MUSIC

As the empowerment of the '60s gave way to the societal bankruptcy of the '70s, a turned-on Black music emerged to soundtrack the agony of America at a crossroads. Tracked at DB Sound in Silver Spring, Maryland by producer R. Jose Williams, Your Funny Moods is built around the rhythms and keys of drumming wiz James Purdie. Remastered here from the original analog tapes, this 50th anniversary edition is peak group harmony soul from the Chocolate City.

In the late '70s, three do-right women from Cleveland forged a brief partnership with Ohio's everything man, Lou Ragland. Unlike the prefabricated singing combos of the day, Lily Pearson, Annette Warren, and Avetta Henry swapped lead duties as situation demanded. When a Ragland-centric publicity stunt preempted a concert appearance, Love Apple disintegrated, abandoning this rehearsal tape within the lo-fi confines of Thomas Boddie's cherished Eastside studio. Devoid of bass, the sparse instrumentation (only Lou on guitar and piano and Hot Chocolate's Tony Roberson on drums) accentuates each vocalist's aptitude, showcasing some of Ragland's finest songwriting in the process. During any given take, Ragland can be heard calling audibles, directing his singers to repeat a passage, or lending his own sweet tenor to the vocal mix. Never intended for release, Love Apple's six-song sketch is the perfect companion to I Travel Alone, bringing Ragland's unique musical vision into sharper focus.

Brother Theotis Taylor is a 92-year-old spiritual singer and piano player known throughout South Georgia and beyond for his powerful voice and heavenly falsetto. His music took him from his home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, to the stage with Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, to Harlem’s Apollo, and even to Carnegie Hall.

Though his releases are limited to six stunning and rare singles on the Pitch label and a single small-press LP, his recorded archive is vast. For much of his life, Brother Taylor kept a reel-to-reel recorder atop his piano at home.

“The music just comes down on you,” Brother Taylor told us late last year. “You always have your machine where you can catch everything. ‘Cause what you can catch today you can’t remember tomorrow.”

Brother Taylor recorded himself on his DIY home setup only when he was inspired by a higher power, often fasting and praying for days before recording. These intimate home recordings were digitized in 2020 and are being heard for the first time with this release.

Revisiting these old songs brought Brother Taylor to tears. “[When I hear this music] I pick up the same spirit that I did it in. And you see me cryin’. It made me feel good ‘cause I know I did it and I did it well. And I want to see it get out, because if it made me feel good, it make somebody else feel good. Right? This is spiritual music.”

Thee Marloes, by way of Surabaya, Indonesia are Natassya Sianturi on vocals, Sinatrya Dharaka on guitar, and Tommy Satwick on drums. Their unique sound mixes elements of their local culture and music with influences of Soul, Jazz, and Pop.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Forever & Ever, the debut album from Thee Heart Tones.Hailing from Hawthorne, California, Thee Heart Tones are both carrying on a tradition and pushing the boundaries with their music. Lead singer Jazmine Alvarado is just 19 years old and the oldest member of the group, Jorge Rodriguez is 21, but one listen to their record and it becomes blatantly apparent they are a talent well beyond their years.Thee Heart Tones are Jazmine on vocals, Ricky Cerezo on keys and organ, Jorge on drums, Jeffrey Romero on bass, Peter Chagolla on lead guitar, and Walter Morales on rhythm guitar. As the story goes, "one day I got a DM from Ricky Cerezo asking if I wanted to write a song for his new (then unnamed) band," Jazmine says. "I knew his drummer and the other boys from middle school, so they were familiar faces. They sent me an mp3 of an instrumental they'd written and told me they wanted lyrics, so I wrote some and sent it to them." That song ended up being "Don't Take Me as a Fool," a downbeat, minor key ballad on which Jazmine's sultry, pitch-perfect vocals soar, and which is now destined for their debut album. Ricky went home to play "Don't Take Me As a Fool", recorded as a voice note on his phone, to his dad. "I was hesitant. Dad knew this music better than anyone; he grew up with it. But he grabbed my phone and held it to his ear. His approval meant a lot to me. But he had the same reaction Jorge and I did when we first heard Jazmine sing. 'This is going to be a hit,' he told me. 'You guys have something really special here'." It was that same recording that caught the ears of Leon Michels and Danny Akalepse of Big Crown Records, who both heard the potential in the group immediately. After they signed to the label, Leon flew out to Los Angeles to record their debut album with Tommy Brenneck at Tommy's Diamond West studio. They knocked out 14 songs in five days, capturing the charm of teenage soul and mixing it with their seasoned production prowess and the result is a modern classic Soul album.Album opener and title track "Forever & Ever" is an infectious two-stepper that instantly lifts your mood while heavy duty B side ballads like "Should I Call You Tonight", "Cry My Tears Away", and "It's Time" hold court with the genre's classics. They pick up the pace and fill the dancefloor with "Need Something More" as Jazmine matter of factly sets the record straight on a Northern Soul styled track. They cover the Álvaro Carrillo penned classic "Sabor A Mi" to great effect, doing it justice and putting their version right up there with the best of them. Another standout is their version of The Vanguards classic "Somebody Please" which they change the tone of and take to a different level. The punching drums of "No Longer Mine" juxtapose Jazmine's honeyed vocals and wind up with the gritty energy of a mid 90s hip hop sample.Forever & Ever is both a testament to their unmistakable musical chemistry and talent. Their intentions as a band are testament to their collective character. Choosing to cover "Sabor A Mi" "allows us to let our audience know we go back to our roots," Jazmine says. "Growing up in LA, you get influenced by the city, the artwork, the music," Ricky says. "Dad didn't own a lowrider car, but other members of our family did. Impalas. El Caminos. We were influenced by the culture, particularly the Chicano culture. And oldies and soul music played a big part." The style. The culture. The nod to the past. "That's what we're going for. We want to connect young Chicanos with their heritage. And we want to unite people — old and young."

