Pop & Rock Novedades

Emerging London-based collective SEED Ensemble are pleased to announce the release of their long-awaited debut album 'Driftglass' released Feb 8th on the Jazz re:freshed label.

Formed in 2016, SEED Ensemble is a ten-piece project led by composer, arranger and alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi. Already a giant on the UK jazz scene, she's known for her work with jazz septet Nerija (Parliamentary Jazz Award Winners 2017 Best Newomer) and afrobeat jazz group Kokoroko. A BMus Hons Composition graduate from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, she is currently Mercury Musical Developments' and Musical Theatre Network's most recent Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Scheme recipient.

Combinng jazz with inner-city London, West African and Caribbean influenced groove, Cassie's Kinoshi's SEED Enesmble explores a blend of genres through both original compositions and arrangements.

Collaborators on this project include Theon Cross (tuba), Sheila Mauric-Grey (trumpet), Chelsea Charmichael (tenor saxophone) all brilliant up and coming young London jazz musicians and one of London's leading guitarists Shirley Tetteh

Compositions such as 'The Darkies' are a riposte to a resurgence of 1950's-style racism while 'WAKE (for Grenfell)' is dedicated to victims of a social schism

Kinoshi recently contributed to the BBC4 documentary 'Jazzology with Soweto Kinch'

About The Word Collected Works

The Word is one of the better-kept secrets of 1980s Austrian disco music. Yet once you put the needle on this record, you notice that it sounds oddly familiar. The awe-inspiring signature piece “Lobster” has the same analogue, slow-moving aesthetic as Zenit’s timeless “Waiting” that was featured on Edition Hawara’s first release. The same goes for the three other wonderfully unconventional, proto-electronic songs: “Easy”, “All my life” and the eponymous “the word”. And there are even more commonalities with Zenit’s LP: The vocals are Linda Sharrock’s, who here teamed up with Karl “Charly” Ratzer and Peter Ponger, the twin brother of legendary Falco producer Robert Ponger. The result of this collaboration is, well, also quite legendary. How this kind of sound emerged in Vienna in 1984 is still a bit of a mystery, but clearly all the stars were aligned when Sharrock, Ratzer and Ponger were jamming in the studio. We at Edition Hawara are very proud to share this secret with you. Just as there are very few lobsters in landlocked Vienna, there are very few records like this

out there.

Lascelle 'Lascelles' Gordon - the driving force behind Vibration Black Finger – astonishes us yet again with a magnificent second album. Once more his inspiration is drawn from the obscure spiritual jazz collectives of the 1970's where he employs a vast array of like-
minded collaborators to create a listening experience infused with an ever-present undercurrent of personal expression and cultural empowerment that's as enriched with ideas as it is progressive in its form.

Having earned his chops as founding member of the Brand New Heavies, Campag Velocet and Heliocentric World, Lascelle's latest album Can You See What I'm Trying to Say bursts with energy and vivid contrasts, flowing effortlessly between beat-laden grooves, oscillating improvisations, soulful recitations, audio verité and moody atmospherics. The album drops like a post-hip-hop reimagining of foundational genres, with a prayer to the future.

''Can You See What I'm Trying to Say' is a quote from Marion Brown, the great alto saxophonist' explains Gordon. 'The album was put together over the last three years, not in the conventional way of going into the recording studio with musicians, but starting from ideas I had on various formats (cassettes, mini disc, DATs & reel to reel). I also used field recordings. I did a lot of home recording with long time musical friends Ben Cowen & Diana Gutkind, some of them going back 20 years. The voices of my nieces (heard on Law of the Universe) were recorded 25 years ago. 'Only in a Dream' and 'Empty Streets' are the only songs that were recorded live in the studio.'

'I was blown away by the New Life Trio 'Empty Streets' (from 1978) and was fascinated by the vocals' continues Lascelles. 'I always thought it would be great to cover this tune'. Such is the power of this song, it's used to open the album, with vocalist Ebony Rose turning in a thoroughly haunting vocal performance. While not a concept album as such, Lascelles has nonetheless conceived and presented Can You See What I'm Trying to Say to be heard as a complete listening experience, with each track blending into the next, resulting in a seamless expression of music.

