Robin Lee returns under his Rudy's Midnight Machine guise delivering a sold dose of blissed-out Mediterranean Jazz Funk circa 1981! Bringing in all the right sounds to take you away on a sun-kissed cocktail dream. The opening track ''Dyane'' is full of light breezy keys cascading over a subtle rhythm track. ''La Rochelle'' is full of sunlight with great melodic hooks and light piano solos drift in and out,'' Shy Smile'' takes the tempo down with a seductive breezy style.''Crystal Dragonfly'' the title is more of a neo-classical piece featuring a Korean lute and lush cello and string arrangements. Closing off with ''Pre De Minuit'' Robin starts off with the piano and adds dreamy rhythms as the track builds to close off the EP perfectly.

Crystal Dragonfly EP

Dyane

A1. Rudy's Midnight Machine - Dyane

Immortal

Jazz FM W/ KaySoul
14.08.21

Pharoah Sanders - Shukuru
Scrimshire - Within Without Ft. Jessica Lauren
Huw Marc Bennett & Emanative
Run Logan Run - A Brief Moment
Dillinger - Ragnampiza
Kondi Band - It's Gods World (So Don't Do Bad)
Balimaya Project - Dakar
Jazz Liberatorz - Ease My Mind
AMAMI - Atlas
Placa Luminosa - Os Olhos de Vera (Aroop Roy Rework)
Koichi Sakai & Afla Sackey - Atenteben Blues

KaySoul Mix

Amin Payne feat. OJ Kush - Laidback
Moodymann - Let Me In.
Joel Holmes - It Feels Goo
Teymori - Valley Of Peace
Blue Chords - Hey Man
Bellaire - Daytime (Session Victim Remix)
Pinty feat. Emma-Jean Thackray - Comfort Me (Dub)
KaySoul feat. Steve Faets - 10 Ways (Narf Zayd & Mario Casares Remix)
Jonna feat. Javonntte - Jus Move (Soulphiction's 4AM Mix)
Carlo & Baloo - If You Want (Dream Version)
Marc Brauner - Be Patient
Rephlex - Things Change

www.musicamacondo.com

Musica Macondo on Jazz FM with Tim Garcia Ft. KaySoul

We are extremely excited to share an absolute banger of a tune by sUb_modU - A dancefloor primed edit of his synth-heavy take on Fela Kuti’s classic “Expensive Shit”.  Out this week on all digital formats and on a limited 45 on September 17, via Brighton, UK institution Tru Thoughts, ahead of his forthcoming debut album. 

‘All Around / Expensive Shit (Centre Edit)’ is the new double single from Berlin-based electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist sUb_modU, aka the brainchild of Italian Romeo Sandri. Following up from lead tracks ‘Impressions / I Am Thousands’, all songs form part of the jazz musician’s debut album ‘Descent To The Centre’, a record that is an autobiographical and existentialist account of oneself, blending the electric/psychedelic spectrum of jazz with house, avant-garde and ambient leanings. 

 “All Around” uses Herbie Hancock-esque glitchy synths to create a transcendental state where one can “look all around, observing nature and all lives” Romeo explains. Tastemaker favourite and Fela Kuti cover (Fela-electronics!) “Expensive Shit” is given a new edit featuring colourful synths and rhythmic movements, with the 45 Centre Edit (exclusive to the 7”) being a more condensed version for the dancefloor. sUb_modU has amassed an impressive list of tastemaker support through his unique reinterpations from the likes of Gilles Peterson (BBC 6Music), Ross Allen (NTS) and Virgil Abloh (Off White). 

‘Descent To The Centre’ is the result of a natural process, a concept of allowing musical passions to flow organically in the midst of Romeo’s daily experiences. In the words of the artist “it’s about the direction towards the centre, finding the nature within me, at my inner core. As astronomers say “we are all made from stardust” – we are all interconnected to the universe, this makes me feel inconsequential while simultaneously part of something immense.”

Born and raised in Aosta, a small tourist town in the Alps, this beautiful hometown of outstanding nature and mountain ranges acted as a catalyst for Romeo’s musical ambitions, creating a wanderlust to go beyond these borders. Studying classical music as a child and citing listening to Symphony no.6 by Tchaikovsky as a pivotal movement in his musical development, for Romeo music is simply “food for the soul”.
 
sUb_modU is influenced by an array of music such as 60s/70s electric/psychedelic jazz, productions from the electronic kraut period (Tangerine Dream), Detroit & Chicago House, avant-garde & free jazz, soul, black music, hip-hop, ambient music, Sam Gendel, Jeff Parker, Gill Scott Heron reimagined by Makaya McCraven, the list goes on…  
 
sUb_modU has previously released on BBE and Agogo Records, collaborated with Matteo Cigna in a Roman Amphitheatre, toured around Europe with various projects and performed at Jazz Re:found, Chamoisic, Apolide and Nylon festival. ‘Descent To The Centre’ sees sUb_modU push the boat out to glorious new extremes, an ambitious project from the avant-garde newcomer that is rooted in jazz standards.

