THE JOHN LURIE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA
"FLUTTER"
from the album, THE INVENTION OF ANIMALS
Available January 21, 2014 on AMULET RECORDS

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THE JOHN LURIE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA 'THE INVENTION OF ANIMALS' 
A COLLECTION OF OUT-OF-PRINT AND UNRELEASED LIVE RECORDINGS 
TO BE RELEASED JANUARY 21 ON AMULET RECORDS

The John Lurie National Orchestra featuring John Lurie, Billy Martin and G. Calvin Weston 

Available on Digital Formats and Limited Edition 180 Gram Vinyl

Billy Martin's Amulet Records have announced the January 21, 2014 release of The Invention of Animals by The John Lurie National Orchestra. The archival compilation assembles seven previously unreleased live and out-of-print studio recordings by the acclaimed musician, actor and visual artist John Lurie leading his early 1990s' trio with percussionists Billy Martin and G. Calvin Weston.

"The three of us got together to try and write stuff for my band The Lounge Lizards, but what happened between the three of us was magical. After about a year of playing live it really came together," says John Lurie. "There is something so unique and beautiful about this music. I don't think there is anything else like it."

Billy Martin adds: "John and I share the idea that this is like someone discovered a field recording of a lost civilization. Some strange and beautiful tribe unlike any other known to man."

The Invention of Animals opens with "Flutter," one of four National Orchestra performances culled from the soundtrack of John Lurie's 1991 television series, Fishing With John. Also drawn from that same soundtrack are "The Beast," "Little" and "Ignore The Giant." The additional studio recording included here is the title track to the only official John Lurie National Orchestra album Men With Sticks released in 1993. Rounding out the collection are two previously unreleased live recordings. "I Came To Visit Here For Awhile" was preserved at the Threadwaxing Space in New York City on May 7, 1993. The album's centerpiece and title track, "The Invention of Animals," running at 19-minutes-plus, was captured by highly regarded sound engineer Claudia Engelhart from a performance on February 12, 1994 in Thessaloniki, Greece. 

John Lurie first became known for his work in the late '70s leading the band The Lounge Lizards, which went on to make music for 20 years.  During this time, Lurie recorded 22 albums and composed scores for over 20 movies, including Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Clay Pigeons, Animal Factory and Get Shorty, which earned him a Grammy nomination. Lurie also starred in three films directed by Jim Jarmusch, as well as a host of other films.  He wrote, directed and starred in the aforementioned cult classic Fishing with John, a series that is now part of The Criterion Collection. Lurie is also responsible for the incredible music of Marvin Pontiac. Lurie emerged onto the art scene in the spring of 2004, when he had his first painting exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery. Since then Lurie’s work has been exhibited in esteemed galleries throughout the world.  His solo museum exhibits include P.S.1. Contemporary Arts Center in New York, Musee Des Beaux-Arts De Montreal, the Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxembourg and the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, who gave their entire museum over to the presentation of Lurie's work. Both the Wadsorth Athenaeum in Connecticut and The Museum of Modern Art in New York have acquired his work for their permanent collections.

The Invention of Animals by The John Lurie National Orchestra features a painting by John Lurie as its cover art. It will be released on digital formats, as well as limited pressing, collector's edition 180 gram vinyl.

Buy from Amulet Record

Flutter | The John Lurie National Orchestra

Vol 2 out January 20 2023

Artist: London Odense Ensemble
Title: Jaiyede Sessions vol. 2


In recent years London has become an epicenter for experimental, visionary jazz. On this unique session, two of the finest exponents of the London jazz scene, Tamar Osborn and Al MacSween, join forces with members of the celebrated Danish psychedelic underground - Jonas Munk, Jakob Skøtt and Martin Rude – to create a heady sonic brew. On this first volume of material there's everything one could hope for in such a collaboration: sonically it summons the free flowing euphoria of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders' work in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But there's also a focus on rhythmic energy and vitality that calls to mind the grooviest krautrock or electric period Miles Davis, as well as a healthy dose of electronic experiments. 

Throughout these eight tracks the quintet paints with a colourful palette. Tamar Osborn shifts between baritone sax and flutes. Keyboardist Al MacSween doesn't just stick with the tried and true electric piano - an instrument which he masters - but showers these tracks in analog synths and effects as well. Add to that the fact that Jonas Munk took a somewhat creative approach when editing and mixing these pieces – with effects boxes wired in, occasionally giving the mix a dubby, ambient atmosphere. Similar to Munk and Skøtt's main project, Causa Sui, digging into the past becomes a vehicle to open up the future. What the quintet has created in these sessions is something quite unique.