Following 'Empty Streets', some instrumental interludes segue into a dimensional drift of beats, space synths, horns and electronics; there's a vocal reprise of 'Acting For Liberation', sung with gusto by Maggie Nichols, and then there's the album's momentous finale, 'Only In A Dream', which takes off as an ominous drone before a delicious bassline from the late Ken Kambayashi transforms it into an intense, soaring epic which finally descends onto another world.

In a career spanning several decades, Lascelle Gordon remains an omnivorous musical force, whether as DJ, collaborator or radio broadcaster. As amply demonstrated on Can You See What I'm Trying to Say, he refuses to rest on his laurels and continues to impress with music that is as rich, vital and contemporary as anything he's done before, covering an incredible amount of musical ground in the process.

'As always I've made a conscious move towards making deep, heavy music' he says, 'Music without meaning seems.

Red Vinyl

Directly influenced by the film noir tradition and the hardboiled detective novels of yesteryear, Aging craft gloom heavy mood music that aspires to create a cinema without image. ‘Sentenced To Love’ is the pinnacle of the band's work.

Led by David McLean, Aging’s fourth album is a direct continuation of the music he was commissioned to make during his 2017 Samarbeta Residency with The Crime Scene Ensemble, a 15 piece band of actors and jazz musicians formed to live soundtrack the short stories of pulp fiction writer and collage artist Phil Carney. Chronicling tales full of obsession, longing, double crosses and murder, the same thematic and melodic gravitas is present in ‘Sentenced To Love’, largely due to a handpicked selection of musicians from Manchester’s avant-garde and experimental music scenes being involved in both.
 Whereas previous records by the band have largely been improvised, the six brooding scenes that complete ‘Sentenced To Love’ reveal a new compositional rigour and emotional weight, whilst still retaining pockets of nocturnal improvisation, each carefully crafted to create their own distinct and filmic sound world. From the low lit, dive bar blues of ‘Nights In Amber’ to the gun out chase theme of ‘The Trapped Man’, the nameless cowboy ghost story ‘A Shadow On My Name’ and the redemptive odyssey of ‘Cursed With The Thirst’, Aging’s detailed mise-en-scene full of brass, double bass, simmering drums and reverb drenched guitars conjures the pantheon of noir cinema. This is no truer than on the album’s title track, a vampiric torch song whose crescendo soars with Ali Bell’s lamenting, tremulous vocals, which act as a midnight confession of a doomed romance.

In an age where most musicians are attempting to free themselves from limitations, Aging’s ‘Sentenced To Love’ stands proudly as a genre record, one evoking the tradition of the jazz ballad, designed to swallow the listener into the dark cascade of its drama.

-Indo-Coreana, unearthed Korean-Indo Ethno Fusion project-

Better known for his work as a critic, Kim Jinmuk has introduced some of the deepest Contemporary and World music in Korea through his own label and series of Meditative works offering crossovers of Ethnic sonorities.

His personal body of work also covers a wide spectrum as he kept searching for creative ways to express himself, that’s when in early 90s he first started to show interest in Indian traditional music bringing him to cross over frontiers with the Gayageum & Ajeng legend Baik In-Young and the Gayageum player Lee Min Young to meet talented Indian Traditional instruments musicians from Prune and organise collaborative sessions giving a yet unheard deep fusion of sounds.

Directing the sessions and taking care of the compositions Kim Jinmuk found a cross-cultural sweet spot given birth to no-less than 3 full length albums.

In most realisation there is a profound sense of both meditative atmospheres and rhythmical elements with a rarely found balance in between these. When most Ethnic and traditional oriented pieces have a tendency to stick into their own standards “Indo-Coreana” is rather highlighting the artistry of this cross-cultural fusion.

Comet Is Coming band leader Shabaka is back with The Ancestors on 'We Are Sent Here By History', follow-up to their 2016 breakout, 'Wisdom of Elders'.

The project was formed in early 2016, leading to their debut album later that year ‘Wisdom of Elders’; a document of sessions combining Hutchings with a group of South African jazz musicians he’d long admired. His connection to the group was Mandla Mlangeni (bandleader of the Amandla Freedom Ensemble), whom he’d flown there to play with over the past few years. ‘We Are Sent Here by History’ is a meditation on the fact of our coming extinction as a species. It is a reflection from the ruins, from the burning.

