Moses Sumney – Aromanticism

Since emerging onto the scene in 2014, Moses Sumney has ridden a wave of word-of-mouth praise, hushed recordings, and dynamic live performances. It’s an organic, patient ascent all too rare in today’s musical climate. In a voice both mellifluous and haunting, Sumney makes future music that transmogrifies classic tropes, like moon-colony choir reinterpretations of old jazz gems. His vocals narrate a personal journey through universal loneliness atop otherworldly compositional backdrops.

Following the self-release of his debut cassette EP, Mid-City Island, and 2015’s 7″, Seeds/Pleas, Sumney has performed around the world alongside forebears like David Byrne, Karen O, Sufjan Stevens, Solange, James Blake and more. With his 2016 Lamentations EP, The California and Ghana-raised troubadour widened the spectrum of his heretofore “bedroom” music, incorporating songs that feature more elaborate production and evocative songwriting. Now his inspired ascent continues.

His proper debut album, Aromanticism is a concept album about lovelessness as a sonic dreamscape. It seeks to interrogate the social constructions around romance. The debut will include the devastating, billowing synths of “Doomed,” which in a way serves as the album’s thesis statement, as well as new versions of standouts “Lonely World” and “Plastic.” It’s a deliberate, jaw-dropping statement that can leave you both enlightened and empty.

Amadou & Mariam – Bofou Safou

Brand new album from extraordinary duet Amadou & Mariam called La Confusion.

Greatly produced by French producer Adrien Durand, first album with freshly pressed new tracks in Five years 🙂 A bit more electro than before, but the essence is still there. Looking forward to see them live again !

The Soul Session – TWO

Love makes the world go around. “two”, the second album by The Soul Session, is full of love. Ralph Kiefer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and producer from South Germany embarks on a stylistically diverse journey into Soul, Jazz, Funk and World Music.

Being a highly respected session musician in the jazz as well as the crossover scene, Kiefer made a serious impact in 2011 with “one”, the first Soul Session album. “one” was built on a solid backbeat of Soul, Hip Hop and Funk, while “two” now takes a step further into a spiritual and eclectic dimension. “Quantraversa” featuring the voice of L.A. neo-soul queen Georgia Anne Muldrow is the mind-blowing opener of this album, a truly deep and intense rhythmic statement.

Quantraversa is a word which you will not find in any dictionary, but that is not the point, says Ralph Kiefer. “This album is a journey to the inner self. The recording process was like meditation. I often started with a loop, or an idea for a melody. It evolved from there and I simply let it happen. When I involved the lyricists and vocalists, my drafts sometimes took a completely different paths and ended in something unexpected and beautifully new.”

The Cactus Channel – Storefront

Three is the magic number for The Cactus Channel. The ever-evolving Melbourne collective’s third album represents a new consciousness and a decisive turning point. Unloosed from their earlier incarnation as an instrumental soul and funk band into something wilder, a little darker and heavier, the new album sees The Cactus Channel diving in deep to dreamlike soundtracks, electrifying wig-outs and woozy meditations.

There were signifiers along the road; a boundary-splintering EP with Ball Park Music singer Sam Cromack last year, following a 7” single collab with Nick Murphy, released as The Cactus Channel feat. Chet Faker. These outings were a glimpse of the alchemy of adding vocals to the band’s typically intuitive, instrumental arrangements. And now with the band’s own Lewis Coleman stepping up to the mic, a vocal dimension has become part of The Cactus Channel’s fully formed, signature sound.

This new embodiment of The Cactus Channel is of the cultural moment, akin to the vibrational path-crossing of fellow travellers such as Badbadnotgood, Unknown Mortal Orchestra & Menahan Street Band. The band flexes their classic soul and funk influences whilst expanding their own songwriting along psychedelic paths, adding weight and substance to their melodic and rhythmic axis. Looking back to when The Cactus Channel formed in high school, united by shared interests and a shared sense of humour, they were always set to walk this new path. A love of soul music and the kind of hip hop, jazz, and alternative releases that spring from it, meant that from the beginning The Cactus Channel have prided themselves not just on eclecticism, but on the constant sharing of influences among their members; exploring new influences and sonic territories.

Kamasi Washington – Harmony of Difference

He’s out !! The last Kamasi Washington album, Harmony of Difference, is out !!!

“Harmony of Difference was originally part of a multimedia work that illustrated how forces that seem to be working in opposition could come together as a composite of complex beauty. This was illustrated in the original exhibit by a series of projected paintings (created by artist and Washington’s sister Amani Washington) that were gradually overlaid to form an abstract image of a face. Musically, Washington explores the theme by writing a series of five short pieces that are also folded together into a lengthy, recombinant suite.

That extended piece, called “Truth,” was released earlier this year as part of a short film by director A.G. Rojas (which was also part of the Whitney exhibit). The structure lends a sense of déjà vu, as motifs and riffs and melodies are introduced and then reappear later. Where musical counterpoint was the driving idea for the compositions Harmony also feels like a meditation on memory, association, and vantage point. Hearing it in one sitting is like looking at a sculpture from multiple angles and suddenly the three-dimensional form clicks in your mind and you apprehend the whole.”

Get your copy RIGHT NOW !! And take a few minutes to listen to the track “Perspective” … a fabulous Jazz Funk tune back in the best of the 70’s …

#RIP Charles Bradley

Charles Bradley (1948 ~ 2017)

So sad … what a powerful, deep, intense artist he was …

Seat back, relax & enjoy this live performance in Paris last year :

The Vintage Babies – Vintage Babies

Vintage Babies is the title of the collaborative album and super group created by Grammy nominated singer, songwriter, and MC, Maimouna Youssef aka Mumu Fresh and producer, Dj, and musical director Dj Dummy The Genius collectively known as The Vintage Babies. The Vintage Babies’ album consists of 17 soul and hip hop head bangers and features musical greats like Grammy & Oscar award winning Common, as well as some incredible songwriting and vocal help from Top Dawg’s own SIR, Malik Yusef , and Baltimore’s Rose Gold from the Polly seeds.