The Marloes follow up the massive success of their debut album Perak by pressing two of the stand out tunes from the record on a 7”. The A side “Not Today” is right up there with the grooviest feel good songs you could ever play on a Sunday morning. Lead singer Natassya Sianturi reminds us to make space for ourselves no matter what life throws our way. From the message, to the music, to Natassya’s gorgeous voice; this is a cool out, kick back, and enjoy anthem. The B side “Over” starts out with a heavy drum break and evolves into an epic arrangement drenched in layers of gorgeous melodies that perfectly capture the havoc of a love affair that ends abruptly. Natassya’s vocals soar over Raka’s intricate production seamlessly as she tells a tale in three parts; attraction, intimacy, and decline that crescendos to an epic ending.

Lady Wray makes her highly anticipated return with Cover Girl, her third album on Big Crown Records. The album opener “My Best Step” says it all, “my next step is my best step”, and indeed she is taking her artistry to a new high and making the best music of her life. The celebratory Cover Girl takes listeners on a free-spirited joyride glittered with ‘60s and '70s-inspired soul and disco, ‘90s hip-hop and R&B, and perhaps the most defining element, gospel. Following the healing journey that was 2022’s Piece of Me, Nicole has performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and toured the world. After this period of growth, Lady Wray is now ready to let her hair down and embrace all of what life has to offer. Reunited with producer Leon Michels (Norah Jones / Clairo / El Michels Affair) for the record, the outcome is effortless and undeniable, a reflection of their longtime collaboration that extends over a decade.

“I've gravitated more towards love and self-care with this album. Piece of Me was realizing that I was going to be a mother, and all those feelings were on my heart,” Lady Wray says. “Now I'm able to sit back and be a real boss. I got my career, my motherhood, and my marriage by the horns. I've grown into this more self-aware and beautiful flower for Cover Girl.” With an almighty voice, soul-stirring lyrics, and a magnetic personality, the singer-songwriter reflects her appreciation for her family, her faith, and her renewed love for herself—all of which drive her new record.

Lead single “You’re Gonna Win” is a report to the dance floor, feel good banger. Cole lets loose while naming and claiming her power “I do not care who came before me, after me there will be none” as she likens her company to winning the lottery. The Fabulous Rainbow Singers choir joins on the chorus taking the whole affair to church and putting it next to the finest gospel-disco records ever pressed. “Be a Witness” is a funky, mid-tempo powerhouse that would make Prince proud. Nicole finds the perfect groove over punchy drum machines and infectious synthesizers, singing about a love destined to happen, and spreading the good vibes to everyone in earshot. Cover Girl’s title track is one of the album’s most vulnerable moments. Lady Wray delivers a show-stopping performance over the stripped down track as she details her journey to finding herself again: “I lost myself trying to please someone else / I want to be me again.” The title stems from a childhood nickname she earned for her consistently manicured style. Lady Wray explains. “As I grew up and got into the music business, I lost that happy part of me. I see that happiness in my daughter, who’s just beautiful, talented, and smart. ‘Cover Girl’ is me going back to that little girl. It’s about getting back to loving yourself and healing.” Similarly on “Where Could I Be,” she reclaims the happiness and sense of identity that she lost focus of through life’s struggles. Nicole gushes about her love and respect for her marriage on “Best For Us” & “Hard Times”, both acknowledging the imperfection and referencing the strength and resilience of true love. She sings to her daughter on “Higher,” teaching her how to love and be loved, encouraging her to be confident and persistent.