A questioning of the steps to be taken in preparation for our
transition individually and societally if the end is to be seen as anything but a tragic defeat. For those lives lost and cultures dismantled by centuries of western expansionism, capitalist thought and white supremist structural hegemony the end days have long been heralded as present with this world experienced as an embodiment of a living purgatory.

Founded in 1972, SteepleChase Records is one of the most significant and prolific European jazz record labels. With a catalogue running to well over 200 titles, the Copenhagen-based imprint has recorded and released music from some of the greatest names in jazz, including Dexter Gordon, Andrew Hill, Jackie McLean, Horace Parlan, Chet Baker and Stan Getz.

Starting out by recording visiting Americans when they performed at the legendary Café Montmartre, founder Nils Winther was encouraged to start the label by none other than the great Jackie McLean, who was the first artist to release a record on the new imprint. From there, Steeplechase rapidly grew into one of the foremost labels to document European jazz with all its distinctive originality and style.

With a particular emphasis on recording front rank American artists who had chosen the expatriate life in Europe, Steeplechase was first in line to document the sounds of the greats as they developed in exile. Featuring in-demand tracks from the likes of Billy Gault, Johnny Dyani and Khan Jamal, and unearthing deep cuts from greats like Jackie McLean and Mary Lou Williams, our Spiritual Jazz 11: Steeplechase pays tribute to one of Europe's most important jazz labels.

Within the genetic makeup of Darker Than Wax, jazz is the key. After nearly 8 years of existence as a label, Darker Than Wax are proud to present a record that truly contributes to the pantheon of jazz music. Welcome to Nomad's Land - a sprawling, dreamy, brutally honest album from British pianist and producer Dominic J Marshall.

Genes and Spirits: herald of a new South African jazz.When pianist and composer Moses Taiwa Molelekwa died in February 2001, fans and fellow musicians alike were swept away by grief. He was so young - not yet 30 - and had shown such musical promise. Genes and Spirits was his second album, released a year before his death. While the composer's voice and pianist's touch are instantly recognisable from his debut, Finding One's Self, the ideas underlying the music mark a conscious step into the unknown: what he called 'finding a range of rhythmic alternatives,' inspired by the rhythmic complexity he was hearing in both pan-African music and the New Music he had been exploring in Europe; and by the possibilities of electronic club music - jungle in London, and kwaito in Soweto.Inspired like many of his musical age-mates by the optimism of the post-liberation 1990s in South Africa, Taiwa crafted what he described as ragga with a kalimba groove; Tswana vocals over a programmed drum track; a duet with Chucho Valdez and more, across eleven tracks combining the talents of multiple South African and world musicians, including Valdez, Flora Purim and Cameroonian drummer Brice Wassy. With Genes and Spirits, Molelekwa was stepping into the kind of genre-busting territory we associate today with players such as Robert Glasper, but he was doing it almost a decade earlier: asserting a new jazz identity that was young, popular and African. This re-release also includes one additional track, Wa Mpona, recorded for, but omitted from, the original release.Remastered by Frank Merritt at the Carvery, Genes and Spirits is presented as a deluxe gatefold sleeve including new liner notes by Gwen Ansel.

Debut EP by The Jivers including vocal talent Anqui and remixes by DJ Moodz, Don Pascal and Fred Spid

Libreville Records is proud to present a focus on legendary electronic swiss project Mega Wave Orchestra in the form of a compilation LP including unreleased material.Originally released privately in Geneva in 1988 as a box set containing five LPs by The Mega Wave Orchestra and five prints by the artist H. Richard Reimann. The Mega Wave Orchestra, the brain-child of musician, mathematician and composer Christian Oestreicher, was conceived as an multi-media electronic music big-band. It was comprised of seven multi-instrumentalists Christine Schaller, Vincent Barras, Jacques Demierre, Olivier Rogg, Rainer Boesch, Roger Baudet, and Benoit Corboz, with Oestreicher as arranger and producer.The Mega Wave Orchestra created a new hybrid music. It was a music with roots in the jazz and classical traditions, but one which also drew on the sonic freedom of musique concrete and the kind of total experience offered by psychedelia. The diverse backgrounds and specialisms of each of the band leaders/writers resulted in a wide variety of music across the five discs: from austere drones and granular aural detail to warm oddball fusion and gorgeous but cracked vocal jazz. There are useful contemporary comparisons to be made: zoned synth jazz like the Azimuth LP on ECM or Karin Krog’s Freestyle; Larry Heard’s sequencer dreamtime; the Valium minimalism of Pep Llopis or Jun Fukamaki; Dexter Wansel’s shimmering arrangements for Loose Ends, or even the FM sheen meets cold war threat of Donald Fagen’s Night Fly. Here, too, is the sound of music technology about to snowball and define its own aesthetic, unknowingly prefiguring auteurish bedroom producers like Black Dog or The Detroit Escalator Company.Lovely crafted tip-on sleeve. Remastered from Master tapes. 600 copies.

