world fusion
Album Review: TC & The Groove Family – ‘First Home’: global beat today-jazz with a collective spirit.
Well Worm Discs may have started out as an outpost for Bristol-centric nu- jazz expressionism (Snazzback Run Logan Run, Dun Dun Dun, the luscious ‘New Horizons’ compilation album etc.) but the signs are that this very particular underground is working its way beyond the wild west. There’s been excursions to Glasgow with Corto Alto’s soul …
Album Review: Dowdelin – ‘Lanmou Lanmou’: Creole rhythms and a Soul-Jazz twist make for the sound of now.
It’s been over a couple of years since Lyon located fusionists Dowdelin were last seen bouncing across the WOMAD stage and pulling the horizontal sun soakers up onto their dancing feet. Now comes evidence of renewed activity with their latest album ‘Lanmou Lanmou’, available from 28th January from Underdog Records, and proof that the band …
Album review: Final Step – ‘Disconnections’: passionate, rhythmic and unashamedly funky
I LOVE fusion bands. I really do. You never know what to expect, and that’s because they’re a fusion of flavours. Italian musicians in particular have always delivered when it comes to jazz music, a truly energetic burst of blues, funk and rock and roll. From the multi-lingual border region of Ticino, in Switzerland, guitarist …
Album review: Crimi – ‘Luci E Guai’: potent fusion music from Julien Lesuisse
THE MOST potent fusion music, the stuff that’s born from experience rather than cooked up as an experiment, comes from travellers in search of sounds. Julien Lesuisse is one such explorer. The vocalist and sax player has been a central player in Lyon’s Mazalda, a band that steadily evolved from jazz messengers to sound system-driven …
News: Falle Nioke and sir Was announce joint EP; hear ‘Rain’
FORWARD-thinking indie labels are fast beginning to celebrate the soulful connection between dancefloor-slanted electronica and the rhythmic foundations of anything dubbed ‘world’ music. So right on cue Moshi Moshi offshoot PRAH have announced the release of a new EP, Marasi, which will be ready for consumption on April 30th. The new record captures the results …
Album review: Sarah Haras – ‘Mirage’: deeply effective and affecting abstraction
Often abstract albums come across like a loose series of random sketches; but not Mirage. It’s got a clear vision that binds it together and like the best electronic music suggests something different to every listener each time they tune in … and that is some achievement
Album review: Field Works – ‘Cedars’: Stuart Hyatt fuses cosmic Americana and Arabic sounds; the results are luscious
Cedars is quite a record – two records really; the first more orange and various other colours of the sun’s framing of the beginning and the ending of the day, alive with a heartfelt yearning and cosmic sonic thrill. The second is far more verdant, deep green, homespun, and focuses in very much in on the wonder of the simple; the moments we all return to, perhaps, at least us rural dwellers. If you’re at all conceptually familiar with the work of William Blake, his Songs Of Innocence And Experience, you’ll see; the twining and correspondences. Climb into Cedars, join the two worlds for yourself; the album is long on thought and also on beauty.
TRACK: Field Works – ‘Ḥalaqah ’Azaliyyah’: a beyond-pretty exploration of Americana and Arabic poetry
FIELD WORKS is less a band, more a collective exploration of the various musics that cross over and find each other out on the edges of their respective stylistic disciplines, fuse, enter the wider sphere of the ambient. It’s all helmed by Indianapolis producer Stuart Hyatt, who began the series – the forthcoming album is the …