Lady Wray was born to sing, sharing her soul and her life with us through her music. She has amassed a diehard worldwide fanbase with her relatable messages and incomparable voice. Whether singing of her struggles or strengths, there’s a comfort that comes from the way she makes us know we are not alone in any of it. Nicole Wray is inspiring and uplifting. Having been through a lot, she’s taken all of it and made herself a better person and a better artist.

“You need to rule your own world. Don't let anybody get in your way. You rock with your dreams until the wheels fall off,” Lady Wray says. “That's what I've been doing with my career since 1998. I know who I am and what I bring to the table. It's been a heck of a journey, and I feel so happy to be making the best music of my life.”

new avatar is where everything Kelela has been building toward comes into focus. She started writing her first songs in the D.C. indie scene before the club music and electronic production that defined her early career took over. With new avatar, she closes the loop: R&B run through distorted guitar living alongside new intersections in dance music, culminating in a sound that pulls from everywhere she has ever lived musically.

AFTER DARK is the latest project from French producer Onra, conceived as the soundtrack to an imagined late-night film. Entirely self-produced, the album continues the sophisticated R&B and Modern Soul direction explored since his 2010 classic Long Distance and 2018's accomplished Nobody Has To Know, focusing on late 80's / early 90's inspirations. Structured like a film unfolding between dusk and dawn, After Dark moves through themes of intimacy, urban solitude, distance, and quiet indulgence. Analog synthesizers, tight drum programming, understated basslines, and selective live saxophone textures shape a cohesive body of work that favors mood and narrative over excess. The sequencing reinforces its cinematic intent, opening and closing with intro and outro pieces that frame the record as a cohesive night-time narrative album. Over 20 years since emerging in the mid-2000s from the beat scene, Onra has steadily evolved from sample-based Hip-Hop production toward polished, song-oriented projects rooted in contemporary R&B and Funk. With After Dark, he delivers one of his most focused and refined statements to date: a mature, immersive album built for late hours, and attentive listening. The first taster of the album to drop is the slick nostalgic ’Lap of Luxury’, sets the tone for the project, a blend between Instrumental Hip-Hop, late 80s R&B and 90''s Smooth Jazz.

