BBE Music is thrilled to announce the release of Modern Love, a diverse compendium of specially commissioned cover versions of rarities and classics in tribute to David Bowie.

Featuring an array of artists such as Jeff Parker, We Are KING, Meshell Ndegeocello, Helado Negro, Khruangbin, Matthew Tavares, Nia and more, Modern Love seeks to champion Bowie’s lesser-known connection to soul, R&B, jazz, funk, and gospel. The prominent jazz influences throughout Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, were a key inspiration for curating this collection of reimagined Bowie songs with these artists. The resulting album is an eclectic tribute featuring a group of artists who not only fit together creatively, but who, like Bowie, straddle different worlds musically, with soul and jazz at their core.

Modern Love offers a fresh look at Bowie’s trailblazing career, aiming to highlight the often overlooked relationship between his back catalogue and musical genres traditionally pioneered by artists of color. The project was curated by music executive and DJ Drew McFadden, alongside BBE Music founder Peter Adarkwah. “I felt that the connection between Bowie and R&B, jazz, funk, gospel and all things soulful, had never really been explored before — at least not so much in covers, which tend to lean more towards rock and pop,” says McFadden. “Certainly, there’s been plenty of Bowie covers over the years, but none that have really tapped into what seems to have been a big part of his core musical
style and direction.”

Modern Love is an interactive sonic map. Here, seventeen artists make their way into the varied regions of his sundry catalog and circle back with seventeen unique re-imaginings of both his cornerstone and lesser-known tracks. Some, in atmosphere, feel like a sly alternate take from original sessions (Khruangbin’s ethereal, funk infused version of “Right” from Young Americans); others nod at the source, then wink before diving into the deep waters of another musical stratosphere (Sessa’s sexy Tropicalia-drenched “Panic in Detroit” from Aladdin Sane). Still others take tunes down to the studs and then re-arrange the moody interiors: Meshell Ndegeocello’s pensive “Fantastic Voyage” from Lodger and Tavares’ clever take on “Heroes” which is restructured into a kinetic hardbop-esque backdrop, fronted by ice-cool, held-back vocals. The bullseye these artists aim for is Bowie’s fearlessness. “Fame was an incredible bluff that worked,” he once reflected. “Very flattering. I’ll do anything until I fail. And when I succeed I quit too.”

Modern Love packs us off on a journey that balances on risk’s sharp blade. Track-to-track, it explores what happens when a musician throws out notions of should and safe and stretches beyond the known. These artists use Bowie both as a guide and a prism: A way of being and seeing. Their offerings, widely divergent, explore the inheritance from an artist who freed himself from labels, genres and, consequently, pigeonholes. While he was at it, he decimated fixed notions about territory (or terra) itself; boundaries hemmed-in his creative process, but his essence remained free to roam. He may have vanished in earthly form, yet, as he also promised in the lyrics of “Modern Love,” But I never wave bye-bye . . .” This compilation assures us that his spirit swirls around us. His force is alive to all of us and, here, it is summoned with an incantation that celebrates possibility.

Khruangbin - Right

Those Days

Those Days (feat. Leah Yeger)

Listen on all platforms + buy the LP: https://idol-io.ffm.to/the-offline-les-cigales
Support on Bandcamp: https://theoffline.bandcamp.com/album/les-cigales
Listen to the DeepMatter Catalogue: https://tinyurl.com/dm-catalogue

Les Cigales

Les cigales

The Offline - Les Cigales

Qwalia is the experimental, improvisational home for a quartet of some of London’s most prolific and inspiring musicians. 

Led by drummer Yusuf Ahmed (Joy Crookes, Anoushka Shankar, Unknown to Known), much of the band’s music to date surfaced in a single two-day session at the Fish Factory in Willesden, West London. 

Although improvisational at its core, the band’s fluency and innate musicality makes it hard at times to believe these pieces weren’t written and developed over weeks, rather than conjured in the moment, with no prior rehearsal. Qwalia’s music is an instinctive aural expression of how things seemed in the moment of creation.

Featuring Ben Reed on bass (Frank Ocean, David Byrne, Richard Russell’s Everything Is Recorded), Tal Janes on Guitar (Jordan Rakei, Cherise, Waaju) and Joseph Costi on keys and synths (Cat Stevens, Tom Herbert, Heidi Vogel), the band’s debut album ‘Sound And Reason’ was released by Alberts Favourites in March 2023.

This beautiful version of Elevator Company was recorded in Yusuf's living room last spring for a live video promoting the 2nd album Abbreviations. The band rarely, if ever, replay music they've already recorded, so this is a unique moment and one we're incredibly happy to be able to share. 

Elevator Company (Live)

Qwalia - Elevator Company (Live)

It's Just The Rain

“Walking Away” — originally created under Rick Beato’s direction — reimagined in a modern Pop-Jazz arrangement by Svara Jam Lab.
This version features warm male vocals with strong chest resonance and a raspy, expressive tone, supported by clean jazz guitar, brushed drums, Rhodes piano, and a smooth analog mix.
An intimate yet powerful reinterpretation of a modern classic.

Walking Away

Hey everyone, I’m so grateful you’re here to listen to this one.

This track, Postcards in the Rain, feels like a very honest, quiet moment for me. It’s built on those gorgeous loopy chords and that mellow Chillhop swing—the kind of sound that just settles around you when the lights are low. It’s cinematic, but in the melancholic way life is when you’re caught between holding on and letting go.

The Heart of the Song
This song is just me sitting in the quiet after things end, when you realize the hardest part is the space the other person left behind.

The Melancholy: The verses are about the small, heavy details: the phone line that’s gone cold, a jacket that smells like yesterday, and how every single raindrop seems to be counting the minutes back to their name. My heart is still keeping the silence like a secret tune where their ghost still dances.

The Confession (The Chorus): This is where I admit I’m still writing those postcards in the rain. It’s messy, it’s vulnerable, and it makes no sense—writing something just to watch it dissolve. But maybe that’s the point: accepting that "love's just ink and pain," and even though the words wash away, the feeling never does.

The Real Talk (The Bridge): That moment when the beat drops to a half-time groove is the most honest part. I stop pretending I'm fine. It's just me and the broken vinyl and the full ashtray of "almosts and maybes." It’s about reading the air like a broken kid and just letting the rain keep the pace.

Thank you, sincerely, for listening to this loop of my heart. It means the world to me that you let me share these feelings with you.

Please listen when you need a quiet moment, and I hope this finds you well.

Sending you all the best.

Postcards in the Rain (Him)

Buy on Bandcamp

Taboo Run - Wonderful Love

04 Yaw - Where Would You Be

Idol Eyes out now to stream and download https://ffm.to/idol-eyes

This is the first single from the EP available for Pre Order on digital and vinyl now: https://commonsaints.bandcamp.com

It's Just The Rain

Patchwork Inc.