Live Review: Anna Meredith and the LCO – Barbican, London 30.4.22
Anna Meredith’s electronic pop music has always been orchestral in scale, layered, interconnected, harmonically complex and structured like a tight stack of circuit boards, wired for glorious sound. So the notion of performing her Mercury Award nominated second album FIBS with the London Contemporary Orchestra seemed more than a natural step to take, a drift …
Album Review: Congotronics International – Where’s The One? : Indispensable document from the Congolese/leftfield indie supergroup, live and locomotive.
Collective, supergroup, ensemble…whatever way you look at it Congotronics International were a big big band. Nineteen musicians, five guitarists, three likembe players, five percussionists, two bass players, three drummers and an overflowing pool of vocal talent, they aimed for scale, scope and scintillation. Formed in 2011 from members of the pioneers of the ‘tradi-modern’ sound, …
Track/Video: Patrick Watson unveils an exquisite video to welcome his ‘Better In The Shade’ album
Patrick Watson is an extraordinary musician – seven albums in and the Canadian singer-songwriter’s delicate melodic tapestries never wear thin. Following 2019’s ‘Wave’, an album of shimmering majestic orchestral pop balladry, comes the announcement of the follow up on Secret City Records ‘Better In The Shade’, available to the digital universe now and in tangible …
New Track: From soon come album ‘Fleeting Future’, Akusmi releases ‘Yurikamome’– a pulsating journey through uplifting electronica.
London based composer/producer Pascal Bideau has been developing his Akusmi project for some time now both in his home studio and with Berlin based musicians Florian Juncker (trombone), Ruth Velten (saxophone) and Daniel Brandt of Brandt Brauer Frick (drums / electronic percussions). Inspired by an immersive gamelan experience during an Indonesian sabbatical then imagined through …
New Track: Noori & His Dorpa Band release debut single ‘Al Amal’, scorching ethio-soul vibes from Port Sudan.
So TikTok does have a function! Excavated from the app by those seekers of the undiscovered at Ostinato Records, Noori & His Dorpa Band bring the power and passion of Beja culture direct from their home base on the Sudanese coast. Out front, leader Noori plays a self- built, hybrid tambo-guitar, a welded wonder that …
Meet: Inspirational electro-acoustic saxophonist Jason Sharp ahead of his upcoming UK/Eu solo tour.
You might have missed saxophonist Jason Sharp’s elemental and elevating album ‘The Turning Centre Of The Still World’ released as it was at the backend of the pandemic in August last year. His third release for Montreal’s mighty Constellation label marked an emboldened exploration of his craft, melding his sax playing with electronics using his …
New Track: Global beat collective TC & The Groove Family preview ‘Bossfight’ from their energised debut ‘First Home’.
Listen up, if you want more proof that the world jazz and dancefloor connection is still generating some mighty powerful sounds look no further than the exuberant ten piece collective that is TC & The Groove Family. Pulled together by drummer/percussionist Tim Cook and nurtured on eclectic and electric Leeds scene, this bunch of jazzers, …
Album Review: Pat Matshikiza and Kippie Moketsi – Tshona! : uplifting classic South African jazz from the 70s.
Those inspired curators at We Are Busy Bodies continue to astound with this latest release in their expanding achive from the seminal South African jazz label As Shams/The Sun. Pat Matshikiza and Kippie Moketsi’s ‘Tshona!’ (available from 15th April) was originally issued in 1975 and produced by label boss Rashid Vally, a pivotal figure in …
Album Review: Earthen Sea – Ghost Poems: subtle, sensitive, soulful electronica.
Jacob Long (aka Earthen Sea) has a musical provenance that inevitably draws you in to take a look. He’s been a member of the Dischord endorsed, post-hardcore agitators Black Eyes, injected sax and bass to the electro-dub, No-wave work-outs of Mi Ami and since 2014 released less abrasive sounds as Earthen Sea, probing ever deeper …
New Track: Multi-media originals Quayola/Seta preview their evocative debut album ‘Transient’
Sound and vision, vision and sound, acclaimed media artist Quayola is a visualiser who works with convergence and endless flow, breaking down boundaries, exploring possibilities and creating experiences. Having collaborated with Jamie XX, Plaid and the late, great Mira Calix, weaving imagery into their soundscapes, more recently he has been developing his own music-focused project, …