Even after years of living in the same area, there can be mind-bending moments of revelation about its layout. An attempt to avoid traffic, or a time-killing meander on a weekend morning gives way to a mix of novelty and confusion as a new pocket of the district materializes like a dream about hidden rooms in a childhood home. Suddenly a recognizable cross street appears, and for a few seconds it’s hard to reconcile with all the new ground that was just covered. Just around the corner the old landmarks take shape, and logic returns. Despite spending the last several minutes in a seemingly unfamiliar place, perhaps you barely left your own neighborhood, if at all.
This kind of pathfinding lies behind the name Way Through, a collaborative album between Toronto musicians Chris Cummings, Joseph Shabason, and Thom Gill under the moniker Cici Arthur. Seeking to create large-scale setpieces to showcase Cummings’ vocals and writing, producer-instrumentalists Shabason and Gill have parked their brand of smartly subverted adult contemporary aesthetics near the mid-century slink of Antonio Carlos Jobim, or the romantic opulence of Frank Sinatra. Way Through takes the communal spirit of Shabason’s previous ventures to panoramic heights, featuring everyone from drummer Phil Melanson (Sam Gendel, Sam Amidon, Andy Shauff) and frequent collaborator Nicholas Krgovich, to famed arranger and violinist Owen Pallet who helms an honest-to-God thirty-piece orchestra for the affair. Perhaps most importantly, vocalist Dorothea Pass winds glassy harmonies through all the moving parts, emulsifying the core trio’s take on a heyday Capitol Records session. The result is akin to so much music in Joseph Shabason’s orbit in that it spins around a centerpoint of humanness and vulnerability, placing even its most colossal elements comfortingly within arm’s reach.
The seeds of the album were sowed in 2020 when Chris Cummings lost his job of twenty years amid the COVID shockwaves. In his early fifties with his Plan A having lapsed, Chris found himself diving into full-time music creation for the first time in his life. The leap of faith inspired his collaborators, galvanizing them to thoughtfully tailor arrangements just for him. “I wanted to make a really big sounding record for Chris, to really figure out a way to call in favors and make this album as grand as I possibly could,” Shabason recalls of Way Through’s Creed Taylor ethos. “I really wanted Chris to sing to fully mixed songs so that it was in the spirit of playing with a full band with all the energy of hearing an orchestra swell behind him with horns blaring,” he continues, “and I think this is the grandest approach to making a record that I have ever embarked on.”
The resulting outsize backdrop sits in poetic contrast to Cummings’ comparatively discreet delivery and intimate lyricism. Steering the Shabason-Gill cruise liner with delicate intonation and quiet introspection, Cummings paints a picture of city lights gleaming in rain puddles, mapping subtle emotional territories within the urban gloom while resigning in a kind of joyous ennui. “If I could be all that once looked so great and grand, I would have died for an occasion to rise to,” he sings through the horn section of ‘Cartwheels for Coins’, “but it’s a gray sky, nothing to say, mixed emotions always get in the way”. Lines like these epitomize Way Through; when the bandstand empties out and the singer finds himself alone on a darkened soundstage, the emotional complexities of life still lie waiting to be confronted. Cummings lends a literary counterweight to Shabason and Gill’s sonic splendor, and in doing so spotlights the inherent tension between pragmatism and ambition. As a film major who was raised by community theater actors before taking up music as his main creative outlet, it’s evident that Cummings has grappled with this polarity in his own life (not to mention the perfect sense this makes out of Way Through’s filmic overtones).
Punctuating the cinematic heft, the decidedly uptempo midpoint ‘Damaged Goods’ bounces and strolls around Dorothea Pass’s doo-wop harmonies giving affirmation to anyone coming out of a troubled relationship, while the successive piece ‘Prior Times’ addresses those very relationships head-on. “Honestly, I was-- and am still-- very affected by romantic relationships I had before I met my wife,” Chris admits, explaining that the track “tells about a time when I was caught in an unhappy situation, looking back on happier times, and being hit with the painful realization that time doesn't go backwards.” With its understated Samba lilt, the song lands Cici Arthur closest to their aforementioned Jobim/Gilberto target and serves as the stylistic centerpiece. The pensive and movielike ‘No Fight Or Flight (So Much Tenderness)’ brings the album to its finale over one of Owen Pallet’s verdant string arrangements, marking one of the fullest realizations of Joseph Shabason and Thom Gill’s production aspirations-- and likely reaching far beyond what Cummings ever imagined when his life completely changed a few long years ago.
Back in 2020, newly careerless and grasping at an uncertain future in a world of uncertain futures, Chris found himself taking exploratory bike trips through nearby suburban areas he’d never been to before. His attempts to avoid the bustle of major roads would lead either to dead ends or completely new ways of seeing the geography of a city he’d lived in for decades, mirroring the joy and heartbreak of life’s circuitous path. “What good are dead ends when I’m looking through a way through,” he repeats on the album’s title track over the crest of a weary and sweet brass section. “When the miracle you’d hoped for never comes it’s hard to take, but it’s your fault for hoping.” For all of Way Through’s orchestral technicolor wonder, Cummings delivers refreshingly honest doses of realism about how dreams unfold across a lifetime.<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/86pMq1IpjAc?si=4ewpJcmKv3MgzHNL" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Real people music recorded at a Quaker Boarding school in the mid-'70s. Mixing soft psych, vocal jazz, and sunshine soul, Shira Small and her high school music teacher Lars Clutterham created a peerless artifact of outsider magic. Imagination, wonder, the existential dread of Vietnam and math class and getting caught smoking weed in Nixon's America… it's all here. Is your life alright?