Award-winning bassist Daniel Casimir and vocalist Tess Hirst release their debut album via pioneering London-based record labe Jazz re:freshed. Following the success of Daniel Casimir's critically acclaimed debut EP 'Escapee' which featured Hirst on vocals and fellow rising stars on the scene Moses Boyd, Joe Armon-Jones and Shirley Tetteh, this album - 'These Days' is inspired by the duo's London surroundings, delivering thought-provoking lyricism, neo-soul and modern jazz

Casimir, a former Birmingham Conservatoire student, has collaborated with Julian Joseph, Jason Rebello, Benet McLean, Lonnie Liston Smith, Nathan Facey, Shane Forbes, Chihiro Yamanaka, Ashley Henry, David Lyttle, Nubya Garcia, The Tracey Quintet (Meantime Jubilation), Tom Harrison (Unfolding In Tempo), Jasmine Power (Stories And Rhymes), Camilla George and Art Blakey Jazz Messenger saxophonist, Jean Toussaint.

Named Young Jazz Musician of the Year by the Musicians' Company in 2016, Casimir has received plaudits for his arrangements and recital, while Hirst has made a name for herself with her vocals on the jazz circuit having moved between London, Leeds and LA to hone her craft. What sets Hirst apart as a musician is not only the originality of her music but her perspective of herself as an artist. She is an Ethnomusicology Graduate of SOAS and her writing style walks us through her upbringing in West London and down the halls of academia

Casimir and Hirst fuse traditional jazz sounds into beautiful compositions, narrating their way through a political and cultural landscape across these twelve tracks. The frenzied groove heavy'Security' addresses the need to trust one another and how we protect ourselves personally, while the rich atmospherics of 'Freedom' combined with Hirst's vocals, explore liberation and the rejection of duty - from a female perspective.

At the heart of 'These Days', Casimir plays with a passion and power that resonates throughout each composition. His knack for complex chord changes are highlighted in 'What Did I Do', bringing an energy and enthusiasm to the track while Hirst decries our changing capital. Elsewhere, references to John Agard's poem 'Listen Mr. Oxford Don' in 'The Magic Money Tree', explore the past and its relevance to now while a re-imagining of Charles Mingus' 'Fables Of Faubus' further ensures this theme remains central to the essence of the album.

Daniel Casimir and Tess Hirst have already received radio support from BBC Radio 3, BBC Music Introducing and Jazz FM, along with coverage in the London Evening Standard and Jazzwise Magazine

'Don't Let Them' interpolates elements of 'Fables Of Faubus' written by Charles Mingus (c) 1959. Published by Jazz Workshop Inc. Administered by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

More Jazz-funk, Latenite Breaks, Cinematic Prog & Psych From Italian Untapped Film Music Archives (1968-1978) - Lp 180gr. + Cd Bonus Ltd. Ed. 500 Copies

A New Stunning Chapter Of The Esterno Series, Dedicated To The Rediscovery Of Rare And Unreleased Soundtracks And Library Music From Italy.

While The Previous Volumes Consisted Of Unreleased Material From The Mythical Rca Italy Archive, The Research Has Been Extended Thanks To Some New Mysterious Sources, Unveiling Some Of Best Kept Secrets From The '60s And '70s.

