MUSIC

“The semi-classical drums/sax/piano trio Mammal Hands mutate into a high-volume rave act” The Guardian Mammal Hands are pleased to announce the release of their highly anticipated fourth album ‘Captured Spirits’, released 11th September via Manchester tastemaker record label, Gondwana Records. Consisting of saxophonist Jordan Smart, pianist Nick Smart and drummer and tabla player Jesse Barrett, the trio have forged a growing reputation for their hypnotic fusion of jazz and electronica and have recieved glowing recommendations from the likes of The Guardian and Gilles Peterson. Drawing on their love of electronic, contemporary classical, world, folk and jazz music, Mammal Hands take in influences including Pharoah Sanders, Gétachèw Mekurya, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Sirishkumar Manji. Forming in Norwich in 2012, brothers Nick and Jordan along with Jesse, developed their distinctive and polished sound with their meteoric live shows and release of three critically acclaimed albums: ‘Animalia’ (2014), ‘Floa’ (2016) and ‘Shadow Work (2017). Landmark live performances have included shows at The Roundhouse London, the main stage at Field Day Festival, La Cigale Paris, Montreal Jazz Festival, Hamburg Elb Jazz, Athens Technopolis and Unit Tokyo. Teaming up once again with trusted producer George Atkins (Wiley, The Courteeners) at 80 Hertz Studios in Manchester, ‘Captured Spirits’ explores themes including existence and displacement. “The name has multiple readings but was first inspired by something Jordan was reading about past experiences of ancestors being caught and coded into our DNA and having an effect on who you are today. This ties in with themes that we have touched on before relative to identity and the collective unconscious (‘Shadow Work’). It also toys with the idea of feeling contained/trapped and the need to break out of something and also the idea of people being spirits that are "captured" in a body”, says Nick. Opening with the melodic rhythmic patterns of ‘Ithaca’, the tempo picks up with the mesmerising ‘Chaser’, as heavy percussion and Nick’s frenetic keys draw the listener deep into Mammal Hand’s distinctive soundsphere. North Indian influences dictate the meditative ‘Versus Shapes’ with Jesse’s transcendental tabla playing taking centre stage while the dark and moody ‘Spiral Stair’ relies on a multitude of colliding and intersecting shapes and sounds. All three members of the band contribute equally to the writing process: one that favours the creation of a powerful group dynamic over individual solos. “I think with this record, there was a strong and renewed sense of collective enjoyment and appreciation for the process and each other's contributions. After a long period of touring and a slow build up to the actual recording sessions we were able to mull over ideas for long periods, build on lessons from the past and pull our playing connection to an even deeper place. Realising each other's visions for the whole and clearly understanding how they intersect”, says Jesse. That vision is also realised by longtime collaborator and artist Daniel Halsall who designed the artwork for ‘Captured Spirits’. His strong instinctive feel for the band’s visual world is a key component to understanding the music. “Our work with Dan over such a long period of time now has become integral to the bands aesthetic and he always seems to grasp the themes and ideas that we send for each album and distills them into something striking and engaging that really complements the music. This is really important with instrumental music, as we need to be able to convey our ideas without being too literal or definitive and give the listeners space for imagination and to take their own journey when they listen to the music and look at the artwork”, says Jordan. Elsewhere across ‘Captured Spirits’, ‘Riddle’ and ‘Rhizome’ are rich in texture and heavy on groove and both compositions showcase a complex, emotional range and demonstrate three like-minded musicians with a dazzling understanding of jazz, electronica and cinematic rhythms. “Music has the capacity to fill so many spaces in our lives, as I think fundamentally it is a more direct form of communication than even language. In this way it can be refuge, it can be social, it can be revelatory, it can be memory, it can be what we need at a given point in time”, says Jordan. The high intensity of the trio’s live shows is recreated with the spiritual jazz-influenced ‘Into Sparks’ as Jordan’s sax exhibits an unrestrained energy and freedom but it’s left to ‘Little One’ to bring down the curtain on arguably their most accomplished album to date, a soothing, breezy gift to Jesse’s new daughter.

Forest Law's debut album, "Zero," is a vibrant journey blending Balearic funk with urban Tropicalia, showcasing his adept guitar playing, old-school sampling, and UK-styled beats alongside his mellow yet sombre vocals. Recorded across eclectic locations from Icelandic fish net factories to a garden shed in Romford, this innovative release marks a new chapter for the multi-instrumentalist producer. Released in collaboration with the UK home for jazz and electronic sounds, Total Refreshment Centre, Zero is Forest Law’s first release since his debut EP on Brownswood Recordings four years ago, marking a new and exciting chapter for the up-and-coming talent. Crafted over seven years, "Zero" is deeply influenced by Law's experiences, from immersive stays in Porto where he delved into Portuguese music to an artist residency in a remote Icelandic fishing village. The album was finished, and recorded in his garden shed in Romford, East London. It’s a beautiful juxtaposition about a boy from Essex, who fell in love with international music, discovered the world, and then produced a musical treatise about his adventures from his shed.

In March of 2023 composer, arranger & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London’s Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece – gratitude – for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO).

