A smoothed out, catchy little downtempo bobber from a cool late-winter night in The Vault.  Makaya bounces on a flammed rimshot, Abrams jumps in quickly with some nice bass chords, Justefan colors the progression with his singing vibraphone harmonies, and Marquis tops it all off with a gorgeous trumpet melody and solo verse.

Recorded on March 5th, 2014 by Dave Vettraino.  Personnel: Makaya McCraven - drums, Joshua Abrams - bass, Justin Thomas - vibraphone, Marquis Hill - trumpet.

Steppe Smoothe

Single: Treasure 
Project: Hypnotic Joints II
Apple Music: http://itunes.apple.com/album/id/1672931201
Official Video: https://youtu.be/9nYK16lm8f4
Bandcamp: https://hypnoticbrass.bandcamp.com/track/treasure

Treasure

Alessandroni E Il Suo Complesso - Sole Verde

Den-Paq (Instrumental ) # 1

FREEDOM ( Instrumental )

FREEDOM Instrumental

EGLO48

HENRY WU AND K15 = WU15 

THE ANTHEM


Shouts to K15 each and every.

WU15 - The Anthem (Gilles Peterson BBC Radio 6 Rip) EGLO 48

Nubya Garcia - Tenor Sax/Flute
Shirley Tetteh - Guitar
Amané Suganami - Keyboard
Twm Dylan - Double Bass
Jake Long - Drums
Tim Doyle - Percussion

Recorded at Royal Albert, Deptford by Tom Sankey
Mixed by Ben Hayes and Max Wallace-Jones
Mastered by Ben Hayes

Africa (John Coltrane)

We are excited to premiere Go See by Joe Armon-Jones. Joe delivers a playful, improvisatory approach, showcasing everything he has learned on his musical journey so far. Full of ad-libs and stunning solos, the piece is almost hypnotic in its musicality. 

As well as being a founding member of the Ezra Collective he has performed with a wide range of artists from Pharoahe Monch, to ATA KAK, and is a regular fixture in the bands of Nubya Garcia, Idiom, China Moses and Binker Golding Quartet. 

 More info here: http://bit.ly/2EjKGbq

We Out Here

Premiere: Joe Armon-Jones - Go See

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. 

There has also been a breakout project from drummer Jonny Drop - the album Sub Plot gained massive support and love from BBC Radio 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne. While keys-man Dave Koor has been busy playing shows with Gilles Peterson favourite Hector Plimmer, Shaun Escoffery, and Ego Ella May, improvising with Yussef Dayes (Yussef Kamaal) and Nubya Garcia, releasing music as Deoke and collaborating with label-mate Scrimshire on their Modified Man exploration. 

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.

Murmuration

Miles Away

Fanni Zahar - flute
Szabolcs Bognar - Rhodes, synth
Levente Boros - drums

Mixed at Studio Einz, Budapest
Mastered at Analog Cut Berlin

Crossroads

https://jupitertuningcenter.bandcamp.com/track/mini-jass

mini jass

Legally blind from birth, Brazilian keyboard player, composer and bandleader Manfredo Fest learnt to read music in braille and began studying classical music at a young age. By 17 he had fallen in love with jazz (particularly the music of fellow blind pianist George Shearing) before becoming swept up in Rio’s emergent bossa nova movement in the sixties. Moving to the States in 1967 where he would go on to work with fellow countryman Sergio Mendes, Fest recorded and self-released Brazilian Dorian Dream in 1976, enlisting Thomas Kini (bass), Alejo Poveda (drums, percussion) and Roberta Davis (vocals).

Like a turbo-powered, intergalactic elevator ride, Brazilian Dorian Dream builds on the principle of the modal diatonic scales of the Dorian mode, with influences of Brazilian rhythms, North American jazz and funk, and music of the European baroque and romantic era. The coming together of these intergenerational and intercontinental styles coupled with Fest’s visionary use of the Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, Arp and Moog synthesizers (plus a whole load of effects units), makes for an album light years ahead of its time. 