While no bust of Ned Doheny appears alongside those of his Laurel Canyon brethren in the pantheon of classic rock, it’s not for lack of songwriting abilities or recording chops. After Doheny and his buddy Jackson Browne were expelled from Elektra’s failed recording ranch, he and his Nudie-decked Canyon cohorts would go on to form the bedrock of Geffen’s Asylum label. But while his peers were looking east to Bakersfield for inspiration, Ned was applying skills foraged under the tutelage of classical guitar god Frederick Noad and west coast post-bop jazzer Charles Lloyd. Rolling Stone called his self-titled 1973 debut, "a sort of Southern California Astral Weeks," but that complimentary comparison brought few copies of the album to Tower on Sunset's cashiers and Doheny was dropped unceremoniously. Two of Ned's most enduring compositions were written during his free agency. The tongue-in-cheek "Get It Up For Love" began as a rollicking folk number, only to be stretched out by the likes of David Cassidy, the Fabulous Rhinestones, Johnny Rivers, Tata Vega, and Ned himself on his sophomore album Hard Candy. Also appearing on the Steve Cropper-produced album was "A Love Of Your Own," co-written with Average White Band's Hamish Stuart, and covered over the coming years by the Ebonys, Melissa Manchester, Millie Jackson, and AWB. Despite featuring a who's who of California heavyweights, including David Foster, JD Souther, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Linda Ronstadt, HB Barnum, and the entire horn section for Tower of Power, the 1976 album was no match for Columbia's real blue eyed priority Boz Scaggs, whose "Lowdown" battleship blew Ned's cutter out of the water. His last taste of American chart success would come in 1981 via “What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me,” another cowrite with Stuart that Chaka Khan took to the top of the charts. Over the last three decades, Doheny’s albums have slid in and out of print on LP and CD, budget jobs without any involvement from the self-described “avatar for casual vulgarity.” Separate Oceans examines Ned Doheny’s first ten years adrift in song, pulling together choice album cuts and 11 previously unissued demos. An 8000 word essay is illustrated by images from the archives of noted rock photographers Henry Diltz, Moshe Brahka, Clive Arrowsmith, and Gary Heery, creating the first ever overview of this unheralded marina rocker.

From the academy of deep soul and no ego, Reverend Baron delivers visions of liquor store East LA, the off-the-freeway dry mirage of slow motion graffiti and lonely seagulls. A nylon stringed zen fog with themes of woozy love, layered dimensions of nostalgia and glazed neighborhood tales that roll in with a natural ease. After notching a permanent status in the skateboarding orbit as Danny Garcia, he transferred his effortless style, dedication and authenticity into music. Practicing a philosophy of demystifying the process and doing it yourself, he has become a proficient multi-instrumentalist, engineer, and producer of his own and other artist's music. All streams of curiosity converge into the river. An enigma, Reverend Baron emerges from the proverbial gray overpass with no sense of urgency. He takes a sharp gaze at his surroundings and processes them through a factory of depth and gentle swag to yield a sound that sits as easy as fallen molasses on the bodega shelf. The songs are an unassuming invitation to either walk through the doorway or lean on the wall outside, either way something beautiful and rare.

Australia’s world-renowned cinematic soul outfit Surprise Chef return with new album Superb. A record that represents a change in their creative approach and turns up the heat in their music. Trading in their meticulous writing and recording techniques for a looser and less planned approach with the intentions of bringing more levity to the process, and it comes through in spades. The high caliber musicianship is still front and center, but they push their sound into a more energetic and fun place on this album.

Album opener “Sleep Dreams” is the closest thing to a Surprise Chef tune one would come to expect, but then lead single “Bully Ball” comes on and you get the picture that they came to kick in the door on this one. The song’s gritty drums thunder through the speakers and get covered with percussion, keys, bass, and guitar chanks that stay in the pocket and bring the funk with them. The band pushes the boundaries of arrangement with tunes like “Body Slam” that starts off like a sweet soul track then pulls a 180, turning dark and haunting, centering on a sound they created by tucking a timpani into a bathroom two doors down from the mixing board. That same sense of experimentation comes up again on “Fare Evader” where they pepper another neck breaking rhythm track with synth notes that sound like robot sound effects from a 70s sci-fi film. The fellas turn up the tempo for the dance with tunes like “Consulate Case” and “Tag Dag”; the former pulling influence from afro-funk and the latter from jazz-funk. They take us deep into the beautiful world of Surprise Chef ballads on “Websites” and double down on their abilities to make beautiful and ethereal tracks with “Dreamer’s Disease”.

With their new album Superb, their new approach, and plans to tour the world, we are about to see Surprise Chef take the step from the underground’s most beloved to a household name and we are definitely here for it. 