All Around / Expensive Shit (Centre Edit) 

Exclusive Premiere: sUb_modU "Expensive Shit (Centre Edit)" (Forthcoming on Tru Thoughts)

Brighton-based musicians Glenn Fallows and Mark Treffel join forces for an ode to 60s and 70s soundtrack and library music on Mr Bongo.

Read More & Buy: https://www.stampthewax.com/2021/09/09/premiere-glenn-fallows-mark-treffel-who-knows-when/
Listen on Youtube: https://bit.ly/GlennFallowsMarkTreffel

The Globeflower Masters Vol.1

Listen on Youtube

Glenn Fallows & Mark Treffel - Who Knows When (STW Premiere)

We are very happy to premiere the meditative sounds of  “Spaceland”, by pedal steel player, visual artist and composer Joe Harvey-Whyte. Forthcoming on None More Records, London. 

Like everyone else anywhere that’s been opening up, we on the MIMS team occasionally feel overwhelmed by the new pace of life, work, events, new releases, social engagements and more besides, so it’s a real pleasure to take a step back sometimes and listen attentively to such soothing music as this. 

“Spaceland” is taken from a track EP, ‘Flatland/Spaceland’, Harvey-Whyte’s debut solo release. ‘Flatland/Spaceland’ blurs the borderlines between ambient and neoclassical to create an engaging and meditative listening experience.

The first side of the 2 track EP, titled “Flatland” is a glacial ambient creation made using pedal steel guitar processed through multiple effects together with field recordings and occasional revelatory sounds from Himalayan singing bowls. “Spaceland”, on side B, takes the composition and refracts it through an orchestral lens. A 26-piece ensemble delicately creeps into the calming world echoed by side A. As the piece develops the result is something more akin to a film soundtrack. Inspired by Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 novel Flatland, in which a two-dimensional protagonist encounters a three-dimensional world for the first time, and struggles to explain it to his fellow natives of the 2D Flatland, Joe Harvey-Whyte attempts conceptually to give depth to what that which appears flat. 

On “Spaceland”, Joe Harvey-Whyte worked closely with Ell Kendal, a sound artist and orchestrator from London. Kendal is known for his use of experimental scoring techniques to create notated works for classical ensemble. His influences range from avant-garde composers and performance artists, to early religious music, and ritual, and you can hear that in his interpretation of the original piece here. The process of orchestrating and recording all the instruments for “Spaceland” took around a year, with additional challenges to the process caused by working through COVID. Everything was recorded at Joe’s studio in North London, with the exception of a few remote recordings. 

Joe says of the process of orchestrating the piece “Ell’s scores are quite idiosyncratic and were more of a gentle guide than a definitive representation of the piece as it should be played. Flatland was an improv creation and I wanted this orchestral refraction to embody that level of randomness and chance. Many of the beautiful blossoming moments in Spaceland came about by ‘accident’”.

Joe elaborates on his process: “With my music I often like to create a sonic landscape and just sit there. Breathing slowly and contemplating. When composing, my pieces allow me to take some time out from the fast paced nature of much of life here in London. The pedal steel is manipulated through effects beyond recognition. I didn’t really set out to make a “pedal steel” ambient EP. More that the pedal steel is my expressive tool and the means by which I can access a whole range of different tonalities which perhaps others might get with synths, voice or classical instruments like strings.”

'Flatland/Spaceland' is due for release in full on October 15th via None More Records. A limited 300 run of 10" vinyl with embossed sleeves are available to pre order now via bandcamp - https://joeharveywhyte.bandcamp.com/album/flatland-spaceland

Pre-Order

Exclusive Premiere: Joe Harvey-Whyte "Spaceland" (Forthcoming on None More Records)

Contento, El Palmas Music's duo of über-hip expatriate Colombian ‘salsapunks’ are back. 

Contento’s first album, 'Lo Bueno Está Aquí', was an artistic and critical success. Their follow-up, 'En Lancha Pal Futuro', builds seamlessly on its predecessor. Yet it could not have been recorded in more different, and difficult, circumstances.

The duo’s debut was laid down between 2016 and 2019, a period when the two European-based Colombians, who met at an Eddie Palmieri concert in Berlin, were able to take some serious time off from their diverse individual projects to explore a new vision for salsa. Paulo, a member of Acid Coco, Jaguar and El Dragón Criollo; and Sano, a DJ and producer known for his minimalist Latin house releases for the Cómeme label, crystallised on their debut what Paulo describes as “a new salsa sound that may also make [listeners] want to discover some of the older sounds, too.” That sound is a kind of ‘retro-smart’ combination of Nuyorican boogaloo from the ‘60s and cumbia from the golden age of Discos Fuentes.

