Tag: jazz

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Eddie Chacon – Far Away

You know Eddie Chacon as one half of Charles & Eddie, the duo behind Would I Lie To You – one of the biggest hits of the early 90s and a song so overwhelmingly ubiquitous that Chacon eventually abandoned the music industry in an attempt to escape it. He returned in 2020 with a debut solo album, and has just released its follow-up, Sundown, from which Far Away is taken. Sitting somewhere between soft-focus soul and meandering jazz, its reminiscent of acts like Rhye, and is about as distant from the bombast of Would I Lie To You as its possible to get, which is probably the point.

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Duval Timothy – Drift feat. Lamin Fofana

While producing his new album Meeting with a Judas Tree, Duval Timothy made a point of being in nature as much as possible, immersing himself in various habitats from South London and the hills surrounding Bath to scrubland in Ghana and the woods of Sierra Leone, taking recordings of birds, insects, monkeys, bats, plants, trees, stones on his phone, many of which made it into the final version. The result is a deeply immersive, meditative album which flits between electronic experimentation, jazz and modern classical, culminating with the sparse beauty of Drift.

https://duvaltimothy.bandcamp.com/album/meeting-with-a-judas-tree

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Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn – Crimson

Earlier this month Dawn Richards teamed up with multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Spencer Zahn on Pigments: an extraordinarily good album that explores themes including “the power of self-expression through living art, through motion”. A hypnotic mix of classical, jazz, soul and electronica, it flits between being deeply meditative and intensely rousing, often within a single song, before segueing seamlessly into the next . A truly impressive body of work.

https://lnk.to/Pigments

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Shabason & Krgovich – In The Middle Of The Day

This is a lovely, subdued little track that’s so low key it almost denies its own existence. Coming across like Lambchop remixed by Jim-E-Stack, it’s taken from the second collaborative album between Joseph Shabason and Nicholas Krgovich, and is exactly the kind of relaxing, dreamy vibe I need today.

https://7eptokyo.bandcamp.com/album/at-scaramouche-philadelphia-2cd-digital

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Avantdale Bowling Club – Without You

Blending jazz, hip-hop and some enjoyably throwback production styles (vinyl rewinds ftw!), the second album from Tom Scott’s Avantdale Bowling Club project TREES comes in like a breath of cool breeze blown all the way from New Zealand. Without You is typically laid back, with warm keys and plucked basslines rolling up lyrics like “Feeding you dreams of big, honeybees / Licking fuzz from your buds, but you never heard the buzz”.

https://avantdalebowlingclub.bandcamp.com/album/avantdale-bowling-club

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Kokoroko – Ewà Inú

London based 8-piece band Kokoroko released their debut album Could We Be More via Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings last week; an LP that deftly moves through afrobeat, highlife, soul, and funk across tracks, taking inspiration from a plethora of influences from within the West-African and Caribbean communities that the band grew up listening to. As with many of the tracks, Ewà Inú’s infectious energy is due to both its semi-improvised genesis and the passion of the players involved.

https://kokoroko.bandcamp.com

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Mejiwahn, Juuwah, Daniel Bitrán – Spring

Beanna is the latest album from soul and jazz beat pioneer mejiwahn: genres I know next to nothing about, so I won’t try and delve too deep into the backstory. If you’re interested in the history, The Quietus’s review is comprehensive. What I can say though is that’s it completely beguiling, effortlessly chill and just about as perfect a soundtrack to a lazy summer evening as one could hope for.

https://mejiwahn.bandcamp.com/album/beanna

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Ben Marc – Sometimes Slow

The latest single to be released from London-based jazz musician Ben Marc’s – the alias of Neil Charles – forthcoming album, Sometimes Slow is in a similarly impressive vein to last year’s collab with Midnightroba Breathe Suite A, swelling from relatively hushed beginnings to a final third that pulses with untamed vigour.

https://smarturl.it/BenMarcGlassEffect

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cktrl – safe

London-based artist cktrl broke through with his debut Robyn EP last year, and safe is the final track from his new four-tracker zero which landed last week and starts life with a gently billowing cloud of echoing brass and soothing strings before ending with safe, a bassy, sensual, trappy cut with gorgeous vocals and a satisfying depth to its production.

https://cktrl.bandcamp.com

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Ishmael Ensemble – Feather

Helmed by producer and saxophonist Pete Cunningham, the Bristol-based Ishmael Ensemble’s announced themselves as a new force in UK jazz with their 2019 debut A State Of Flow, a record I completely missed as I am vehemently opposed to anything jazzy, or jazz-related. Until now it seems, as I absolutely love their new album Visions Of Light, and Feather in particular which is amongst the more beautifully chill things I’ve heard for ages. It would actually be easier if this record didn’t exist as I was quite happy in my jazz-ignoring bubble, but here we are.

http://ishmaelensemble.com