Followers of UK Jazz know Kinoshi from her previous work with seed. (including the Mercury Prize-nominated album Driftglass, released by jazz re:freshed in 2019), or as a former member of Kokoroko. But her compositional résumé also extends deeply into orchestral work for concert hall, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theatre, with high profile collaborators including London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. That depth of experience is on full display on gratitude, with the textural and dynamic flexibility of her large ensemble covering musical ground from groove-focused modal melancholia to anthemic brass and string themes. Striking upon first listen and even richer on repeat visits, gratitude scores the soul of contemporary Black London with philharmonic craftwork in the tradition of legendary jazz arrangers like Mary Lou Williams, Oliver Nelson, and Carla Bley.

Similar to those keystone writer-arrangers, here Kinoshi wields the power of a large ensemble to convey nuanced human emotion. “gratitude was written as a means of guiding my own healing,” says Kinoshi. “My mother told me that she keeps a gratitude book where she writes one thing, no matter how big or small, every day that helps to re-focus her mind on practicing gratitude. The examples that she gave were seeing the flowers that she'd recently planted in her garden bloom and a kaleidoscope of butterflies that she saw flitting about a tree in her garden.”

Inspired by her mother’s focus on natural beauty and the meaningful minutiae of everyday life, Kinoshi was driven to work through her own relationship with mental health and to pour that into composition. “I was spending a lot of time on my own, often at my desk writing continuously,” says Kinoshi. “At 3pm everyday, the winter sun would be positioned opposite my window and shine directly onto my face. The task of writing this piece was one of the most difficult I've endured – because of the headspace that I was in at the time – and this would be the one thing in the middle of the day that would bring me a very deep sense of contentment… my first attempt at consciously practicing gratitude for something that I so often take for granted.”

“At this point in my artistic career, highlighting the often overlooked subject of mental health and what it means to move towards creating healthy, positive and introspective practices in regards to both understanding and regulating one's own mental health is of the utmost importance to me.”

Throughout the writing process Kinoshi had the privilege of knowing that her composition would eventually be interpreted by seed. — an ensemble of players she founded in 2016 and whose collective talents she knows through and through. “The binding concept of seed. has always been to have a creative outlet that allows me to express and highlight subject matter important to me alongside musicians that I deeply respect, admire and enjoy spending time with,” explains Kinoshi. “It is the one environment where I feel extremely comfortable being able to experiment with sound authentically. Over the years, it has evolved in the sense that the more comfortable the band members get with interpreting my music, and the more we develop a creative language together, the more honest the music sounds.” That profound musical and personal trust helped make the ensemble a perfect vehicle for a composition augmented by new collaborators — in this case the LCO and NikNak.

Kinoshi and seed. first met turntablist NikNak at the Marsden Jazz Festival in 2019. After spending some time talking politics and sharing jokes it was clear that a creative relationship was possible. “I find that working with formidable artists that I get on well with on a personal level always leads to my best work, and knew as soon as I met NikNak that I wanted to work with them.”

On the genesis of her collaboration with the LCO, Kinoshi says: “I have always wanted to combine seed. with electronics and orchestral elements, as I have always envisioned the band performing multi-disciplinary works. I have long admired the members of the LCO and their way of successfully melding orchestral arrangements and improvisation with more contemporary artists. I was introduced to them via Lexy Morvaridi during his time at the Southbank Centre. It was through his support, creative insight and trust that we were able to make this project happen.” The beauty and harmony of these communal connections plus the depth and deftness of all the musickers involved truly made Kinoshi's dream of this composition a reality.

Running confidently at 21 minutes and 33 seconds (not including the album’s B Side / final track “Smoke in the Sun,” which was recorded separately at Total Refreshment Centre) and going straight for the heart, gratitude is an evolved, emotionally attuned, creatively ambitious and compositionally exquisite philharmonic expression of post-millennial UK jazz. 

MESTIZX is Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly's debut album as co-composers, arrangers and musicians. Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices. Rosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice to all of us that live in-between.” Ferragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.” The album was produced and recorded primarily at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, where Ferragutti and Rosaly were joined by a community of musicians and beloved friends including Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, and Mikel Patrick Avery, with addditional contributions from Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens and Fredy Velásquez. The music creatively infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk. A wholly original but undeniably universal sound – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic - MESTIZX contains points of reference and resonance for fans of Juana Molina, Café Tacvba, Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln, Liquid Liquid, Arto Lindsay, As Mercenarias, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular... It’s a vast, vibrant and encompassing spectrum of sounds, but at its core MESTIZX is a lucidly conscious collection of auto-biographical statements from Ferragutti & Rosaly on the deeply personalized effects of colonialism on geography, history, and identity. Despite its heavy subject matter, however, MESTIZX finds a lifeline in communal, celebratory, soul-bearing and movement-inducing music.

