$38.00
Some new generation singers do manage to step into the spotlight of course. Rita Ora parlayed her big hit with DJ Fresh into megapop ubiquity; Katy B, of course, has managed to outshine her producers consistently, as has Jessie Ware. But acts where the singer gets equal billing with the production are an interesting balancing act, and are few and far between. The ongoing partnership between SBTRKT and Sampha comes close, as do Alunageorge (although the latter feel like their personality has been workshopped out of them rather), but new duo Anushka on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood label feel like the closest we've come yet to the nineties glories of, say, Moloko.
Max Wheeler and Victoria Port's songs fizz with the textures of modern house music – with occasional diversion into tougher or stranger rave territories – but their songs bubble over with something extra at every turn. Whether it's Port's massed jazz harmonies on “Never can Decide”, the casually sassy nineties R&B feel of “I Have Love 4 U”, the churchiness of the slow jam “This Time” or the raging social awareness underpinned by snarling bass in “Mansions”, these are complete constructions where the song is integral to the groove and vice versa. If the current wave of dance is to consolidate its success, bands like this are what we need. This is a brilliant album. – The Art Desk
Label: Brownswood Recordings – bwood0124lp |
Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album |
Country: UK & Ireland |
Released: 02 Jul 2014 |
Genre: Funk / Soul, Pop |
$58.00
Gilles Peterson presents a time capsule of musical magic on this exclusive. Taken from a day of live sessions in London’s legendary Maida Vale Studios – studio MV4 to be exact, it was originally intended just for Peterson’s BBC radio show broadcast on 20th October 2018. Struck by what a special moment the sessions captured, Peterson has decided to mark the results with a release proper on his Brownswood imprint.
A limited special double vinyl release, it features a diverse, all-star cast of some of the acts celebrated by Peterson in recent years, in a series of freewheeling and off-the-cuff recordings, several of the tracks backed by the group of Brownswood signee, Joe Armon-Jones. Featuring Dylan Jones, James Mollison, Mutale Chashi, and Marijus Aleksa as well as guest turns from Fatima, Asheber, Nubya Garcia, Hak Baker, and Oscar Jerome, plus a double track special from Bristol based collective, Ishmael Ensemble. – Music Is My Sanctuary
Label: Brownswood Recordings – BWOOD0218LP |
Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition, Stereo |
Country: UK |
Released: 17 Mar 2020 |
Genre: Hip Hop, Jazz, Reggae, Funk / Soul |
Style: Contemporary Jazz |
$45.00
Seattle-raised, Brooklyn-residing Kassa Overall is a jazz musician, emcee, singer, producer, and drummer. His second, full-length album, I THINK I’M GOOD, is the work of an artist whose voice has ripened to its own hard-earned, provocative conclusions, erasing the need to talk about dissolving barriers between hip hop and jazz because he has begun a new conversation.
I THINK I’M GOOD is a window into the real life of Overall, a Bushwick-based artist wrestling with the abhorrent American prison system, the ebbs and flows of romantic relationships, and perils of trust, all seen through the kaleidoscopic lens of a brilliant 21st century composer. The backdrop to these varied themes is Overall confronting his experience with mental illness, which included a manic episode and subsequent hospitalisation when he was a student. Themes of incarceration and claustrophobia weave through the record, but never drown out the feeling of a fragile but vital hope. - Bandcamp
Label: Brownswood Recordings – BWOOD0219LP |
Format: Vinyl, LP |
Country: UK & US |
Released: 28 Feb 2020 |
Style: Fusion |
$30.00
Gilles Peterson described Diggs Duke’s style as “an avant garde beatmaker’s attitude to making soul music”, and one could hardly disagree; his sound is hard to pin down. It’s experimental, twisting and turning across many layers, yet still manages to ground itself in the familiar vibes of jazz and soul, all this without letting genre definitions get in the way of the music itself. This is by no means an easy musical route to take, but what’s easy is always boring, and Offering For Anxious is neither of these things. – Music Is My Sanctuary
Label: Brownswood Recordings – BWOOD0110LP |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition |
Country: UK |
Released: Feb 2014 |
Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Funk / Soul |
Style: Broken Beat, Future Jazz, Neo Soul |
$45.00
If Ezra Collective are the break-out stars of the booming contemporary London jazz scene, the band’s keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones is perhaps its cult hero. ‘Turn To Clear View’, his latest album, is lithe and deftly arranged. Over eight tracks, this solo record snakes between funk, dub, bass music and hip-hop – yet always retains the jazz-focused grooves to which its author is inextricably linked.
