From an artist in their seventies, you probably wouldn’t
expect to hear an album like this. But Brazilian drumming legend Ivan ‘Mamão’
Conti has been experimenting and innovating for the last half a century. As one
third of cult Rio jazz-funk trio Azymuth, Mamão was at the root of the group’s
‘samba doido’ (crazy samba) philosophy, which warped the traditional samba
compass with jazz influences and space age electronics. Even with his lesser
known jovem guarda group The Youngsters, Mamão was experimenting with tapes and
delays to create unique, ahead-of-its-time sounds, way back in the sixties.
More recently Mamão recorded an album with hip-hop royalty Madlib under the
shared moniker Jackson Conti. With his first album in over twenty years, and
the first to be released on vinyl since his 1984 classic The Human Factor,
Mamão shares his zany carioca character across eleven tracks of rootsy
electronic samba and tripped out jazz, beats and dance music. Featuring Alex
Malheiros and Kiko Continentino on a number of tracks, the Azymuth lifeblood
runs deep, but venturing into the modern discotheque (as Mamão would call it),
Poison Fruit also experiments with sounds more commonly associated with house
and techno, with the help of London based producer Daniel Maunick (aka Dokta
Venom). United by a love for the music of Mamão and Azymuth, the CD and digital
edition also feature the previously released remixes and dubs from some of today’s
most forward-thinking producers with a penchant for percussion, including IG
Culture, the 22a crew, Max Graef and Glenn Astro.
After 20 years of career, the International Swedish vocalist
releases her comeback album in English for OKeh : More of the Good. Oh, how
lovely it is to hear Lisa Ekdahl’s voice again…Since she doesn’t impose herself
every other day and since she knows how to reinvent her sound, it’s a great
pleasure to see her back with “More of the Good.” On this new record, she has
written ten new songs that are not in a hurry. Rather, they take their time,
not too much, not too little. The lyrics have meaning. “I'm getting thirsty for
the meaningful, I'm getting tired of that stuffy stuff”, as she wrote in
"Like Mermaids". There is room for many different emotions, from
sheer, genuine joy to a blend of sensuality, mysticism - and sometimes a
melancholy that feels really true, because it's not overly dramatized. With
standout tracks such as ‘I Know You Love Me’ featuring the trumpet prodigy
Ibrahim Maalouf, ‘Like Mermais’, ‘Thorn in My Heart’ or ‘Let’s Go to Sleep’,
‘More of the Good’ is poetic, jazzy and timeless with a pinch of Soul and Folk.
When folks talk about the great soul singers of the past three decades, they don’t get far into the discussion before the name Glenn Jones comes up. With his rich vocals and signature style, he made smashes out of songs like “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Show Me” back in the day, and he has been a concert staple for R&B fans around the world ever since. Recently something special happened when Glenn teamed with another musical legend, the incredible Regina Belle, to deliver a love song for the ages. "Love By Design," written by longtime ST fave James Day and produced by Chris “Big Dog” Davis, became an instant favorite with SoulTrackers and also a chart smash around the world. But like many great songs, “Love By Design” is one that can be listened to in multiple ways. And that’s what is happening with the brand new remix of the song by guitarist supreme, U-Nam. The gentle sway of the original version is replaced with a meatier arrangement and urban groove, taking the song in an entirely different direction, and making both vocalists shine…again.
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