But then along came COVID. Sano left Barcelona to return to his native Colombia. With one half of the Contento team holed up in the mountains outside Medellín, communications became increasingly challenging. “Send me something,” Paulo urged his colleague, “Do me something on the piano.” Sano obliged, sending over a number of piano tracks which Paulo worked on during an intense fortnight in his Geneva studio, adding lyrics and further instrumentation.

From that period came “Al Lao Del Rio”, a boogaloo with an irresistible keyboard riff, an upfront electronic bongo beat and urgent vocals; “Donde Está Mi Gente”, a slower number with sleepy vocals and squelchy synth; the Latin garage rock tinge of “Guajira Espacial”; and the final, longest track, “Voy Contento”, which, maybe more than any other track on the new album, revisits the signature sound of their debut. Is that jingle-jangle Byrds-like guitar sound really a guitar or an electronic keyboard? Is that a real female chorus or some production trickery?

To the untrained ear, the other six tracks on the album are pure Contento. But, in truth, it wasn’t that simple.  Lack of a decent studio or reliable internet effectively nulled Sano’s involvement, and so Paulo looked at unfinished material they had begun years prior. Heartened by what they already had in the bag, Paulo finished on his own what they had previously sketched together. “I feel him very close,” Paulo reveals. “I know what he likes and everything.” He describes how he took the title track, for example, and “broke it down, put it back together, gave it structure. I changed a bit... the melody of the voice; I added bass, added what I had to add. I finished producing it and I had another song.” Listening to it, you can hear how he works around the organ riff and deep timbales sound, adding the typically repetitive vocals and all the other layers to build it into something hypnotic and irresistible. Of the other five, “Sigo Llorando” suggests it was recorded in some kind of space station, with the ringing guitar sound and electronic percussion bombarding the listener with a shower of aural asteroids. “Pobre Humanidad” is almost but not quite the album’s only instrumental. And “Brillo y Figura Hasta La Sepultra” is the closest thing to the kind of Nuyorican salsa that first brought the pair together.

Alone in the studio he might have been in the end, but Paulo artfully invokes the presence of his absent partner to summon up the spirit of Contento and the spirit of Colombia.

Exclusive Premiere: Contento "Chevere Cumbé" (El Palmas Music)

This is another taste of sounds from his forthcoming sophomore album ‘All Werk Is Play’, following on from singles, ‘Eterno Retorno’, ’In Saint-Gilles’, ‘Move Different’ and ‘Battered Mars Bar’, which respectively received spins from BBC 6Music’s Jamz Supernova, Tom Ravenscroft, Huey Morgan and Afrodeutsche, as well as love from selectors such as DJ Paulette, Scratcha DVA, Zakia Sewell (NTS) & Jyoty (Rinse).

In 2020, Werkha released ‘The Rigour’ on First Word, and dropped ‘Beat Tapestry ’ in late 2021 on a limited cassette. All Werk Is Play’ marks Werkha’s first full-length solo project since his debut album ‘Colours Of A Red Brick Raft’ on Tru Thoughts in 2015.

‘Beauty & The Bloc’ is another uptempo composition from Werkha(real name Tom Leah), fusing analogue jazz-funk vibes with modern dance music sensibilities. Horns from Aaron Wood lead the way on top of a 5/4 rhythm track, with Werkha’s signature squelchy saw synths, subtly turning the smooth to rough for another triumphant heads-down groove, which has been doing the business live on dancefloors from Low Four in Manchester to The Jazz Cafe in London.

Werkha hails from Manchester and has been releasing music for a decade, collaborating and remixing artists such as Quantic, Bryony Jarman-Pinto, Marcos Valles and Andrew Ashong, and touring with Bonobo, Chet Faker and Mr Scruff.

Label Socials

https://twitter.com/FirstWordHQ?
https://www.facebook.com/firstwordrecords
https://www.instagram.com/firstwordrecords/

All Werk Is Play

Exclusive Premiere: Werkha "Beauty and the Bloc"

codenamed 17 III

Soon to be released on Plastik People Digital...

Credits - 

Keys  & Production - BradRad.

Through The Night

Elseward

Future Classics & Forgotten Treasures — Selections for the Adventurous Music Listener (Founded in 2007 by Lexis)

Exclusive Premiere: sUb_modU "Expensive Shit (Centre Edit)" (Forthcoming on Tru Thoughts)

Music Is My Sanctuary

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