Bios:
Tamar Osborn: 
Saxophonist, composer and multi-wind instrumentalist is the creative force behind modal jazz ensemble Collocutor (On The Corner Records). She is a member of the Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra, performs and collaborates regularly with Sarathy Korwar, Jessica Lauren, Emanative, Ill Considered and DJ Khalab.

Al MacSween: 
Keyboard player & founding member of Kefaya. Collaborations include American jazz legend Gary Bartz, Syrian qanun master Maya Youseff, London Community Gospel Choir, Palestinian jazz singer Reem Kelani & kora player Kadialy Kouyate.


Martin Rude: 
Multi-string instrumentalist & lead singer in Sun River. Doubles as stand-in bass player in Causa Sui.

Jakob Skøtt: 
Drummer in Causa Sui with a slew of side projects on El Paraiso, including Chicago Odense Ensemble, as well as being responsible for the label’s visuals.

Jonas Munk:
Guitarist in Causa Sui & studio wizard on most releases on El Paraiso. Also works with a wide palette of electronic music.

London Odense Ensemble: Casper's Green

06 Sunny Crypt

Meridian Brothers - Los Suicidas available on Soundway Records 27th Nov 2015. 

Pre-Order here: 
Direct: http://smarturl.it/LosSuicidasDirect
iTunes: http://smarturl.it/LosSuicidasiTunes

01 Vertigo

Roberto Musci - The Loa of music (The complete sessions)

Roberto Musci - Claudia, Wilhem R. and me

Taken from 'I Can Be a Clay Snapper'
Order: https://goo.gl/3hCLGz
tak:til / glitterbeat

Hailing from Slovenia, Širom play vividly textured and (mostly) imagined, instrumental folk musics. Handmade and global instrumentation meets fearless sound exploration. 

Slovenia’s miniature, but incredibly diverse landscapes, echo through its distinctive cultural, historic and linguistic traits. When thinking about Širom’s geographical trajectories, as well as their musical ebb and flow, one has to consider the abundance of water that can be found in the individual regions where they come from. Cascading mountain stream lilt, lazy lowland river meandering and the mysteriously vanishing waters of Karst are most certainly inscribed into Samo Kutin’s, Iztok Koren’s and Ana Kravanja’s childhood memories and subsequently, their remarkable musical art. 

The band’s emergent sound oscillates between a wide array of acoustic folk sounds and contemporary post rock meditations, often drifting from improvisation to structured composition and then back. It is described by the members themselves as imaginary folk or folk from a parallel universe. “Our music creates emotional landscapes. When I was still painting every day (Ana holds a degree in painting) I was trying to paint my dreams but that didn’t work out,” Ana remembers. “I discovered that by using an abstract image I can draw nearer to what I felt in my dreams. Our music is based on a similar principle.”

According to Samo, the guiding concepts of their music-making are: “To play on acoustic instruments, to work with repetition and a common sound. Each of us can play a simple thing, but the overall result is that a complex thing comes to life. The quality of sound depends on the combination of the instruments and that’s why we modify and prepare instruments or create our own.”

As an avid sound-seeker, Samo began to develop an interest in building instruments out of everyday objects like drawers, computer boxes and other “junk” (as he lovingly calls his creations) as well as re-tooling the ones he brought back from his globetrotting adventures that have included personal encounters with local musicians in India, Morocco, Mali, Greece and elsewhere. 

Ana, who also nurtures a very personal relationship with music paraphernalia, adds: “There is a different attitude at play if you make an instrument yourself. It already tells you a story. If you buy it, it takes longer to get to know it, to tame it.”

In the little village of Lesno Brdo, tucked in the rolling hills ten kilometers south of Ljubljana, Ana and Samo organize music performances and festivals on a farm they rent, and divide their time between music making and vegetable farming. A close connection with nature is also important to Iztok who now resides in the capital city. “It’s a sort of a contact with the past but it also has its own life in the present.” 

Fearlessly textured sonic landscapes – both linked to and unbound by – the past and present, geography and tradition, the real and imagined. Hypnotic, otherworldly and epic. 

Širom’s music moves like the restless waters of their homeland. No matter how hushed or slow it may seem, it is never ever standing still. 
  