The Result Is A Deep Journey Into The Secret History Of Italian Library Music, Dedicated To Sounds That Were Designed For A Cityscape Pervaded With Action, Car-chases, And High-

Tension Scenes Set In Smoky Nightclubs. Jazz-funk, Deep Breaks, Prog And Psych Flavors From Some Of The Most Hip Names From The Italian Scene: Alessandro Alessandroni, Piero Piccioni, Carlo Pes And I Marc 4, Sandro Brugnolini. This All-star Cast Is Completed By Silvano D'auria, Here With Another Terrifying Unreleased Track After The Shocking 'sortilegio', Presented For The First Time In Volume Uno.

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s liveshows were known for their transcendental journeys, mixing live improvisation with the structure form studio album songs. TKDE always worked with a complex live set up, linking multiple laptops, channeling, effects and looping systems to recreate the intricate sound of their music. During the period from 2007 till 2011 many live performances were recorded, and decided was to release a compilation of songs as a live album. In 2012, a year before the split of the project, the live album was released digitally to show the diversity and flexibility of the band live.

"The album presents a series of tracks recorded from shows over the last five years, doubling as essentially a "best of" and insight into the live TKDE experience. (...) And it is exactly this weaving of disparate threads, often in an unexpected and chaotic fashion, that make TKDE so fascinating. Compositions can - and do - traverse through multiple genres, as one would expect from a pooling of such eclectic backgrounds." (4.5 / 5 Resident Advisor)

Strings and swinging traps pulse beneath radiant brass painting a daring dynamic East Coast evolution of Chicago style avant-garde. Fly or Die received “Best of 2017” honors from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR Music, WIRE Magazine, Aquarium Drunkard, Stereogum, The Quietus, Bandcamp, and more.

Shrink-wrapped 7" in retro USA Atlantic 45rpm sleeve (die-cut card).

On vinyl in the U.S. for the first time since 1977, this 1975 release includes African, Indian, Arabic and 70's era Miles Davis style electric rock fusions. Featuring contributions from former Ornette Coleman bandmates Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, and liner notes from Stanley Crouch.

Frank Hatchett was a legendary dance instructor and originator of VOP. VOP is not an abbreviation but, as he himself puts it: "VOP is a style". It's used to flavour the choreography and to communicate and translate emotions to the audience. The record produced by Don Alan Tipton is a wonderful complement of said VOP style. It features 11 tracks made for dancing that are produced and arranged in a moving and funky fashion.

‘Visions’ is a new collaborative album from BADBADNOTGOOD co-founders, Matthew Tavares and Leland Whitty. The Grammy Award winning, multi-platinum producers have been performing and writing music together for 10 years. They have achieved international acclaim with BADBADNOTGOOD and Tavares’ recent solo single ’Self-Portrait’ has been championed by tastemakers such as Gilles Peterson and Benji B. ‘Visions’ is the latest upshot of their incredibly fruitful partnership.

Recorded in Toronto, it was produced by Tavares and Whitty - with Tavares also mixing the album and arranging strings. After a three-week writing period it was played in its entirety in one continuous studio session; almost all the tracks on the album are the first take. Tavares is on piano and guitar, Whitty on saxophone and flute. The rhythm section of Julian Anderson-Bowes on bass and Matthew Chalmers on drums completes the players. They make an impressive collective and are performing at the peak of their powers.

Conceptually the album is a canvas for a combination of composition and group free-form improvisation. Tavares and Whitty are the sole composers, but with some tracks collectively improvised, there is also a group dynamic running through the album. The outcome is a sublime melting pot of modern jazz, impressionist classical music and Arthur Verocai-esque arrangements. It is a sound that is hard to date; it is certainly of the now but is also reminiscent of a lost classic. Similar to the process of its creation, the optimal listening experience for ‘Visions’ is in its entirety. As a coherent body of work it draws the listener in with waves of intensity and crescendos that release back into tranquility - there is both darkness and light in the album’s narrative arc. There is also rawness and honesty to the music, which makes it feel like an intensely personal and intimate offering.

Sam Gendel’s Nonesuch Records debut, Satin Doll, was recorded in Gendel’s native California, and is a futuristic homage to historical jazz. The album features three musicians — Gendel on saxophone, Gabe Noel on electric bass, and Philippe Melanson on electronic percussion — engaging in simultaneous synchronized sonic construction/deconstruction of jazz standards, including Miles Davis’ ‘Freddie Freeloader’, Charles Mingus’ ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, and Duke Ellington’s ‘Satin Doll’.