Big Crown Records is proud to present Dave Guy’s debut album Ruby. Having lent his talents both on stage and in the studio to artists like Amy Winehouse, Lizzo, Pharrell, and Sharon Jones to currently playing every night on The Tonight Show as a member of The Roots, Dave steps out on his own with a jazz record that is both unique and modern. Ruby mixes his musical influences with the energies of the city that raised him, capturing different moods and inviting the listener into the world as Dave Guy sees and feels it. Recorded in Queens at The Legendary Diamond Mine, the album is produced by Homer Steinweiss and Nick Movshon and features musical contributions from Leon Michels, Marco Benevento, Claire Cottrill, and more. Ruby instantly sits with the classics as an album that is fully realized and not simply a collection of songs. Lead single “7th Heaven” opens the album with an anthemic energy as Dave’s horn lines soar over thundering drums, ethereal vocals, and dancing piano. Keeping the energy high, “Footwork” is a Latin inspired number that is sure to soundtrack many a dance floor from SoHo to Harlem. The synth intro of “Pinky Ring” cleanses your palate for the mood shift when the track drops. Deep bass tones underline the impeccable drumming and Dave effortlessly finds the pocket wasting no notes as the verses and choruses trade off. The record leans into spiritual jazz vibes on “Diamond Encore” with a dark and deep almost “Axelrodish” rhythm track then picks the energy back up with the stomper “Still Standing”. “Dave Wants You” has a bop all its own with an unorthodox drum pattern that Dave anchors with his trumpet hits. The otherworldly arrangement of “Drony Boy” puts the production on a pedestal. The first intro almost serves as an intermission on the album while the second intro sets up the neck snapping track that is about to drop. A menacing guitar signals the builds and the whole thing is juxtaposed by Dave’s beautiful trumpet riffs. “Quesodillas” & “Green Door” begin the autumn of the album with their mellow & intimate energy and “Ruby’s Rubies”, the album’s closer is the perfect ending to the journey.

A longtime favorite at our shop, El Michels Affair—New York-based instrumental funk/soul band renowned for their unique “cinematic soul” sound and a flagship act of the esteemed Big Crown Records—returns with a brand new album, featuring none other than Shintaro Sakamoto as a guest! Rooted in funk and soul yet infused with a breezy, urban summer feel, this exquisite release blossoms into a light and airy indie pop-soul masterpiece. A refreshing soundscape full of timeless musical elegance, perfect for strolling through sun-drenched city streets.

A longtime favorite at our shop, El Michels Affair—New York-based instrumental funk/soul band renowned for their unique “cinematic soul” sound and a flagship act of the esteemed Big Crown Records—returns with a brand new album, featuring none other than Shintaro Sakamoto as a guest! Rooted in funk and soul yet infused with a breezy, urban summer feel, this exquisite release blossoms into a light and airy indie pop-soul masterpiece. A refreshing soundscape full of timeless musical elegance, perfect for strolling through sun-drenched city streets.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Adult Themes, the latest full length offering from El Michels Affair. This album takes the band’s “Cinematic Soul” aesthetic literally and sends the listener on a journey through a whirlwind of moods and energies. With their 2005 debut album Sounding Out The City, EMA spearheaded an instrumental funk / soul movement that inspired a slew of bands and even lead to the creation of a few independent record labels. El Michels has since lent his signature sound to artists from Adele to Dr John, Lana Del Rey to Aloe Blacc, and a who’s who list of others. In 2016 he co-founded Big Crown Records and has since produced the lion’s share of its output. A short stint as the touring band for Wu Tang Clan in 2007 led to the cult classics Enter The 37th Chamber (2009) and Return To The 37th Chamber (2017). Adult Themes marks the long awaited, highly anticipated return to an album of original compositions from El Michels Affair. In 2017 in between producing, playing, and recording on other artists’ records Leon Michels began creating compilations of short interludes intended to be sampled by hip hop producers. Some of these wound up becoming songs by Jay Z & Beyonce, Travis Scott, and Don Toliver. These minute-long snippets were inspired by the dense moody work of ‘60s composers like David Axelrod, and Francois de Roubaix, as well as Moondog’s brand of classical jazz. Michels was having so much fun creating these instrumental / orchestral nuggets that he decided to expand on some of the ideas and create what would become the soundtrack for a movie that has yet to be made, an imaginary film entitled “Adult Themes.” The album plays like the colors on an artists pallet. Songs like “Rubix” and “Villa” are densely orchestrated with the hard-hitting drums that El Michels Affair is known for. On “Life of Pablo”, Leon’s son makes his first appearance on record and intros a song with an epic arrangement and a moving mood. “Hipps” is a drum heavy ballad that could’ve easily fit on EMA’s debut record, Sounding Out the City. Other compositions like “The Difference” and “Kill The Lights” are bare, melodic mood pieces with sparse drums and sophisticated chord movement. All of these tunes come together to make perfect backgrounds for dialogue and action. One of the beautiful things about instrumental music is that the listener can decide what the narrative is. With Adult Themes El Michels Affair has created a “choose your own adventure” in musical form. クレジット

