English Rose

Lay It On Me / I Just Want More
JAL 174
Release Date 14th April


Newcastle’s finest Smoove & Turrell are back with their third studio album Broken Toys. Their rise through the ranks of British soul has been unstoppable and this debut release from the album sends the signal that they fully intend for 2014 to be the year they take their unique brand of northern soul worldwide on a major scale. 

Having broken through onto the Radio 2 playlist in the UK with their last album Eccentric Audio the boys then went on to repeat the trick gaining national playlists in Holland, France and Germany and gaining the support of influential tastemaker stations like KCRW in LA who made the single Hard Work “Todays Top Tune”.

As most KCRW DJ’s are also Hollywood Music Supervisors this then led to Moby like levels of sync activity for the band with S&T’s Music being used on 2 US TV shows / a US feature Film / a video game / a US TV ad / a UK TV ad / a French TV synch and a whole host of UK TV syncs including Strictly, Corrie and Match of The Day.

A year of writing and recording fast forwards us to right now with the band gearing up for a month of UK touring in June and a summer of festival appearances to promote their new album. 

Scheduled for release in May, Broken Toys is another jump forward both in terms of production and appeal. Sparkling pop songs flirt with disco influenced floor fillers in between the blues, jazz, funk & soul the boys are so well known for.  
I Just Want More showcases the incredible songwriting and melodic appeal of this band. 

For more info contact trevor@jalapenorecords.com
LIVE BOOKINGS CONTACT EMA@NOSURAK.CO.UK 
DJ BOOKINGS EUROPE CONTACT FRANK@BUREAU45.COM 

Buy on iTunes

Lay It On Me

Songwriter's Unite!

In Those Days is a dark-fantasy jazz/blues concept album built on the book of Judges—half film score, half rock opera, all one continuous world.

Obligé scores a crownless Canaan with smoky horns, upright bass, haunted guitars, and stormy drums: temple nightclubs for Baal, crooked odd-meter stealth for the left-handed assassin, noir prophecy under the palm tree, iron chariots rolling like war machines, midnight tension in Jael’s tent, Gideon shaking in a winepress, a daughter caught in the teeth of a vow, and a man who looks ordinary but tears down gates and pillars by a strength that makes no sense.

Some tracks play like pure score, others like songs sung from inside the story, but the same themes keep resurfacing—motifs slipping between sax lines and vocals, big-band blasts giving way to quiet, wounded prayers. This is Judges as a jazz-shadowed myth: no king, too many gods, and a handful of fragile people trying to stand up in the ruin.

Working on It

Chris Rea