Sam Gendel is a musician and producer living in Los Angeles, CA. He is most known for his work with the saxophone, though he is proficient on multiple instruments. His work is diverse and includes significant collaborations with a wide range of artists including Ry Cooder, Blake Mills, Sam Amidon, Perfume Genius, Moses Sumney, Knower, Vampire Weekend, and inc. no world. Gendel’s previous discography includes the critically praised Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar with bassist Sam Wilkes and 4444.

Hailing from the coastal Swedish city of Malmö, Sune steps forward to provide a fourth EP for Lorca and Liam Curran's Live Ones. With his Mimosa Kuriosa EP he serves up 5 masterful disco and soul inflected rhythms that'll hit all the right spots.

Having previously provided his signature sunshine grooves for Better Listen, Kyoku and his own Honey Butter imprint, Sune is fast building a reputation as a prolific purveyor of funk. The EP shows off Emil Sunesson's ear for playful samples and infectious grooves. Dusty, heady drum programming features heavily across all five tracks, employed subtly on the laid back 'Bring Some Tea' while unleashed to devastating effect on the upbeat 'The Way U Make Me Feel'.

There's something for everyone on this versatile, enigmatic EP from a talented young producer that we're sure you'll be seeing plenty more of in time to come.

After a long hiatus the noisy and most telepathic Montreal impro trio Jane & The Magik Bananas, led by Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush, Karkhana, Dwarfs Of East Agouza) returned with a shifted focus exploring rhythm in a global sense. Live compositional practise with rhythm and polyrhythm as the structuring principle led them to different kinds of western / non-western tuning and micro tonality. In a certain way they play in the Western tradition of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time Band, Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart. Various world music traditions boiled together in the groovy crucible of improvisation. An album that will certainly delight friends of the Dwarfs Of East Agouza. Very small limited edition on 140g black vinyl.

Michel F Cote: drums, amplified percussion, feedback
Alexandre St-Onge: electric bass, electronics, voice
Sam Shalabi: electric guitar

International press campaign including mail shots to key-international tastemakers and industry insiders *Focus on environmental message and quotes from key writers and thinkers Tour dates expected 2020 21/3/2020 Gateshead Jazz Festival, Gateshead, UK * Media: - 6 Music Playlists and presenters including Gilles Peterson - Jazzwise Magazine - UK’s key jazz Mag: Feature TBC, Review confirmed - BBC Radio 2 Jamie Cullum - UK’s biggest radio listenership/internatioanlly known star - airplay tbc - The Guardian - key UK broadsheet jazz CD of the month tbc - London Evening Standard - key London newspaper poss interview - The Financial Times - key UK broadsheet review TBC - BBC Music Magazine - Key classical music magazine - Jazz CD of the month TBC - MOJO Magazine - Specialist jazz column review TBC - Record Collector Magazine - specialist jazz column review TBC

Mais Alors !!?... c’est à l’envers is the first release of new French Label ICI BIENTÔT (Here Soon ...), launched by Paris Fleamarket’s Record Shop, Geminicricket. On the Menu... Suspended Time,
Unsung Heroes, Hidden Records and Next Door Marvels.
In 1983, NEF released their first and only album, Mais Alors !!?... c’est à l’envers. At that point, the band already had a long history, interwoven with that of various musical trends and alternative
movements from the late sixties to the early eighties. That’s certainly what makes this record so special and able to conciliate such different worlds as Electronic Prog, Film Score, New Wave …
The band’s destiny was most certainly tied to their native region, the South of France, an idyllic environment that attracted a number of musicians during the 1970s, allowing the group to attend many
concerts or share the bill with several groups that have gone on to become well known: Can, Ash Ra Tempel, Magma, Catherine Ribeiro, Zao, Chêne Noir, Art Zoyd …
Founded in 1975 by Richard Lorenzi, NEF started as a kind of Free Rock band with multiple influences, going from Prog to Musique Concrete, in which any method of making sound, any way of
bringing out sounds was good … 2 musicians and a photographer, full member of the band who was projecting slides over the music and influenced their dreamlike universe. In 1978, Vincent Tronc came on board with his keyboards and synths. While the group had been influenced by electroacoustic techniques until then, Vincent broadened NEF’s horizons, bringing in a host of new influences: Ash Ra Tempel, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze … the beginnings of electronic music. When the album is recorded in 1983, new directions were taken and changed NEF’s usual sound.
First, the idea of playing the accordion, clearly not a common thing and a new Drum Machine, the Roland CJ-5000. Pressed the day a figure of French Chanson died, NEF’s pressing is botched up, a
good part of the records were unusable since the records came out totally warped. Then, at the end of the eighties the small stock of remaining records is lost in the sadly famous flood of Nîmes. 2000
records had been pressed, but very few survived! All the more reason to reissue Mais Alors !!?... c’est à l’envers, an unsung record, free and multifaceted, a quirky and daring musical ovni, transcending eras and genres, between synthetic
Krautrock and Film Score, reminiscent of NEU! (with a red nose), François de Roubaix and Pascal Comelade.