Big Crown Records is proud to present the remastered vinyl reissue of the cult classic “Sounding Out The City” by El Michels Affair. Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels’ first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60’s garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80’s 1/4″ reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10×10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it’s release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labeled as “cinematic soul”. However, in 2005 it found it’s way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC’s. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair’s second record, “Enter the 37th Chamber” which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.

it was recorded live at my first concert in new york city in the summer of 2022, right before i recorded iiyo iiyo iiyo and right after i recorded the doober with sam gendel and then Nothing with Louis Cole.

i think it is my most grooving record.

On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained unreleased. Lados B is a deep dive into the high-level spontaneous music made by Villarreal, Parker, and Butterss across those two days in 2020. Villarreal is heard leading the group through various rhythmic modes and structures for improvisation – flow as informed by the Latin funk of Fania Records as it is by the otherworldly humanity trance of Brain Records – while Parker and Butterss draw on their extensive experience playing free together (as heard on Parker's recently-released Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, and the LA side of Makaya McCraven's 2018 LP Universal Beings) to build harmonic buoys for their spontaneous melodicism. The result is a beautifully vivid illustration of context, creativity, and collective composition from a particularly rich moment in history.

Fresh from an appearance on Space Afrika’s 'Honest Labour’ album, collaborations with Klein and Lol K and a placement in the Dazed 100 list, LA Timpa finally offers his head-turning 'Equal Amounts Afraid' album on vinyl following a short CD run just before the pandemic hit in early 2020. Served up on promising yung London label O___o, and made with additional mixing from Solange collaborator Kwes and mastering from sometime Dean Blunt engineer Amir Shoat, ‘Equal Amounts Afraid’ is a beautiful smudge of pop experimentation riddled with timeless musical soul. Following from his 2016 debut ‘Animal’, and guest production for Cold Specks’ trip hop sound, LA Timpa’s gently reserved and melancholic productions push an intimate pop vocabulary into spectral, dreamlike dimensions. Introspective and avant like Klein’s psyched chop-ups, as sensuous as Blood Orange, but with a taste for expressively harmonised pop refrains that clearly recall Yves Tumor via Richard Youngs, the album unfolds with its own logic, deploying eyelid-tugging levels of hypnagogic charm that practically demand to be heard in sequestered, lowlit situations. Seducing us to his singular temporality and hazy atmosphere with the vaporous falsetto and ambient soundfield of sirens and groggy bass in ‘Around’, a cut-up interlude leads into fragmented music box melody and intimate plainsong on ‘Fertile’, while ‘Core’ almost echoes the 4AD dream-pop of A.R. Kane, and ‘Give’ beautifully dematerialises indie-pop into ambient gauze. ‘Backyard Exotic’ surfaces his strangest side in a maze of mushied songcraft, ushering a trippier 2nd half where the songs really start to fray between ‘Caretaker’, the smokers’ hymnal vignette ‘Towel Under The Door’, before channelling Thom Yorke in the melting Mbira melody of ‘Rattle Snake’, and spooling out into proper ambient soul with the spine-tracing lines of ‘Tried Ice’ and the smudged magic of ‘Memory Phone’ where he truly divines a strength in his vulnerability in a way that should resonate with the most sensitive souls.