On rare occasions, all the stars align. This is how it was when composer-musician and instrument-maker Bex Burch jumped into her car and drove eight hours across Europe to Utrecht in November 2021. “Mostly life isn’t like that,” she says. “We’re here to figure things out and struggle. But occasionally things just fall into place. Sometimes the world is magical.” The car trip began in Berlin, where she was living after a long stint in London, where she’d made her name in the layers that exist between jazz and improvised experimentalism. The journey ended at Le Guess Who? Festival and an invitation from International Anthem’s Alejandro Ayala. Or perhaps it ended in a ground floor studio in Chicago’s South Side with light streaming through a skylight onto her newly-finished wooden xylophone and a stream of musicians selected by International Anthem’s Scottie McNiece and Dave Vettraino. Or maybe, like a wave travelling across the ocean, the travels continued until Bex Burch finally finished editing thirty-two days of exceptionally tender improvised recording sessions into the forty gossamer minutes of this stunning debut solo record, which oscillates between modes of quiet open-heartedness and powerful expression. There is only love and fear is the sound of Bex Burch in communion with some of the finest sonic communicators in International Anthem’s extended family. These include woodwind player Rob Frye, who gave Burch a tour of the Illinois Audubon Society’s Gremel Wildlife Sanctuary the day after she arrived in Chicago. Also Tortoise drummer Dan Bitney and Ben LaMar Gay, who both took Burch through her first few days in the studio, tuning into her communicative harmonics and responding with their own. And double bassist Anna Butterss and violinist Macie Stewart, who participated separately but both became key collaborators in the album’s post-production, accenting their respective string improvisations with additional sounds remotely recorded per Burch’s direction. Everyone on this record is highly skillful, a rare talent, but drawn together by Burch they were invited to inhabit something even more extraordinary: their most open selves, requested only to bring the sounds they liked – or even needed – in the moment of recording. “What has come through in this album,” she says, “is a more domestic style of music: the simplicity of life and sound-making. The word I’m shy to use is ‘feminine’ but it’s true, and I reclaim it in all its power.” She describes her sound as “messy minimalism.” The twelve tracks evoke variously the sweet kind of zoning-in that allows the listener access to their own feelings; the generative meditations of First Thought, Best Thought-era Arthur Russell; Vivaldi or Laurie Anderson – if they’d been ultra-gentle satellite reflections of Chicago’s minimalist and avant-garde music histories. Burch has previously released as part of Boing! with Leafcutter John, and with the critically acclaimed Strut-released Flock with Londoners including Sarathy Korwar and The Comet Is Coming’s Danalogue. She also runs the band and label Vula Viel and has collaborated with artists from Peter Zummo to Dame Evelyn Glennie. This album also welcomes in the sound of the natural world; ‘hip as fuck’ wood pigeons and resonant nightingales recorded in Berlin parks and forests, dreamy waves lilting onto the sand on the Baltic coast of Rügen Island for the unforgettable closing track ‘When Love Begins’ – and some extreme Chi-Town weather. “There was this ignition moment,” she says of ‘You thought you were free’, the carnival-coloured mid-point of the album. “There was a tornado warning, our phones were all going off: ‘go into the basement’.” The players collectively shrugged their shoulders – until siren sound waves began ghosting through the studio walls. “I turned one of the microphones up to catch the thunder and the rain under the skylight,” she says. “I was properly scared, not just because of the storm, but because I was nervous. I was trying to stay open and be conscious of the fact that I didn’t know what to expect – and that doing so means surrender. That knife edge of presence was really intense. We all just played through.” Playing through was possible, at least in part because of a 90-day practice Burch calls Dawn blessings, which also provided some of the ‘heard sounds’ that dance around the music generated during these collaborative recordings. The practice refers to a friend called Dawn, not daybreak, although at least one of the Dawn blessings that ended up on There is only love and fear was recorded when the sun came up. The Dawn blessings required Burch to make one piece of music daily, in answer to the question: ‘what sounds do I like today?’ “My intention was to cultivate this feeling of expansion and magic that I felt when I was invited to the US. The music is already there, and I have to let go and allow myself to be in it. The 90-day practice was to strengthen that muscle. You know if