His piano work is exemplary on songs such as ‘Gnawa Sweet’, ‘Icy Roads (Stacked)’ and ‘(To) Know When You’re Coming’. As light hi-hats, muted kick-drums, saxophone and trumpet solos weave in and out of the arrangement, it becomes clear that Armon-Jones knows the importance of collaboration, ceding space for each instrument to shine. - NME
Label: Brownswood Recordings – BWOOD0207LP |
$48.00
A TAV Curator's Pick.
“A primer on London’s bright-burning young jazz scene, this new compilation brings together a collection of some of its sharpest talents. A set of nine newly-recorded tracks, We Out Here captures a moment where genre markers matter less than raw, focused energy. Surveying the album’s running order, it could easily serve as a name-checking exercise for some of London’s most-tipped and hardworking bands of the past couple of years. Recorded across three long, fruitful days in a North West London studio, the results speak for themselves: they’re a window into the wide-eyed future of London’s musical underground.” – Bandcamp
“The question of who will "save" jazz – a music that celebrated a century on record in 2017 – is one that gets a new answer every few years. The cycle goes like this: A flashy award, a pop cosign, a high-profile collaboration or some intangible sense of "relevance" suddenly brings an artist like Esperanza Spalding, Robert Glasper or Kamasi Washington to the attention of the mainstream. All while conventional mass media – La La Land, Drew Brees' FedEx commercial – continues to paint the music as difficult or alienating…
… All of these artists – and much of the other improvised music coming out of the U.K. – share a sense of urgency, spontaneity and, frankly, fun that sets their music apart from crossover-ready jazz stateside. In London, musicians have created a jazz community that offers access and support to anyone who can blow, regardless of their background. And as it turns out, the music is that much better as a result.” – RollingStone
Item description:
Artist: |
Various |
Title: |
We Out Here |
Label: |
Brownswood Recording |
Format: |
2x Vinyl, LP, Compilation |
Pressing: |
UK |
Release Date: |
Original – 2018 |
Genre: |
Jazz |
Style: |
Contemporary Jazz |
Catalog No: |
BWOOD0175LP |
Condition: |
New |
$39.00
The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London.
Taking inspiration from the anything-goes spirit of ‘70s jazz-funk, on albums by Herbie Hancock or the Mahavishnu Orchestra, it’s a loose template with plenty of room to experiment. The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training. Instead, their musical tastes – and approach to playing – are indebted to Thelonious Monk’s piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.
“It's all about the drums and the keys,” Williams says. “Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.” Born out of a one-off live session to perform Williams’ solo material for Boiler Room, it soon became a project in its own right. Coming together as Yussef Kamaal, they played a series of live shows where little more than a chord progression would be planned before taking to the stage
Bringing that unspoken understanding to the recording sessions (engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics), the unplanned, telepathically spawned grooves retain the raw energy of their live shows. “It's not so much about complete arrangement, it's more about flow,” Dayes says. “A lot of the tracks are just made spontaneously – Henry will be playing two chords, I'll fill in the groove and we'll just leave the arrangement naturally.”
Both hail from South East London, crossing paths in 2007 as teenagers playing their first pub gigs around Peckham and Camberwell. Dayes drums for cosmically-inclined, afrobeat outfit United Vibrations, while Williams – on top of drumming and playing keys in different incarnations over the years – has made waves with his solo, synth-draped house 12"s for much-fêted labels like 22a and Rhythm Section. – Press Release
“Tracks on the record may feel like unfinished sketches as the listener is dropped into grooves that fade in and out from each other. Yet, the consistency with which this choice is exercised still makes the album feel like a seamless progression of an idea from start to finish. Variation nestles within the forward movement of the record: opener and title track ‘Black Focus’ lulls the listener into its West Coast groove, whilst ‘Strings Of Light’ incorporates a synth-string progression over Dayes’ afrobeat and a wash of celestial keys. Single ‘Yo Chavez’ also expresses the quieter side of Yussef Kamaal, pairing a gentle Rhodes line with soft brushwork to create the eerie atmosphere of an MF Doom instrumental. It is this generic melding which characterises the pervading influence and ultimate beauty of jazz; at times indefinable or inexpressible, the finest of the genre braids sound to create boundless depth.
Jazz is best experienced live and with 'Black Focus' Yussef Kamaal have captured the unpredictable and at times fragmented intensity of the live experience on wax. This is the kind of record that inspires new listeners to explore unfamiliar sounds and musical histories; the kind of record that bodes very well for the future of British jazz.” – CLASH
Item description:
Artist: |
|
Title: |
Black Focus |
Label: |
|
Format: |
Vinyl, LP, Album |
Pressing: |
UK |
Release Date: |
2016 |
Genre: |
Jazz, Electronica |
Style: |
Contemporary Jazz, Soul-Jazz, Broken Beat, Deep House |
Catalog No: |
BWOOD0157LP |
Condition: |
New |