The miraculous wordless vocals of American jazz singer Roberta Davis are nailed so tightly alongside Manfredo’s keys and mind-bending synths that it sounds almost alien. On the album's liner notes, Fest preaches Davis’ ability highlighting how hard it is to sing such precise intervals so accurately. One of the tracks on which the vocals shine brightest is space funk stepper “Jungle Cat”, which features hard funky drums, freaky synth lines and expert Rhodes comping. The track builds up and up before releasing into the unmistakable scat melody in the chorus.

A few years after releasing Brazilian Dorian Dream, Fest recorded and released his Manifestations album in 1979, featuring ‘Jungle Kitten'’: a new dancefloor focused variation on “Jungle Cat”. At around 140 BPM ‘Jungle Kitten’ was possibly deemed too fast for statside dance floors, which explains why it never got a US 12” release. But the track became something of an underground hit at jazz dance clubs and all-dayers across the UK in the 80s and as a result it has probably become Fest’s most well known track since.

Manfredo passed away in Florida in 1999, and his music never quite reached the audiences it deserved. Due to the independent nature and limited run of the original release, Brazilian Dorian Dream has to this day remained almost impossible to find on vinyl. Far Out Recordings is proud to make this masterpiece available to new audiences with a remastered vinyl, CD and digital reissue in 2020.

Braziliana Nº 1

Far Out Recordings was founded in 1994 by London DJ and record producer Joe Davis. His longstanding and insatiable passion for Brazilian music, fuelled by his initial love of the jazz, funk and soul ubiquitous on the Rare Groove scene in 1980s London, took him to Brazil first as a teenager. It was there that his enthusiasm for record-collecting led him to some of his musical heroes and the eventual formation of musical bonds and close friendships. Joe’s early discoveries led to him becoming the UK’s foremost authority on Brazilian music, much of it little-known here before his enthusiastic endorsements began to ring out across the music scene. This led to the inevitable, and the keen young music fan and DJ with an entrepreneurial flair founded Far Out Recordings.

The label’s aim from the start has been to bring the sound of Brazil to the world – to showcase the history and culture of a land bursting with creativity and energy – from the classic to the cutting edge. There have been numerous releases from both new and established Brazilian artists including legends such as Azymuth, Joyce, Marcos Valle, Arthur Verocai, The Ipanemas, Sabrina Malheiros, Clara Moreno and Binario, to name a few. 

Far Out also releases music from musicians and producers around the world who share the label’s appreciation for Brazilian music and culture. Alongside Brazilian music, the label is also well known for its longstanding association with underground dance music, having collaborated with some of the most acclaimed and accomplished electronic producers of our times. This had led to a rich plethora of pioneering and innovative dance and beats music, forging a future for the oft-neglected role of Brazil and its rhythms in the complex dance music diaspora of the UK and US, with 12" remixes and original productions from the likes of Theo Parrish, Mark Pritchard, 4hero, Dego, Andres, Marcellus Pittman, Kirk Degiorgio, Nicola Conte, A.D. Bourke, Henry Wu and Rick Willhite among many others.

Joe's crate-digging mentality has also been the driving force behind another crucial aspect of Far Out's work - unearthing forgotten masterpieces and once impossible to find records. This has led to reissues from the likes of Milton Nascimento and Roberto Quartin’s catalogue of lost gems, resulting in some of the finest Brazilian reissues you’re likely to find. While this remains a relatively small percentage of the label's output, every release is brought to you with the utmost love and care, ensuring painstaking perfection in the realms of sound, aesthetic and physicality.

Many of the artists on the Far Out roster regularly tour worldwide, playing across Europe, the USA and the Far East. Look out for them in your town, spreading the joy, the warmth and the restless creativity of Brazilian music and all that Far Out seeks to represent. “After more than twenty years of Far Out, we are only just beginning to realise our ambitions” surmises Joe. “We are still learning about production, recording and music, always.. and we are fortunate to be surrounded by the most exciting group of musicians and producers who are making consistently brilliant music. We are still intent on finding new stars, but we are immensely proud of what we have achieved so far and our formidable artist roster.”

"Brilliant British-Brazilian label" Daily Telegraph
"15 years of the excellent Far Out" Word
"The original and the best, Far Out has never faltered" Gilles Peterson
"Excellent London-based Brazilian label" The Independent
"UK's leading Brazilian label" The Observer
"UK's foremost Brazilian record label" Clash

Alessandroni E Il Suo Complesso - Sole Verde

Far Out Recordings

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