Flowing water is an essential element of Earthly existence, a living force, a process of nature, a path-making which combines infinite sources mixing imperceptibly into a singular energy. It’s also a potent metaphor. A childlike wonder at flowing water’s presence and power, all the impressions it makes and creative neurons that it fires, happens to be a personality trait shared by Evan Shornstein (aka Photay) and Carlos Niño. The two producers/musical connectors may have grown up and reside a continent and daily realities apart — Photay in the forest serenity of New York’s Hudson Valley, Niño on Los Angeles’s ocean-adjacent west side — yet this magnetic power of fluidity, its sound, its meaning, what it can teach us about art and circulation, mesmerizes them both. Water is the spiritual center of their first album-length collaboration, the vast and deep An Offering — from the visual on the cover, to the first sound you hear on the opening “Prelude,” to the underlying themes and images espoused by the poet-philosopher Iasos on the closing “Existence.” More importantly, the image of water-like flow is a continuous reflection of how these two musicians have come to work together and apart, of the way they made An Offering, and how they’re continuing to create, without a beginning and (hopefully) with no end in sight. An infinite flow of sound, from and to every direction. Some of this work directly reflects the relationship between the two men, and of where/how Photay’s electronic, often-dancefloor-oriented tracks found Niño’s far-reaching world of ambient spirituality and improvised soundscaping. The meeting point is precise: Laraaji, the new age zither legend with whom Niño regularly collaborates, including at a June 2016 show in New York City which Niño played and Shornstein attended. The connection initiated immediately after that performance did not simply find the pair participating in each other’s recording projects — Photay remixing a Niño-produced Laraaji track and involved in Niño & Friends sessions; Carlos showing up on multiple songs of Photay’s 2020 album, Waking Hours, some of which was recorded at Niño’s studio—but in a broad exchange of ideas. Niño long ago established himself as one of Los Angeles’ great musical conduits, constructing environments that facilitate partnerships between far-flung artists, perpetuating the freedom of working in the present, outside expectations, trusting the work’s destination. When the younger Shornstein met Niño, his own creative process was ”almost too precious, and it was always my goal to break out of that.” Adapting Carlos’ pacing and free-flowing strategies — scenarios such as sharing recorded stems, bringing in old recordings to serendipitously fit new tracks, or mixing organic improvisations with stylized, post-produced rhythms — transformed Evan’s perspective. It made him rethink ideas like “finished,” shedding pressurized over-analysis for a process he calls “fluid” and “healthy.” It also made Shornstein reconsider some music they’d recorded but originally left off Waking Hours, “microscopic moments that were more expansive in my mind — there was so much honesty there.” What may not have made sense within the composed, hyper-stylized beauty of Hours, “felt really good” outside that context. Niño, who describes himself as “very album-oriented,” agreed, suggesting they create a unified body of work to match those moments — but not overthink it, make it quick, easy, productive, present. Which is how the re-imagining of pieces of music that became “Change” and “Exist,” sprung Photay and Carlos Niño into collaborating even more closely, and brought An Offering to the world. The sounds they gathered into an intentional, meditative whole, were made together and apart, and sourced from all over. The two producers made connections between new music and recordings they already had: Shornstein found hours of tape featuring solo playing by Upstate New York harpist Mikaela Davis, which became a central adornment on multiple tracks. Niño sent Shornstein a quartet improvisation he made with tenor saxophonist Aaron Shaw, keyboardist Diego Gaeta and synth-guitarist Nate Mercereau, which became the basis of “Honor.” They brought in trusted partners. The atmospheric blowing of LA-based tenor saxophonist Randal Fisher is a focal point throughout, at times processed by Photay’s machines. Photay’s trombone player Nathaneal Ranson, and Niño’s long-standing LA-based collaborator, vocalist Mia Doi Todd, float in-and-out of the mix. When Niño makes a record, another original “new age” legend, Iasos, is bound to be around, and his strong summation on “Existence” are the only words An Offering submits. The healing energy of Peterskill, a short rocky State Park waterway that ebbs through New York’s Ulster County (and across from Shornstein’s home — “a real environmental inspiration”), flows throughout. “Creating with no constructs,” is how Shornstein describes the process of bringing these elements together. “It was just a feeling, which maybe is what music or creating should always be.” Peterskill was also the source for a long extra track/outro when An Offering debuted as a Bandcamp-exclusive cassette in October 2021 — and quickly sold out. (A gorgeous Shornstein-directed film accompanied the release as well.) The notion of this music as “offering” came to life in its immediacy (the tape was released only a month and half after the idea for it was seeded) and in its gift-like nature (you can still get the digital version at a price of your own choosing). Scott McNiece of International Anthem found it, and instantly connected with its natural essence, a sound that accompanies one’s movements through difficult moments, the motion of instinctive change, a way to mark the radical period of our time with incremental alterations. Like flowing water affecting an ancient landscape. International Anthem offered to give An Offering a full vinyl release, which is why you are reading this one-sheet right now. And like any current, the interconnectedness between Photay and Carlos Niño, their symbiotic way of informing and influencing each other’s sounds, continues to naturally move forward and shapeshift. They are working on multiple projects together at the moment, and have already completed More Offerings. Flow on! - Piotr Orlov, August 2022

Mammal Hands fifth album ‘Gift from the Trees’ offers a fresh perspective on the unique trio’s singular music. The first to be recorded in a residential studio, the band enjoyed the opportunity to go late into the night searching for a deeper, more organic experience, closer to both their writing process but also their trance-like live performances. While some of the music was pre-composed and had even been performed live, the band also enjoyed the opportunity to improvise ideas in the studio. There was also a conscious decision to move away from the sound and ambiance of the recording studio, with the band opting to engineer the record with their go-to live engineer Benjamin Capp before mixing the sessions with Greg Freeman in Berlin. The idea was to try and capture more of the energy of the band’s captivating shows. The Welsh environment outside the studio doors seeped into the music presented on Gift from the Trees, with two recording sessions (one in winter and one in the spring) bringing different moods: one bleak and wintery, the other more hopeful and bright – an energy that permeates through tracks such as Kernel and Dimu.