Nueen follows production for Iceboy Violet and a string of releases for Quiet Time Tapes, Good Morning Tapes and Balmat, with a sprawling new album for 3XL, an ambient drill epic featuring guest spots from Dawuna, Space Afrika, Loraine James, Xzavier Stone and RenzNiro. Everything clicked into place for Nacho Pezzati when he turned the humid soundscapes of his early releases into distorted beds for Iceboy Violet's casual free associations on the Hyperdub-released ‘You Said You'd Hold My Hand Through the Fire' back in 2024. He retains the same energy on 'Swerved', working alongside a team of vocalists and collaborators to locate a sweetspot between rap, dub and ambient vistas. His methodology is laid bare on 'Searchtiers', obscuring its UK drill-style sliding bass with weightless synths and gaseous FX, upping the ante when vocalist and producer Xzavier Stone jumps on the mic on 'Nowhere Near A Section'. The addition of proper hooks, adlibs and rhymes - "let it burn like Usher Raymond" - makes the production hit that much harder, not just referencing radio rap and R&B but challenging the paradigm. Fittingly, Loraine James, who early on inhabited similar zones, lends her voice to the grimy 'Atmosphere is my Style', whispering over Pezzati's hair metal samples and booming 808 Mafia-style basses. Manny's own RenzNiro checks in on 'Impls', rhyming over one of Nueen's most decisive beats, all clipped snares, gong samples and tweaked bass. And Space Afrika turn up with an assist on the low-slung highlight 'Shm', a smoove and sensual D'Angelo-style soul banger with none other than Dawuna on the mic. Dawuna returns on 'Matrix', splitting duties with Xzavier Stone who provides an impressive '00s post-jiggy hook and Pezzati's vision materialises. The haze of half-remembered bites of cloud rap, pop and club rap represents a post-P2P hauntology that's global, not really localised. And connecting with Space Africa again on the closing track 'I Guess', he travels beyond the boundaries of the album itself, lavishing SA's orchestral cries with fuzzy synths and swirling vocals.

Smouldering and aching in all the right places, Dawuna's latest mixtape is a muted hypnagogic R&B tour de force, pieced together while recovering from a traumatic head injury and conveying all the fragile, dizzy and ineffable beauty imaginable. Trust, it’s next-level gear tipped FFO D’Angelo, Prince, Niecy Blues, Soulquarians, Rodney Jerkins. ‘African Family Laptop Musick’ is Ian Mugerwa’s 4th dispatch as Dawuna since 2020’s still unfathomable ‘Glass Lit Dream’, an album that we called "the debut of the century thus far" and which has still, somehow, evaded any kind of meaningful crossover despite triggering total joy and bewilderment every single time we play it to the uninitiated. Since that album, and shortly after a relocation to Baltimore, Mugerwa was involved in a car accident that triggered a period of hospitalisation and amnesia. 'African Family Laptop Music' emerges from that difficult period; recorded and pieced together while still in recovery. He doesn't remember much about the project at this point, just small flashes, but it's easily the most personal, touching material he's shared to date. Mugerwa calls the compositions simple, but it’s the kind of simple many have spent a lifetime trying to engineer. On opener 'I am a woman too', daring lo-fi sound design lends texture to multi-tracked vocal harmonies and a beat rapped on a table with knuckles and finger clicks, before tuning in to a chat between elders on ‘Obulesi’, that he laments in the bloozy ache of the incredible ‘Family Trauma Drama’. Lashed to a celestial vocal performance, he fleshes out the arrangement with downsampled waltzing hats and a single snare hit with synths that sound like they've been lifted from a mid-'80s Sierra adventure game, before being filtered out to a low hum. There's a quiet virtuosity on show; it's lo-fi, with all the aesthetic hallmarks of some of the very best outsider gear, but Mugerwa builds on the foundations of 'Glass Lit Dream' and 'Naya' to provide an unmistakably Black ideation of hauntology. Approaching the very concept of memory from a unique vantage point, he muddles dreams and impressions, sorting through the canon (think 'Songs in the Key of Life', 'Sign O' the Times', 'Baduizm', 'Brown Sugar' and 'Full Moon' just for starters) as it vanishes from view. What makes the record hit even harder is that Mugerwa collages the more “proper” songs with skits and interludes that help map the narrative, taping conversations with his family and abstracting them with disorientating glitches, synths and FX. ‘Pressure’ pushes deep on a bittersweet bruise with lyrics about “the pain on your brain making fun of you”, set to the heaviest smudge of bass and organ recalling Angel Bat Dawid’s ‘The Oracle’, whilst the latter stages reveal precious gems in the harpsichord sway of ‘Bipolar Memory’,thru the lip-biting downswang and helium-voiced Camille vibes of ‘Grabba Boy Problem’ and a poignant sign-off addressed to his father - not sure if that’s his dad or him upstairs - in a delicate prayer ‘Undo This Damage,’ which once over, is bound to make you rake back over all Dawuna’s gear to date. "This is the last lil offering from a personal side of myself before I give y'all something big," he assures cryptically. "Enjoy." Incredible, really.