Portico Quartet announce We Welcome Tomorrow a strictly limited edition three-track vinyl EP.

The EP follows on from Memory Streams, their fifth studio album and second for Gondwana Records which was released in October 2019. Sonically it explores a similar world to the full-length album, but where Memory Streams focused on a punchier live sound, WWT explores modern classical and ambient textures.

We Welcome Tomorrow features, the duo Fran and Flora (Francesca Ter-Berg cello & Flora Curzon) on strings, but also builds looped saxophones, drums and synths parts into a rich tapestry of sound. Odd time signatures underpin a surprisingly emotional build that resolves in richly layered strings.

Mirage explores a different side of the band's writing. Moving away from their usual instrumentation and enlisting the beautiful string playing of 'Fran and flora' . It draws influence from the emotional, spiritual minimalism of composers such as Arvo Part and John Adams.

Winding Snake again takes influence from American minimalism but places it against strong, modern drum rhythms and organs. And its energy and instrumentation propel the music into trademark Portico Quartet territory.





[a] 1 We Welcome Tomorrow [clip]
[b] 2 Mirage [clip]
[c] 3 Winding Snake [clip]

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 ‘Open 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 new opus ( the title means ‘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 my ancestors, transmitted into song to be shared with mankind. The elements of the record are waters & the great feminine spirit.’
To close the album, London saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings joins Sibusile for a purely improvised 18 minute musical trip recorded that same day. ‘Phefumula is a journey of still minds, with a focus on the importance and simplicity of breathing. After a practical breathing session Shabaka & I were granted time to explore worlds and receive messages to be shared - we were gracefully granted to be vessels who receive.’

The Splinta Experience was made entirely by hand. And a foot. The record is the result of Splinta's turntable tricks and layering. It's simply drumming and scratching arranged on the fly with a loop pedal, with added effects from a basic, pocket-size bass module. Low in fidelity and high in humming, buzzing and hissing. No SP-404 effects needed.

This is scratch music that takes us to the Electric ScratchHappyLand. It might as well be a tribute record celebrating 50 years of Jimmy Hendrix Experience's last album. And 22 years of Kid Koala's greatest mix-tape of all time.

Splinta's a Slovenian. He's been deejaying & juggling for more than a while. This is his debut on plastic.

Sleeve illustration, design and print all also hand-made by Splinta. Really wholesome hiphop shit.

Kenny Dorham’s 1964 album Trompeta Toccata would be the final album that the great underrated trumpeter and composer would record as a leader, and it stands as a fitting testament to his prodigious talent. The album featured a stellar quintet with Dorham and his frequent collaborator Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone along with pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath. The brilliant album cover design by Reid Miles featured the bold typography that made his style so influential. This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

On 1964’s Into Somethin’—his first album for Blue Note—Larry Young made it abundantly clear that he had his own unique approach to the Hammond B-3 organ. Rather than the tried-and-true soul jazz sound so strongly identified with the instrument, Young explored more modal territory over the course of his six Blue Note albums including this tremendous session featuring tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers, guitarist Grant Green, and drummer Elvin Jones. The remarkable album cover design by Reid Miles made excellent use of a memorable photograph by Francis Wolff. This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.