Folk-minimalists announce vinyl issue for breakthrough album, Animalia. "The semi-classical drums/sax/piano trio Mammal Hands mutate into a high-volume rave act" The Guardian Captivating, ethereal and majestic, Mammal Hands (saxophonist Jordan Smart, pianist Nick Smart and drummer and percussionist Jesse Barrett) has carved out a refreshingly original sound from adisparatearray of influences: drawing on spiritual jazz, north Indian, folk and classical music to create something inimitably their own. Hailing from Norwich, one of Britain's most isolated and most easterly cities, they have forged their own path away from the musical mainstream and their unique sound grew out of long improvised rehearsals. All three members contribute equally to the writing process: one that favours the creation of a powerful group dynamic over individual solos. Their recordsare entrancing and beautiful affairs,while their hypnotic live shows have seen them hailed as one of the most exciting bands in Europe as they push their unique line-up to the outer limits of its possibilities. Over the course of three albums, Animalia, Floa and Shadow Work they have built a committed following and established themselves as one of the finest live bands in Europe. But while Floa and Shadow Work were both issued on vinyl this is the first time that Animalia has been committed to wax. Produced by Matthew Halsall and recorded at 80 Hertz Studio, in Manchester, and engineered by George Atkins, Animalia features the band breakthrough hits Mansions of Million Years, a slow building tune that takes it's name from Egyptian mythology and draws the listener into the band's distinctive sound world. And the gorgeous hooky Kandaiki which makes stunning use of looped melodies in different time signatures, creating a wonderful interplay between the parts. Other highlights include Snow Bough a short, melancholic, but moving, ambient composition, the Irish folk music inspired Spinning the Wheel, which also features drum beats inspired by chopped up electronic drum patterns and hip hop instrumentals. The jaunty Bustle and delightful Inuit Party and Street Sweeper. Finally the album closes with Tiny Crumb, which explores melodic ideas inspired by Alice Coltrane and Joe Henderson and builds in intensity from a quiet start to a powerful collective improvisation and heavily features Jesse's Tabla.

Svaneborg Kardyb's Tiny Desk (Home) concert was recorded in the countryside of Djursland, Denmark. "You have to drive for a while on a gravel road, and then you come to a lovely old house surrounded by hills and a stream on one side and a very flat landscape on the other, where you can see 10 miles away,". It's this place that inspired Svaneborg Kardyb's second album, Haven (or "garden" in English). "Haven celebrates places we like to be," the duo said. Svaneborg Kardyb is composed of Nikolaj Svaneborg on the Wurlitzer, synthesizer and piano, and Jonas Kardyb on drums and percussion. Their instrumentation set-up is untraditional, with the drums and keys facing each other, a position that they play in on stage just as they do in Kardyb's kitchen and living room on this session. They open up their set with the title track from Haven, which begins with a quiet melody over an effervescent loop. The sound mimics the shimmy of leaves in the breeze.

"...fierce Spanish folk melodies...took orchestral jazz in a new direction....features Davis' trumpet in all its drifting, dry, abstract beauty." Down Beat (p.61) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "With SKETCHES OF SPAIN, Davis' music continued its modal moves away from bebop's busy density, opting to highlight his strengths, which emphasized feeling and lyric expression over technique." Down Beat (1960) - 5 Stars - Excellent - "...One of the most important musical triumphs that this century has yet produced....If there is to be a new jazz, a SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, then this is the beginning..." Goldmine - 3.5 Stars - "...Brilliantly remixed..." Record Collector (magazine) (p.98) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "Almost panoramic in scope and fusing jazz with classical music, the album kicked off with an epic 16-minute version of Spanish composer Rodrigo's guitar concerto, transcribed for trumpet and orchestra."

180g weight vinyl. Hidefumi Toki's debut album features a hot soprano solo in "Lullaby for the Girl" and a melancholy alto solo in "Darkness," and he shows his presence in both performance and composition.

180g Heavy weight vinyl.Enjoy the soulful melodies of Isao Suzuki, Art Blakey's esteemed bassist, as he, along with his fellow musicians Kunihiko Kanno and George Otsuka, brings his distinctive musical vision to life on this captivating album.

180g Heavy weight vinyl. The third TBM release from Mari Nakamoto, a melancholy vocalist who sings softly with a sweet husky voice backed by the supreme duo of Isao Suzuki (b) and Katsumi Watanabe (g). (From series supervisor Koki Hanawa)

Duval Timothy's latest album Help, his most ambitious work to date, sees him collaborate with co-producer Rodaidh McDonald (King Krule, The XX) and Marta Salogni (Bjork), with collaborations from Lil Silva, Melanie Faye, Vegyn, Desta Haile, Mr Mitch, Dave Okumo, and Twin Shadow amongst others. Recorded in London and Los Angeles, it reveals the artists' experience traversing the meshes of the music industry, mental health, YouTube self-help videos, and the healing he discovered through friendship and collaboration. Duval Timothy is a multidisciplinary artist, whose practise is centred around colour and involves the use of music, photography, textiles, painting, sculpture, design, cooking and video. In between delivering a celebrated cookbook for Penguin Books, and an interactive installation at Tate Modern Turbine Hall, Duval makes music, which is sampled by the likes of Solange and Loyle Carner.

