songs are warmer and more defined than ever. – Broadway World
Label: Rainbow Blonde – BLONDE022V |
Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold |
Country: Europe |
Released: 06 Mar 2020 |
Genre: Funk / Soul |
$39.00
This week’s Mono Monday release is perhaps best known for being Ray Charles’ final offering during his tenure with Atlantic Records during the late 1950s and early 1960s, but while one might expect it to feel slightly schizophrenic, given that it features a dozen songs recorded during various sessions over the course of his time on the label, some of which are covers and some of which are originals, The Genius Sings the Blues is actually one of the strongest efforts from that era of Charles’s career. - Rhino Records
Label: Atlantic – 8052, Atlantic – 0081227944469, Rhino Vinyl – 0081227944469 |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, Mono, 180 gram |
Country: USA & Europe |
Released: 25 Feb 2019 |
Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul, Blues |
Style: Rhythm & Blues |
$39.00
On this day in 1959, Ray Charles recorded "What'd I Say." Improvised at the end of a concert (it would end up closing most of Charles' shows for the remainder of his career), the song became the performer's mainstream breakthrough and first gold record. The album of the same name features nine more stirring selections including “Jumpin' In The Morning,” “Tell Me How Do You Feel” and “Rockhouse, Parts 1 & 2.” With redoubtable saxophonist David Newman among the backing band, Brother Ray is at the top of his game and clearly reveling in it – WHAT'D I SAY truly is the birth of soul. - Rhino Records
Label: Rhino Records (2) – 0081227944483 |
Series: Soul Music (7) – 01 |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue |
Country: Europe |
Released: 22 Feb 2019 |
Genre: Funk / Soul |
Style: Rhythm & Blues, Soul |
$39.00
Cigarettes After Sex mainman Greg Gonzalez's ability to set a scene and sustain a mood reels you in deeply. On album opener "K.", a tale of blossoming love etched in tiny details luxuriates over chiming guitars; on the hymn to romantic compulsion of "Each Time You Fall in Love," the suspended animation of Angelo Badalamenti's heart-stopping Twin Peaks music is echoed. "Sunsetz" and the gently lilting "Sweet," meanwhile, showcase Gonzalez's ability to weave impressionistic snapshots of romance into melodies that haunt like memories of past loves, all coalescing around his melting vocals.
Elsewhere, Gonzalez mounts movies in miniature with the photographic references of "Flash" and Fitzcarraldo echoes of "Opera House," a song so lovingly languid it could, conceivably, soundtrack a man hauling ships over mountains for love. And, just as every good film-maker knows the need for a killer finale, so Gonzalez closes the album with the retro-romantic swing and teasingly filthy put-downs of "Young & Dumb," which brings the album to a close with good, timeless advice: "Drive your car to the beach with the song on repeat...".
To mirror their woozy romanticism in music, Gonzalez rejected conventional studio routes for his band, which numbers Randy Miller on bass, Jacob Tomsky on drums and Phillip Tubbs on keyboards. Taking influence from The Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session (recorded in a church, single microphone), Cigarettes recorded most of the album in three days at the Sweatshop rehearsal space, Bushwick. The exception is "Each Time You Fall in Love," which was recorded in the Beekman's stairway after hours, the ghosts of screen lovers channeled in every warm note. Like the best movie, Cigarettes After Sex holds you in a hell of a spell. – Press Release
“Cigarettes After Sex’s sound is surprisingly muscular compared to their peers – the bass is loud, the interlocking guitar lines more clearly defined than the usual haze – but there’s no doubt where the focus is. It points up the other reason they seem one step ahead: their songs are stronger than anything else that’s been released in the same general area in recent years. They work in a sub-genre where atmosphere is often allowed to trump melody, but Gonzalez’s tunes are uniformly fabulous, to the point where it’s hard to pick out a highlight. Addictive, memorable and with the potential to reach an audience far wider than the cult following that normally awaits this kind of stuff, they’re the reason why an album where every track’s sonic components are more or less the same never feels monotonous or boring.” – The Guardian
“The pond-ripple guitars, jazzy cymbal taps, and misty keyboards heard throughout the self-titled debut album by Cigarettes After Sex will trigger Pavlovian chills in anyone with even a passing appreciation for Twin Peaks. Singer and mastermind Greg Gonzalez is certainly familiar with David Lynch, just as he’s well-versed in the work of slowcore heroes like Red House Painters and Mazzy Star. But what saves this El Paso-born, Brooklyn-based group from being just another trafficker of “Lynchian” indie-rock tropes is Gonzalez’s ability to capture moments and stretch them into lusty little pop daydreams.” – AV Club
Item description:
Artist: |
|
Title: |
Cigarettes After Sex |
Label: |
|
Format: |
Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue |
Pressing: |
Europe |
Release Date: |
2017 |
Genre: |
Indie, Rock |
Style: |
Indie Rock |
Catalog No: |
PTKF2146-1 |
Condition: |
New |
$39.00
A 2009 release, Declaration of Dependence is the third album from the Norwegian pop/folk duo Kings of Convenience. Consisting of Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe, the musical group is known for their delicate tunes, calming voices, and intricate and subtle guitar melodies. Øye and Bøe both compose and sing the songs.
