funk
Thomas H. Green
Dee C Lee was born Diane Sealy in London in 1961. She is best known for her 1985 hit “See the Day”, later covered by Girls Aloud, and for being in two of the Eighties' most notable pop acts, The Style Council and WHAM!. But she was also prolifically involved in multiple other musical projects, and now has a new album appearing, Just Something, her first in over 25 years.Lee’s first break came through talking her way into working with the British soul outfit Central Line, who had a couple of US club hits in 1981. From here, EMI picked her up as a session singer and, alongside Shirlie Holliman Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Tom “Squarepusher” Jenkinson has covered a lot of ground over three decades, from dank cellar ambience to refined baroque composition, and from chirpy funk to monstrous noise. But his default mode is instantly recognisable: 170+ beats per minute jungle / drum’n’bass-adjacent breakbeats, squelching acid techno synths, high drama rave chords, all with him playing jazz fusion bass guitar over the top like a maniac.And that’s what he does here. OK there are “Arkteon” parts one to three – solo bass pieces which form intro, mid point interlude and outro to the album, that are very much in that Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
A decade ago Canadian duo Chromeo had their biggest success with the single “Jealous (I Ain’t With It)” and its parent album, White Women. However, it didn’t presage a move into the mainstream.For over 20 years, Chromeo’s wry-sexy, wordy electro-funk has been more hipster than populist. Their magnificent 2009 appearance, endorsing handwashing, on eye-boggling kids TV programme Yo Gabba Gabba sums up their playful ethos (check YouTube!). Then again, the same could said of their more recent COVID-era Quarantine Casanova EP. They were into all that Random Access Memories schtick before Daft Punk Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Floridian-born, longtime Brooklyn resident, now Asheville, North Carolina based Roberto Carlos Lange doesn’t rush things, but he gets them done. This is his ninth album in 15 years, during which time he’s built a substantial body of audiovisual / computer art / installation work too. And as with all this creative endeavour, it’s not showy, it doesn’t demand your attention, but it spreads out its ideas and emotions very much at its own pace.His relocation to Asheville came after the Covid lockdown experience in New York – which explicitly inspired 2021’s Far In – and it’s easy to hear a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Shaun Ryder is now known mostly for being Shaun Ryder, via any random TV programme that will pay him a couple of quid. In this light, his musical achievements have lost some of their shine over the decades. But, if given the chance, a couple of those Happy Mondays albums and the first Black Grape album still own the room. It’s 30 years since that first Black Grape album, It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah (they weren’t!), but the band's two albums since have both been, well, pretty good, actually. And the same can be said for their fourth.The band now consists of just Ryder and his old Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHAfrican Head Charge A Trip to Bolgatanga (On-U Sound)The latest album from percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and On-U Sound producer-par-excellence Adrian Sherwood is stunning. 40-something years into their collaborative career, it proves the pair are still more than capable of offering sonic surprises. A Trip to Bolgatanga is more in-yer-face than a fair chunk of African Head Charge material, less stoned and dubbed out… well, it’s dubbed out alright but comes clattering forward in the mix, energized and foot-moving rather than bonging on the sofa. It even boasts unlikely Read more ...
Joe Muggs
We Out Here Festival, now in its fifth year (and fourth edition, as 2020 was of course cancelled for Covid), has become an institution. Curated by jazz-centric veteran DJ Gilles Peterson and actualised by Noah Ball – best known for his role in creating Outlook Festival in Croatia which has served as UK bass music’s metting point in the sun since 2008 – it joins the dots culturally through generations of music both strange and hedonistic and attracts a faithful crowd that reflects that.The diversity of the crowd is the first thing you’ll notice about the festival. Though it has grown a lot Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There’s been a sense of anticipation around Ghanaian-Australian Genesis Owusu ever since his ebullient 2021 debut album Smiling with No Teeth. He won a bunch of Arias, Australia’s Grammys, but could he break internationally? He’s toured the US with Paramore and is due to hit Europe in the Autumn, including a stop at Berghain.His new album is a match for its predecessor, in terms of eclecticism and bravado, and has a higher quantity of immediately hooky songs, so it shouldn't be a hindrance in taking things next level. Owusu has said that it was partially inspired by Waiting for Godot and Read more ...
Tim Cumming
I first saw Erol Josue on stage in Essaouria, Morocco, during the Gnawa Festival of 2011, when he fronted Jazz-Racine Haiti. The Haitian-born voudou priest turned R&B singer struck me as one of the most flamboyant frontmen ever to hit a stage.He cut a striking figure – half-cat, half Little Richard, all ordained prelate of the Voudou religion, into which he embarked on a long initiation into its priesthood before emigrating to Paris, and later to America, where he refashioned himself as an R&B singer in Florida before relocating to Brooklyn, New York, where he released his debut Read more ...
Joe Muggs
The broken beat movement, centred on West London around the turn of the millennium, wasn’t super press friendly. Its complex rhythms were eclipsed in the populism stakes by its close cousin UK garage, and serious commentators didn’t really know what to do with a broadly working class, multicultural scene that was aspirational and privileged virtuosic production and musicianship. Indeed there was a distinct inverted snobbery in the refusal refusal to treat it with the respect afforded other electronic music which fit into a scholarly vs “street” dichotomy.The movement itself, which could Read more ...
peter.quinn
From the celestial vocal harmonies of “Call The Tune” and insistent looped rhythms of “Omnipuss” (in which you feel the spirit of Miles’s On The Corner), to the Sly Stone-esque “Clear Water” and intensely vital “Vuma” (featuring South African vocalist and songwriter, Thandiswa, plus vibist and label mate, Joel Ross), this Blue Note debut from the singularly great multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello presents a treasure trove of musical memories.Like her 2018 album Ventriloquism, The Omnichord Real Book appears to channel a desire to transcend narrow genre Read more ...
Joe Muggs
There’s been a good deal of discussion on “the socials” about how much Janelle Monáe’s sexy image is a new thing or a big deal.Casual viewers, still stuck on the sharp-suited, theatrically coiffured look with which she crashed into public consciousness in 2010, have acted shocked at her going almost or completely unclad in recent videos and shoots. In turn fans have pointed out the obvious – that her outré sense of fashion and costumery has manifested in many ways over the years, including in plenty of flesh-baring. However, while her looks may have pre-empted it, artistically Monáe Read more ...