Tara Clerkin Trio of Bristol head back to the World of Echo imprint with On The Turning Ground, an EP totally bursting with ideas and creative energy. These three absolutely refuse to be pigeonholed - like what do you even call this music? Think of a melting pot of sounds and influences encompassing downtempo, 90s trip-hop, avant-pop, dream pop, jazz, dub, and chamber music into a magnificently cohesive, fresh sound. These guys shine bright.

Keplar presents the first-ever vinyl edition of the 2003 album »From Tokyo to Naiagara« by Tujiko Noriko. This reissue with new artwork by Joji Koyama is an abridged version of the album as Tomlab label owner Tom Steinle and producer Aki Onda had originally intended to publish it alongside the original CD version. Written by the France-based Tujiko while she still lived in Japan, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« followed up on her two seminal Mego albums and marked a turning point in both the artist’s career and personal life: While she was preparing to leave Japan behind, she succinctly connected the dots between her experiments in pop music and her interest for more abstract sounds. Tujiko worked primarily with a Yamaha synthesizer and an MPC sampler while also incorporating contributions by other musicians such as Onda, Riow Arai and Sakana Hosomi into the pieces. Sometimes approaching an IDM and clicks’n’cuts-style production or working with trip-hop and hip-hop beats while using conventional song structures in the most unconventional of ways, the album showcases her multifaceted influences and skills as a singer and musician to full effect. Tujiko fondly remembers the time when she made the album. »I had a lot of time for myself back then and I didn’t even feel like I was very busy,« she says today. She describes producing it in close collaboration with Onda, who would relocate to New York City shortly after, as »quite Tokyo and very local.« They explored parts of the city that they hadn’t yet been to for a photography project (finding, among other things, a coin laundry called Naiagara—a transliteration of Niagara). This left its mark on a record that mixes melancholia with joy. The driving opener »Narita Made,« named after one of Tokyo’s airports, already makes this clear: Tujiko’s wistful vocals and lyrics like »I miss you terribly« emphasises the sense of bittersweetness that forms the common thread for a sonically diverse and stylistically open-ended album—this music is looking back while moving forward. It is probably no surprise that its reissue too evokes tender memories of Onda and Steinle in Tujiko, while also reminding her of what lies ahead. »I have so much more to do and not enough time for that,« she muses, before quickly adding: »But I also feel less alone having that album again.« Influenced in equal parts by the experience of strolling through previously unknown Tokyoite back alleys and thinking about the paths not (yet) taken, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« is precisely that: the perfect travel companion for a journey that leads its listeners from past to future.

Memotone from Bristol released eclectic ambient folk jazz record.

Sdban Records is delighted to announce the reissue of this genre-defying jazz album originally released on library label Selection Records in 1972. Delving into the story of the American pianist and composer Phil Raphaël reveals more questions than answers. He was born in New York where he played with Charlie Parker, Jon Eardley and Howard McGhee, but a 1951 recording with Red Rodney for Prestige Records is the single remaining trace of his bebop days. Raphaël appeared under unknown circumstances in Belgium in the 1960s, playing among others at the 1966 Jazz Bilzen festival, and he eventually settled in Brussels. A multifaceted musician, he did not limit himself to jazz and also worked in pop groups, directed the music for the spectacle Hair, and even had a brief residency at Pol’s Jazz Club where he played the music of Johann Sebastian Bach four nights per week. His album ‘Stop, Look, Listen’, which was recorded with the rhythm section of Babs Robert’s group, consists of four long genre-defying tracks colored by the dreamlike vocals of opera singer Rose Thompson. A surreal blend of genres, hard to pin down. It’s highly imaginative jazz, that much is sure. Raphaël shifts from serene late night piano jazz to more free or even spiritual passages, magnificently paired with the otherworldly vocals of Rose Thompson. The LP was put out by Selection Records, a label that primarily issued library music at the time, and thus went largely unnoticed upon release. The recording makes clear that Phil Raphaël was a highly gifted artist whose talent will forever remain undervalued, since it was his only effort as a leader. Raphaël’s passage through the Belgian nightlife was just as mysterious as his music, and few people seem to remember him. Drummer Bruno Castellucci describes him as remarkable, both as a musician and as a person: “He was a hippie before there were hippies. He wasn’t part of the system but he had a system of his own.”

