Album Review: Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp – ‘We’re OK. But we’re lost anyway’
Is it a band, is it a group, is it a collective or an ensemble- no it’s the one and only Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, the multi-European makers of the most essential music that may just have passed you by.Revolving around the mercurial bassist/composer Vincent Bertholet and emerging from the Geneva avant music scene …
Track: Hungary’s globetrotting Àbáse reveal the swinging Afrobeat of ‘Agangatolou’ ahead of a November album
MUSICIANS are often instinctive travellers, globetrotters and border-hoppers, crossing continents in the search of new vibrations and reference points. You can bet that Hungarian pianist and producer Szabolcs Bognár sees himself as one of those itinerant troubadours. Although his roots were established in the vibrant jazz culture of Budapest, he’s always journeyed further in his …
News: Sarah Davachi announces an autumn album, ‘Antiphonals’; hear a first track, ‘Rushes Recede’
WHAT is a drone? Over the last decade it’s become a word associated with surveillance, voyeurism, secrecy, stealth and those tired sweeping aerial shots that plague every other film that blasts onto our screens. So maybe we need our sonic explorers and sound adventurers to remind us of the drone’s real roots, the powerful hypnotic …
See: Zawraq – ‘Fate El Foute’: a little gem from Moroccan newcomers
EVERY once in a while at Backseat Mafia a little gem pops up from nowhere … cue the first single from the Moroccan newcomers Zawraq, “Fate El Foute”. Coming with a whisper of low-key publicity, the track is a collaboration between Zawraq and US instrumentalist/producer John Mock, who has country folk form playing and writing …
News: We Are Busy Bodies to reissue Kippie Moeketsi and Hal Singer’s 1977 Afro-sax set, ‘Blue Stompin’ – hear the title track
CONFLUENCE and significance; that’s what we have here. Those intrepid curators and sound seekers at We Are Busy Bodies announce the release of Kippie Moeketsi and Hal Singer’s Blue Stompin, scheduled for July 23rd on digital platforms and as a delicious vinyl slab. It’s another prestigious addition to the label’s catalogue, featuring a seminal global …
Album review: José Mauro – ‘A Viagem Das Horas’: another unearthed Brazilian gem from Far Out Recordings
LOST albums create a mystique stoked by rumour, fandom and hype, waiting for the moment to surface and often for the bubble of expectation to burst. But some records emerge from the past almost unannounced, previously known to the very few and for the rest of us waiting to be found before we knew that …
News: Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp are set for an album in July; hear ‘Beginning’
IS IT a band, is it a group, is it a collective or an ensemble? No it’s the one and only Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, the makers of the most essential music that may have passed you by. Revolving around the mercurial bassist/composer Vincent Bertholet and emerging from the Geneva avant music scene in …
News: Rey Sapienz & The Congo Techno Ensemble announce a July album; hear a new track, ‘Eza Makambo’
IN CASE you hadn’t noticed, the sound of afrobeat is taking on a new dimension: riding on a surge of youthful energy; absorbing rap’s bite and electro’s drive; committed to the cutting edge but respectful of sources. Rey Sapienz and his new collective The Congo Techno Ensemble look set to add their dynamic to this …
Album review: Mdou Moctar – ‘Afrique Victime’: a coming together of the West African and western rock
MDOU MOCTAR is at last gathering momentum; but it’s been an epic journey since 2008, when his raw emotional guitar music first began to spread across West Africa via the DIY network of traded SIM cards. Picked up by Chris Kirkley of Sahel Sounds, who sent Mdou a much-needed left-handed Strat, then released his first …
Track: Joe Armon-Jones reveals new track ‘Pray’ and label ‘Aquarii’
So here’s some interesting signals beaming out of nu-jazz central, London Town. Keyboard custodian, Ezra Collectivist, Nubya Garcia buddy and sonic cavalier Joe Armon-Jones is launching his new label Aquarii Records which he says will stand as ‘“a home for the music that is around me; somewhere it can live and somewhere it can flourish”. …