Širom are: Iztok Koren – banjo, three string banjo, bass drum, percussion, chimes, balafon, various objects // Ana Kravanja – violin, viola, ribab, cünbüs, balafon, ngoma drum, mizmar, various objects, voice // Samo Kutin – lyre, balafon, one string bass, frame drums, brač, gongoma, mizmar, various objects, voice

I Can Be a Clay Snapper

Boats, Biding, Beware!

Širom - Boats, Biding, Beware! (Čolni, Čakam, Čúvaj!)

Ill considered 3 - B2 Delusion

LP/CD/Digital https://hailumergia.bandcamp.com/album/lala-belu

Lala Belu

Hailu Mergia — Gum Gum from Lala Belu

"I love The Expansions their futuristic leanings inject new life into the form. Fresh material!" Ian Merchant (Black Acre)

“Exudes all the qualities I cherish most in music, warmth, integrity and a dedication to the groove… it’s a hard road to travel when you step in the footprints of giants, The Expansions are treading that path with ease and assurance.” Patrick Forge
=========
When The Expansions self released their first single in 2013, the laid-back jazz funk of Lavender, it quickly gained strong support from soul and rare-groove aficionados including Kenny Dope, Dom Servini, Patrick Forge and Andy Smith. A run of shows followed and before long, when someone was asking if there was a soul-jazz band around to play with, “The Expansions” was the answer. 

Although this popularity meant a hiatus in releasing music, the band have been constantly busy, playing around Europe with legendary British-Ghanaian soul singer, Andrew Ashong and the exceptional, upcoming talent Connie Constance. 

But always, The Expansions has remained a central focus and the true home of these four jazz and soul lovers, with occasional trips out to the country to form ideas and practice new music for the eventual album. 

Murmuration, recorded over three days at Big Noise in Southend, is constructed of single takes, with minimal overdubs, as the band attempt to capture the feeling and energy they create live. 

Debut single Breakthrough introduced the insanely catchy but deeply soulful blend of synths and groove, but here on the album that is explored to the fullest with longer breakdowns and more expansive, experimental solos. Pocket 5 displays the, possibly unexpected, influences of broken beat and almost combative rhythm playing – particularly in the complex guitar and keys breakdown where Koor and O’Keefe layer conflicting time signatures and battle to ride it out to the heavy drum return. 

Cannonball brings warm mellowness that delicately evolves through beats, touching on bossas alongside their fundamental hip-hop sensibilities. But even here there is a raucous zenith before the band sublimely recede into the silence of the a-side ending. 

Colossal album highlight Ivory Mountain is truly an epic. Evoking moments of 4Hero, there is a lightness of groove in the first half of this soulful exploration. But at the halfway point, all restraint is let go as a live string section joins the four quarters of the band for three glorious minutes of soulful disco. Evoking sounds of Quincy Jones, George Benson and Johnny Hammond, all the way through to a beautifully cacophonous finale. 

Dragonfly undoubtedly reflects on the work of Herbie Hancock and is the most direct throwback to the band’s earlier work, which is a welcome marker of how far they have come. A quintessential jazz funker. 

The album closes with the thoughtful and introverted shuffle of Miles Away. In the final eight minutes of Murmuration, The Expansions allow space and time to take precedence, with once-more-restrained peaks and developments. It becomes clear though, that the band cannot resist one last explosive finale, as they rise with screeching synths, strings and dubs for a perfect race to the finish line. 

You can hear the influences of Idris Muhammad, Grover Washington, even parallels with South London peers Yussef Kamaal and Ruby Rushton. But The Expansions have tirelessly worked to create a sound of their own and are very proud, along with label Albert’s Favourites, to finally share it.

Cannonball (Murmuration Preview)

The Expansions - Cannonball (Radio Edit)

Released 2007, from the LP "A Distant Wildlife" (Catapulte Rds)

Graham Mushnik - The Cat-The Beast

Check out a small compilation of  kindred Spirits new release
DJ Paulão (Sao Paulo) compiles this great document on samba rock from the golden years of Brasilian music (1966-1978). 
this compilation of 12 tracks will release in May on Vinyl and CD!!

1- Marisa Rossi - Quem Vem La
2 - Elza Soares - Saltei De Banda
3 - Noriel Vilela - 16 Toneladas
4 - Golden Boys - Segura Na Cintura
5-  Bebeto - Mister Brown
6 - Di Melo - Pernalonga
7 -Evinha - Esperar Pra Ver

Flutter | The John Lurie National Orchestra

Calabro Music Media