Track/Video : Ambient keyboardist Nico Georis announces his contemplative ‘Cloud Suites’ album with the glistening ‘Ice Crystals’.
“It’s nature’s way of telling you in a song” said Randy California and artists like Nico Georis create through that connection. A gifted classical pianist who stepped beyond such disciplined restrictions to live along a more experimental causeway, Georis has in the past been energised by different organics, from plant life to more barren terrains. …
Album Review : Dele Sosimi and The Estuary 21 – ‘The Confluence’ : The afrobeat alumni returns to guide and groove.
Touchstone afrobeat musician Dele Sosimi teaming up with long standing indie songsmith Sam Duckworth (aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly) sounds like a longshot but that’s what’s happened. Sosimi’s new mini album ‘The Confluence’ is on the shelves via Wah Wah 45s and yes Duckworth is on production duties. Except this is no quirky experiment, …
Album Review: Caixa Cubo -‘Agôra’ : Fresh, hot-stepping jazz fusion from the Säo Paulo trio.
There’s seems to be something going on here. The steady flow of fine soul – jazz oozing from Brazil to pep up our mainstream menus shows no sign of drying up. In the last few months new albums from Joao Selva, Tagua Tagua and the ever-dependable Lucas Santanna have brought an individual verve to the …
Album Review: ‘Yalla Miku’ – Yalla Miku : Gnawa rhythms, East African roots and post punk dynamism connect on this electric debut.
Every city has a true face, a side which, as Lydon said ‘the tourists never see” and revealing that real identity is what Yalla Miku are all about. Formed by the founder of Swiss label Bongo Joe, musician Cyril Yeterian and his band mate from the aptly named Cyril Cyril, percussionist Cyril Bondi, Yalla Miku’s …
Album Review: McNeal and Niles – ‘Thrust’/ Wilbur Niles and Thrust – ‘Thrust Too’ : Late seventies lo-fi funk gems re-discovered.
Super curators We Are Busy Bodies are at it again, digging up those buried sounds and the forgotten stories from music’s underground archive. Last year saw them spotlight Almon Memela’s joyous South African funk and the pristine latin jazz of Virgilio Armas after near fifty years gathering dust. Now comes another retrieval from the backroom …
Album Review: Nkono Teles – Love Vibration : remembering the man who put synth into Afro-boogie.
May be less celebrated than William Onyeabor or Jake Sollo, you could say that keyboardist Nkono Teles was similarly fundamental to Nigeria’s electro pop explosion in the eighties. Well, Soundway Records are aiming to do the right thing and raise his profile with the release of ‘Love Vibration’, a collection of key cuts from Teles …
Album Review: Neil Cowley – ‘Battery Life’: music with momentum and magic for piano and electronics.
Neil Cowley has never been a musician to tread water unnecessarily. Filling the prime keyboard seat in the Brand New Heavies and Zero 7 he was there at the centre of that soul dance/acid jazz nineties prime time. Then came the jazz informed Neil Cowley Trio, a band that fore-fronted the first wave of UK …
Track/Video: Electronic musician Colloboh introduces second EP ‘Saana Sahel’ with the gliding high of ‘Mystic You’.
Since joining the Leaving Records community in 2021 after a move from his Baltimore home, Collins Oboh (aka Colloboh) has become significant contributor to the ever fluid LA experimental scene. Able to focus on his music full-time the Nigerian born, self-taught synthesising soundscaper took the freefall of tunes he had shared with the world online …
Track/Video : Scrimshire previews the evocative ‘Unforgotten, Unforgiven’ from his powerful new album ‘Paroxysm’.
Label boss of the UK soul hot house Albert’s Favourites (and previously Wah Wah 45s), go to producer and creator of one of 2021’s year’s best nu-beat albums ‘Nothing Feels Like Everything’, Adam Scrimshire is on an inspirational roll that shows no sign of losing momentum. Here is an artist who thrives on activity, a …
Track/Video: Algerian psych-rock legends Les Abranis release ‘Id Ed Was’ to trail their ‘Amazigh Freedom Rock 1973 – 1983’ compilation.
Sometimes retrospective albums seem destined to just come and go but not this one. ‘Amazigh Freedom Rock 1973 – 1983’ by Les Abranis, available via Bongo Joe from 28th April, promises to be a compilation that makes a mark, setting the crate diggers out there scrabbling and looking for more. This is an album that …