Declaration of Dependence is the story of two people living two very different lives sensing that they are immensely more powerful together than apart. In that sense it is the most adult, the most mature record Kings of Convenience have ever made. That it is their most gripping, their most revealing is, if anything, just a by-product of that honesty and their endeavor.
"Erlend is a very stubborn individual with extreme belief in his own ideas," says Erik of his partner. "He's very free and creative and his access to unusual and fresh ideas is very good. I find that quite unique. For some reason they are very similar to my ideas on music - we like the same unusualness."
“Ignoring calls to fold Erlend Øye's hushed beats into their hushed folk, the Kings of quiet return with their most whisper-soft-- and graceful-- record yet.” – Pitchfork
Item description:
Artist: |
|
Title: |
Declaration Of Dependence |
Label: |
|
Format: |
Vinyl, LP, Album |
Pressing: |
Europe |
Release Date: |
2009 |
Genre: |
Indie, Folk, Rock |
Style: |
Indie Folk, Folk Rock, Downtempo, Acoustic, Lo-Fi, Male Vocals |
Catalog No: |
V 3062 |
Condition: |
New |
$39.00
A TAV Essential Listening Album.
Black Messiah is the third studio album by American recording artist D'Angelo. It was released in 2014 through RCA Records, bringing an end to his 14-year hiatus.
Black Messiah was among 2014's most highly anticipated albums and was released to commercial success. The album was also met with rave reviews from music critics, who praised the album's socially relevant lyrics and its use of multiple genres. The album was ranked as one of the best albums of 2014 by several publications.
Black Messiah won Best R&B Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards as well as Best R&B Song for "Really Love" which also was nominated for Record of the Year. – Wiki
“The prodigal son of the soul and funk canon, D'Angelo, is back. His ever-awaited third studio album, Black Messiah, is his first album since the critically acclaimed Voodoo, bringing to an end a 14-year hiatus. The album blends 70's jazz-funk and neo-soul.
Anyone who's been keeping up should be keen to the fact that the long-lusted over project was recorded in full analog, so the liner notes' PSA “For best results, listen at maximum volume” should be taken as a direct order for fervent D'lievers. And what better way to experience the gritty greatness of the release than a heavy-bodied vinyl pressing for the audio junkies?
The album features tracks co-penned by Kendra Foster (Parliament/Funkadelic) and Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest). It's also co-produced by Questlove (The Roots), bassist Pino Palladino (John Mayer Trio, The RH Factor), and drummer James Gadson (Bill Withers, Temptations, Beck, Jamie Lidell).” – Fat Beats
"Black Messiah is a dictionary of soul, but D'Angelo is the rare classicist able to filter the attributes of the greats in the canon into a sound distinctly his own. It’s at once familiar and oddly unprecedented, a peculiar trick to pull on an album recorded over the span of a decade.The timeliness of Black Messiah’s message is doubly astounding." - Pitchfork
Item description:
Artist: |
D'Angelo And The Vanguard |
Title: |
Black Messiah |
Label: |
|
Format: |
2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold |
Pressing: |
USA & Canada |
Release Date: |
2015 |
Genre: |
Hip-Hop, Soul, Funk |
Style: |
Neo Soul, Jazzy Hip-Hop, R&B, Conscious, Male Vocals |
Catalog No: |
88875-05655-1 |
Condition: |
New |