Mother Tongue

Warriors of the Dystotheque 
Ft Ashley Slater (Freak Power) - Be My Star / Beachside Drive
Label: DSPPR
Catalogue Number: DSPPR069
Release Date: July - 18th - 2023

WotD return after what was a truly amazing 18 months with several Jazz FM Playlists (Deb Grant) & BBC 6 Music Premieres (Huey) and support from Steve Lamacq as well as loads more support across local BBC stations, Dan Hegarty at RTE2 fm, and all this was  rewarded with positive press in the nationals and from tastemakers across Ireland and beyond confirming last years album Anthropause was a hit.

Off the back of the album WotD were invited out to Ibiza to DJ at the world famous Cafe del mar & the legendary Pikes Hotel, It was the Sunset DJ set that got them thinking "If I'm gonna DJ as the sun actually goes down I'm not playing anyone else's track" so they set about making a new track, On the Balcony at Sunrise was that track and it caught the attention of DSPPR records label Boss Chris Coco and was pretty much signed within a week of it getting its 1st play at the cafe, it went on the get a reimagining from Chris and was shared with the top Sunset & Balearic DJs in Ibiza and went on to have further plays at Hostal la torre, Cafe Mambo, Pikes, Amnesia, WOM and more. 
With all this love being shown for the track Jonny from WotD was back out in Ibiza in September for another round of DJ sets and this time hooked up with DSPPR label boss Chris and they came up with the idea of a WotD album for the summer of 23 which brings us to Be My Star / Beachside Drive, the 1st single off the new forthcoming album "It's a Beautiful Thing" For the 1st time in the 8 years of the WotD project instead of working exclusively online Jonny met up with the other members, firstly he hooked up in Coventry with his old friend Sean and they started the album with a few ideas, he also enrolled a new member, Kevin Sharkey who's also from Derry where Jonny is based although he's living in England and is a well respected session drummer (Groove Armada / The Undertones) this gave him the idea that he needed to make the jump and get over to the US and into Mike & Nick's studio and as luck would have it they had just moved from NY to Florida so in March he went to Florida with 9 tracks to overdub and do a few more from scratch whilst out there and things went that well he returned to Ireland with 20. This was all whilst hanging at the studio with a pool in the backyard, it sure beats Irish weather.
Jonny say's "Whilst out in Florida we drove along the A1A Beachside Drive for about 30 miles and went to Coco Beach for some food and it was truly inspiring so when we got back to the studio we wrote Beachside Drive in no time.
 On the flight home from Ireland I was listening to the demos and could hear a low baritone voice over the track and luckily I know Ashley so I sent it to him the moment I landed really.  
Ashley says "I met Jonny in the lobby of Virgin Radio in 2017 so when I got an email from him about a track I was already aware of the sort of sound I was gonna hear but I was surprised when a rather delicious, atmospheric summer track landed in my inbox.
I liked it so much I only had to think about it for a day, whereupon I fired back a demo to Jonny, who played it to the band and they evidently liked it so I set to work finishing it with my trademark baritone voice (as requested) and shimmering clumps of backing vocals, topped off with a bit of amateur trumpet. Bosh. A chillout love song for the middle aged lover’s of all things Balearic.  Stop pretending you're young and get on board with this lush production is what I say.

https://warriorsofthedystotheque.bandcamp.com 
https://soundcloud.com/w-o-d-1
https://www.instagram.com/warriors_of_the_dystotheque
https://dsppr.bandcamp.com

Warriors Of The Dystotheque Ft Ashley Slater - Be My Star

The Swiss trio divr debuts on We Jazz on 2 February with their new album "Is This Water". divr is Philipp Eden on keys, Jonas Ruther on drums and Raphael Walser on bass, and they play largely acoustic improvisations which loops without ever quite repeating. Their music swings, but never feels like it’s doing so in response to a fixed, single pulse. The new album is edited by Dan Nicholls (of Y-OTIS).

“We play in multi-directional time. You could hear three different timings, but on the other hand it’s together. We land in the same place. It’s not done with maths, it’s more about entering a flow”, say the band members, based in Basel (Eden) and Zurich (Ruther, Walser), the city where they all met more than 15 years ago.

“It’s a free approach to playing time. We don’t refer to a straight metre. But play around it. We never repeat something exactly, it develops with every turn, there’s always a small difference.”

Their music is elegant in its intricacy while covering a wide dynamic range. Opener "As Of Now" begins with languid chords on the piano, bass and drums skimming over the surface offered by Eden. Later comes a rush of energy, the piano briefly switching into more jagged terrain before peeling back. From there the album journeys through different intensities, rising and falling in smooth arcs as if you’re hearing their conversation move from gentle pleasantries to more heated discussions.

"Is this Water" presents a band who's heading into a direction of their own, crafting pieces out of improvising together and tapping into a natural brand of instant composition. Nicholls' edits and post production give the music another layer, one drawing from field recordings and layered textural ideas. Together, the elements form a sound that feels personal, organic and forward-reaching at the same time.

As Of Now

Stream "Future Fantasy" now : https://bfan.link/future-fantasy-1

Zurich-based band Den Dala reveals 'Future Fantasy'. Den Dala is the result of Andrin Stettler's vision, who writes, records and produces nearly all of the songs by himself. 
His  groove based music is influenced by jazz, funk and psychedelia and has a vintage feeling to it without being outdated. It is a refreshing blend which shines on 'Future Fantasy', a sweet ballad with english vocals and strings. It's the perfect title to get lazy and pensive, a must-have addition to your Sunday playlist.

Future Fantasy

Den Dala - Future Fantasy

Chorus

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.

One year on we’re excited to share the first music from a new batch of songs. Omega is the very definition of a slow burn, emerging from the quiet pulses of a drum machine, the band lock quickly into Ben Reed’s lyrical bass line in a brooding but ever expanding ascent that you feel could confidently journey onwards forever.

Omega

Qwalia - Omega

lonely boys

Josephine Foster - 'Child of God'

Taken from the new album 'Blood Rushing' - Released 17/09/2012

Buy from Fire Records

Josephine Foster - Child of God

Taken from the 'Large Pies' EP on Cup of Tea records 

Mr Scruff 'Mexicanos'

Year Of The Monkey

Dead Waters

The Warriors are  forged from an alliance of transatlantic low-fi fanatics and leftfield DJ / Producers. Projecting an amalgamation of Chemical Beats, broken beat, jazz, downtempo, house, techno, electronica, noise and psyche, their unusual sound, whether laid back, or dance floor oriented, could quite easily come from a dystopic future where truly bad taste is outlawed.

Warriors Of The Dystotheque Ft Ashley Slater - Be My Star

Warriors of the Dystotheque

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