The Mankunku Quartet's 1968 album 'Yakhal' Inkomo’ clocks in at just over 30 minutes of jazz perfection. This compact, and to-the-point, album would sit comfortably in amongst some of the best works in the catalogues of any of the quintessential jazz labels such as Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse. 'Yakhal' Inkomo’, however, was originally released on the South African record label World Record Co., which resulted in it becoming an elusive and sought-after piece for jazz collectors. First press copies sometimes fetch as much as £1,000 on the collectors' market. It has been long regarded as one of the finest South African jazz albums and DJ / broadcaster Gilles Peterson cemented this when he included it in his "best of genre" focussed radio show, 'The 20 - South African Jazz'. Tenor saxophonist Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi recorded the session on 23rd July 1968 at the Manley van Niekerk Studios, in Johannesburg. It was recorded by Dave Challen and produced by Ray Nkwe. The session is built up of two original works by Mankunku on the A-side, 'Yakhal' Inkomo' & 'Dedication (To Daddy Trane and Brother Shorter)', and on the B-side, the Horace Silver composition 'Doodlin', and a John Coltrane number 'Bessie's Blues'. What is striking is how the Mankunku-penned compositions not only hold their own next to Silver and Coltrane but they are, arguably, the better tracks on the record - a testament to the beautiful writing and playing of Mankunku. 'Yakhal' Inkomo' features the great musicians; Agrippa Magwaza on bass, drummer Early Mabuza, and pianist Lionel Pillay. Pillay was of Indian descent, making this a mixed-race group, thus the very recording of the album was an act of resistance as it broke the apartheid restrictions of the time. The title of 'Yakhal’ Inkomo' means “the bellow of the bull”, the Black audience would have understood this as coded community symbolism and an act of protest but it escaped the attention of the white government. For this edition, we have enlisted the services of Abbey Road Studios mastering, and lacquer-cutting engineer Miles Showell to cut a special half-speed master from the audio taken off the original master tapes. Miles has previously worked on our Arthur Verocai, Marcos Valle and Ian Carr re-issues, and once again we are blown away by the richness and clarity of Miles' work. We have also presented it as a replica copy using the cover artwork and labels from the primary World Record Co. original version. On the sleeve notes, Ray Nkwe the producer and the President of the Jazz Appreciation Society of South Africa writes "This is the LP that every jazz fan has been waiting for" and Ray was not wrong, it's a stone-cold timeless jazz classic.

In 1975, the New York City alto saxophonist Alan Braufman released his debut album, Valley of Search on the India Navigation label. Recorded at the now legendary 501 Canal St. loft, the album was heralded by Village Voice jazz critic Gray Giddins, who wrote, "These are the musicians who are taking the chances today and their gifts and commitment ought to be attended." Braufman went on to record and tour with everyone from Carla Bley to The Psychedelic Furs, and didn't release another album under his name until 2020's The Fire Still Burns. Fire featured Braufman's longtime collaborator, Cooper-Moore, and a then up-and-coming James Brandon Lewis, and received rave reviews from The WIRE, Downbeat, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NPR, and many others. Infinite Love Infinite Tears emerged from Braufman’s near-constant mental soundtrack shortly before convening with his band. Rarely does he sit down at the piano or assemble his horn to compose, instead singing tunes to himself and whatever sticks after a few days ends up in his composition book. The result is a surprisingly catchy program of free jazz. The sounds you hear across his discography are richly detailed and forthright, embodying a range of emotions and circumstances that convey individuality, collectivity and hope. There is much history and love in this band, and in Alan Braufman’s art overall. Fifty-odd years after debuting on record, his sound-world is as vital and inviting as ever.

