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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Alice Russell - Let Us Be Loving (KidKanevil Remix)
Alice Russell is from England? We call foul, she’s got to be from Rogers, Texas, thrice divorced, her congregation's star alto and Alvin Ailey’s muse with pipes like these. Below lift the excellent, soul and funk-kissed KidKanevil remix of “Let Us Be Loving” before it drops next week. Show support here by purchasing Pot of Gold or a slew of singles and 7-inchers including The White Stripes covers and Mr. Scruff remixes. Also, dainty limited edition teacups. Okay, she’s British.
Sounds like: Duffy, Aretha Franklin, Jill Scott
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Brazos - My Buddy + Day Glo
Judging Brazos by the tour they keep would be likening them to Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend and White Denim. All bands should be so lucky! Brazos’ harmonies invoke secret swimming holes and endless warm nights. They’re somehow jazz and folk, swooning but sharp, both big and small. Their beautiful album Phosphorescent Blues—out November 24th on Autobus—is just the thing to retreat to once bitter winds and holiday madness descend.
DOWNLOAD: Shafiq - Nirvana
We all know music like the music Shafiq Husayn makes with Sa-Ra Creative Partners is great to chill solo to - that soul and jazz fused hip-hop that takes as much from Sun-Ra and Fela Kuti as it does thug rap and siren sounds - but when weekend late nights swing around, it ain't always that great. You're liquored, and done with everyone else for the evening, so you head back to a friend's and you put on some Afro-beat-hip-hop-soul thing, and sometimes it'll just fall flat. People will look at you with scorn, like you're the eyes-shut, nodding-head, dreadlocked trustafarian piously filling the party with joint smoke while everyone else is all lager rampage and shouting. This though - check its bass. Shafiq knows how to keep a party going and keep it spiritual at the same time, and that's deep, man - find more on the man's debut Shafiq En' A-Free-Ka, out now.
Sounds Like: J Dilla, Sun Ra, Outkast
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Acoustic Ladyland - Glasto
'Jazz'. It's a word that often conjures images of pompous old men indulging in interminable fret wankery. It doesn't always have to be that way, though - Acoustic Ladyland, gorging on an aural diet of Giggs, Deerhoof and Dead Kennedys muck up the jazz certainties in your brain with their refusal to ponce, instead throttling horns until their veins explode, a pummeling rhythm section hammering jazz into the ground. Fuck you, jazz! You just got merked.
Sounds Like: The Pop Group, Capdown, Orange Juice with horns
DOWNLOAD: ILAD - Magazine + TV Sutra
(Photo: Joanna Ramos)
The fact that we just heard about Richmond, VA quartet ILAD (we honestly don't know if that's an acronym or a word) while they are sorting their third self-released album reminds us that there are still people out there making supremely rad music without any expectations. In these days of overexposure, that is a comforting notion. The album in question, Here//There, is out on July 28th, though you can take the organ-ized free-blues of "Magazine" and its jazzier friend "TV Sutra" home right now. You'll be glad you did.
Sounds like: Tortoise, Crystal Antlers, Loose Fur
DOWNLOAD: Cobblestone Jazz - What You Want + Traffic Jam
More often than not, a electronic group's name provides little insight into their sound. Yet the Canadian trio Cobblestone Jazz lives up to its name, cobbling together techno-oriented tracks with electronic instrumentation, funky licks and jazz sensibilities. While their live performances are renowned for their freewheeling, improvised sprawl, Cobblestone Jazz write focused tunes that whip dance floors into shape and get toes tapping at home. "What You Want," first found on their debut album, 23 Seconds, plays up their jazz influences, its bleepy cadence and dusky drum programming laying the smouldering groundwork for Rhodes organ vamps and scat vocals coursing through a vocoder. But techno heads would be wise to dive into the titular track from their "Traffic Jam" EP, wherein Cobblestone Jazz balance warm and bubbly oscillations with cool, jazzy counterpoints. It's enough to make you rethink any hesitations about the intersection of jazz and techno.
Sounds like: Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts, Minilogue, Henrik Schwarz
Cobblestone Jazz - What You Want (edit)
DOWNLOAD: Damian Lazarus - Dr. Whiskers Theme
As the owner of London's Crosstown Rebels label and an internationally renowned DJ, Damian Lazarus is best known for what he does with records rather than for making them himself. That's about to change this summer as he drops his debut album, Smoke the Monster Out, on Get Physical Music. Those expecting the light and brisk tech-house sound Lazarus peddles through his label and plays in his DJ sets will be surprised by the sound at which he's arrived. Together with collaborators Arthur Jeffes and Swedish vocalist twins Taxi Taxi, Lazarus opts for jazzy chamber pop rather than dance music. "Dr. Whiskers Theme" sways to and fro to the tune of melancholic piano lines and pirouettes between the smokey plucked bass line, the wordless vocals of Taxi Taxi waxing and waning throughout. This is the record Crosstown Rebel fans can reach for after clubbing the night away.
Sounds like: Jazzanova, Mr. Scruff
DOWNLOAD: Kat Edmonson - Just Like Heaven (The Cure Cover)
I don't own a TV (I say I am against its consumption of one's creative properties) but I binge-watch cable during family holidays (truth is TV is too damn expensive). During one of those said binges, I watched the whole damn season 1 of United States of Tara (I heart Diablo Cody*), within which fluttered a euphoric track, "Lucky," by Kat Edmonson. A few Googles and a handful of stalk emails later, I corroborated her 'next big thing' status and got us a track.
With "Just Like Heaven," Edmonson has the balls to take a well-known Cure song and completely deconstruct it into mellow purring-on-top-a-piano bossa nova jazz lick. On upcoming full-length debut, Take To The Sky, she gives the same swift, smooth makeover to Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things,” Carole King’s “One Fine Day,” and John Lennon’s “(Just Like) Starting Over.” In a word, it's delicious.
* Favorite Diablo Cody music quote: “Booty rap is the nectar of life. I hate that shit the cool people listen to.”
Sounds like: Trolle/Siebenhaar, Sia, Sade
DOWNLOAD: Peter King - Shango
For the longest time it was easy be ignorant of all the music being made by other cultures, even if their styles meshed well with those popular at home. Thanks to the Internet and archivists like Strut, so much of that music is now coming to light for the rest of us. Strut's latest finds are compiled on Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970's Funky Lagos, a rich collection of Afro-funk/jazz. There's no better place to start than with Peter King's "Shango," which quickly shifts from cascading hand percussion to bright horn fanfare, its physical funk rhythms locking listeners in loose grooves.The time is ripe to explore the familiar territory you never knew existed.
Sounds like: Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, James Brown, Fela Kuti at his most concise.
DOWNLOAD: The Young Lovers - Album Mini-mix
A cursory tour through Hervé's back catalog suggests the British producer is all about bombast and, in the words of his 2007 single, "Cheap Thrills." But the many monikered Hervé (Joshua Harvey to his folks, half of The Count and Sinden to many others) has facets initially hidden by his rave-igniting tunes. One of the most surprising comes under the guise The Young Lovers, which finds Harvey exploring everything from nodding jazz laments, broken beat hip-hop instrumentals, jazzy house tracks, swinging samba and swerving downtempo jams. Skeptics should direct their ears to this classy minimix which cuts across each style explored on The Young Lovers' self-titled debut album on Loungin' Recordings. Cool your heels and let the stylings of Harvey at his most chill sooth your buzzing mind.
Sounds like: Madlib, J Dilla, Verve Remixed compilations
The Young Lovers - Album Mini-mix
Previously:
Hervé - Jungle Steppers (feat. The Count Of Monte Cristal)
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