Consider this your invitation to Café Molly, a lounge bar like they don’t make them anymore. The lights are low, the martinis are ice cold, the banquettes are velvet, and the stage is set for the electrifying talent of whistler Molly Lewis. Molly’s soft-focus cocktail music conjures up visions of classic Hollywood jazz clubs, Italian cinema soundtracks and lingering embraces between lovers. After the exotica stylings of The Forgotten Edge EP and the tropicalia-indebted Mirage EP, Molly wanted to encapsulate the sound of Café Molly for her debut album On The Lips, a dreamy tribute to classic mood music. That spellbinding sound, which usually comes to life in Los Angeles, has also popped up in Mexico City dancehalls, graced the runways of Paris and London Fashion Weeks, and made a magical appearance at a children's fairyland. Molly Lewis’s love for this smoky corner of the world doesn’t end with her songwriting. She is a devotee and an archivist, capturing and enlivening the pieces that endure. She was a regular at the legendary shows by Marty and Elayne, the lounge duo who spent almost 40 years playing LA’s Dresden bar. The duo came to global fame after an appearance in 1996’s Swingers and kept going long after that spotlight faded, finally finishing their nightly residency after the death of Marty at the ripe age of 89 last year. “That felt like the end of an era,” says Molly. But there are still flashes of that world to be found, and she finds them. “I’ve been spending a lot of time in New York lately, where there are a lot more of those moody, classic jazz bars,” she explains. Molly celebrates the poet Kenneth ‘Sonny’ Donato, a former drinking buddy of Charles Bukowski, on the album’s swooning ‘Sonny’. “He’s a total LA character with a great voice and great style, as well as a champion of me and my music,” says Molly, who met Sonny when he was tending bar at Hollywood’s iconic Musso and Frank. “He would MC my Café Molly shows and introduce the night with a poem about LA. Everyone loves him.” Over the past few years Molly has flexed her one-of-a-kind musical skill alongside Mark Ronson on the Barbie soundtrack, as well as with Dr Dre, Karen O, actor John C Reilly, Mac De Marco, fashion houses Chanel, Gucci and Hermes, and folk rock royalty Jackson Browne. After a performance with longtime friend Weyes Blood on Burt Bacharach’s The Look of Love during a Café Molly evening at LA’s Zebulon, Molly supported the singer on a US tour, introducing her sound to a brand new audience. “I forget sometimes that what I do has that factor of surprise and uniqueness – it is something that most people have never seen before,” says Molly. She too might never have entered the idiosyncratic world of whistling had she not as a teenager seen the 2005 documentary Pucker Up, which details the International Whistling Competition. Equally amused and bemused by the eccentric event, in 2012 she competed herself. Spending her early twenties in Berlin she then moved to LA to work in film – and returned to the contest in 2015 to take home first prize. One evening Molly did a turn at an open mic at the Kibitz Room, a tiny late-night bar inside historic LA deli Canter’s. Her display led to appearances at performance art happenings across the city, and she soon caught the ear of independent record label Jagjaguwar. On The Lips was recorded with producer Thomas Brenneck of the Menahan Street Band, Budos Band, Dap-Kings and El Michels Affair, at his newly-built Diamond West Studios in Pasadena. The pair bonded over the work of 1960s soundtrack composers Alessandro Alessandroni and Piero Piccioni, and, with something of an open door policy during the sessions, a stream of acclaimed musicians ended up across the album’s 10 tracks. “We were all sitting around having beers and amazing people would just come by,” says Molly, who fitted out the studio with a vintage tiki bar she picked up at a local flea market. “It was a wonderful place to be social, sometimes almost too social!” Step forward Nick Hakim, who would lend bossa nova piano to ‘Cocosette’, which also features the smooth sounds of Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian guitarist Rogê. Elsewhere Leland Whitty of Canadian instrumental group Badbadnotgood lends a searing saxophone line to the jazzy ‘Lounge Lizard’, while Sal Samano and Alex Garcia of Chicano soul group Thee Sacred Souls appear on the melancholy ‘Crushed Velvet’. Badbadnotgood’s Chester Hansen also plays bass across the album, while Beck collaborator Roger Joseph Manning Jr. lends organ to the lush ‘Moon Tan’, which pays homage to film score composer Piero Umiliani. Experimental jazz pianist Marco Benevento and El Michels Affair’s Leon Michels both crop up on the perky ‘Silhouette’. There are a couple of covers, too, just like you’ll hear at a Café Molly night. This time it’s Dave Berry’s 1960s pop standard ‘The Crying Game’ and Jeanette’s ‘Porqué Te Vas’, which Molly fell in love with after hearing it on the soundtrack of Carlos Saura’s acclaimed 1976 drama Cría Cuervos. “The original is such a great song – I always wanted to do a few covers and I don't really gravitate towards more upbeat music in my own songwriting, so it was fun to try and think of a more upbeat track to include, to try to kind of change up the movement of the record.” With her intoxicating compositions, and wry brand of stagecraft (she might not be singing up there, but she can sure tell a joke) Molly Lewis looks set to join her heroes in the storied lore of the Los Angeles lounge scene and beyond. So pull up a chair, order your favorite drink, and prepare to fall for On The Lips.

This second album was recorded about a year after "Scenery. The delicate yet emotionally rich playing is still there, but this time it is more powerful, and the world that Fukui has depicted comes to life with clearer contours and a greater sense of depth. The sweet and sad melody of "Mellow Dream" and the dynamic and fast-paced "Horizon" are among the dazzling performances. In addition, the album features three original songs, compared to only one on the previous album, which allows the listener to enjoy Fukui's musicality even more. Considering its maturity and rich content, it is safe to say that this is a masterpiece that surpasses the first album. Ryo Fukui regrettably passed away in 2016. His delicate touch, rich tone, and beautiful compositions. We are deeply grateful for the "pleasant dream" he showed us.

One of the rarest recordings in Sun Ra's enormous catalog. Recorded in 1982, featuring the groove-infested x-rated warning hit 'Nuclear War.' The remaining tracks include four originals and three standards, Ellington's 'Drop Me Off In Harlem,' 'Sometimes I'm Happy,' and 'Smile.' A cult album finally repressed on virgin audiophile vinyl.

Meaning ‘Hi’ in Uruguayan slang, Opa are a South American jazz-funk phenomenon. Fusing Uruguay’s native Candombe rhythms with North American jazz and pop music, Opa’s space-age synthesizers, boisterous grooves and compositional magic expressed a distinctive Afro-Uruguayan voice within the global jazz vernacular: a voice which remains as vital and unique today as when it was recorded, almost half a century ago. Having migrated to New York from Montevideo in the early seventies, Opa were heard playing in a nightclub by renowned producer and label owner Larry Rosen. At Holly Place Studios between July and August 1975, Rosen oversaw Opa’s first recordings using a four track TEAC 3340. The album would become home to some of Opa’s hardest hitting funk jams, with moments of songwriting wonderment and soulful pop and rock progressions combining with the jazz-funk fusion Opa would become known for. Mysteriously (for reasons unknown to the band), Opa’s debut was shelved and remained so until the mid-1990s. But the Back Home recordings were used as demos, gaining Opa a record deal with Milestone Records and the subsequent release of two cult-favourite albums: Goldenwings (1976) and Magic Time (1977). Opa would also collaborate with North American titans including bassist Ron Carter, producer Creed Taylor and Brazilian icons Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Hermeto Pascoal and Milton Nascimento. In more recent years Opa’s music has found new audiences after being sampled by Captain Murphy (aka Flying Lotus) and Madlib. For fans of Azymuth, Weather Report, Cortex and The Headhunters.