Gregory Porter, with his customary class, elegance and sophistication, presents his new holiday album Christmas Wish – a cool yule selection of festive favorites as well as brand new songs written by the singer himself. Backed by his long-time band, produced by repeat collaborator Troy Miller in New York and London, with orchestral contributions recorded at Abbey Road, and featuring powerhouse guest vocalist, double Grammy-winning sensation Samara Joy, Gregory Porter’s seventh studio album is a loving tribute to his favourite time of year – and to great songwriters, singers and interpreters including Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Dinah Washington. Across its dozen tracks, Christmas Wish encompasses the saintly and the secular, the funky and the fun, the Great American Songbook and the best of Motown. With Christmas Wish, Gregory Porter has given us a whole new soundtrack to this most wonderful time of year.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer lophiile releases The Good Days Between, a vibrant new collection that comes out via Bluewerks. The 8-track EP further solidifies lophiile’s reputation as a torchbearer for a new generation of producers melding jazz, hip-hop, and R&B sounds. The latest sonic adventure from lophiile is a musical diary of his time spent living in London, a heartfelt ode to the creative melancholy of the city's atmosphere, weather, and music. The rhythms, harmonies, and textures intertwine into a mosaic that pays tribute to an enchanting and somber muse. The Good Days Between marks lophiile’s first release since his 2019 EP To Forgive, which followed his work as a member of Radiant Children, a contemporary R&B trio who released their debut EP TRYIN' in 2018.
Departures, the debut LP from Winnipeg psychedelic jazz-funk collective Apollo Suns via Do Right! Music, finds the band evolving across new styles and moods, encompassing the shifting tides of the pandemic years. The band stayed busy then, writing over Zoom with midi-programmed instruments in a recording interface. When restrictions relaxed, they flew Juno award-winning producer Ben Kaplan (Bootsy Collins, Five Alarm Funk) to Winnipeg to record the new songs at No Fun Club over 10 days, re-igniting the chemistry of their high-energy live shows. Departures is a cinematic journey inspired as much by artists like Lettuce, Frank Zappa, Goblin, as film, TV and video game scores and soundtracks like those for The Warriors, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Lupin III, and The Legend of Zelda. The band combines classic compositional techniques with synths and electronics, showcasing genre-melding finesse. Introducing strings, acoustic guitar, grand piano, and lap steel into the mix, Apollo Suns explore the visceral and heavy, the elegant and ethereal, epic house rock to New Orleans-y brass, proggy pathways, string-backed balladry, greasy stank-face funk and beyond, reflecting the many emotions of the pandemic’s unpredictable days.
“Reminiscence” is the second IG track from Hirmoi’s upcoming album, Sonicwonderland and features vocalist Oli Rockberger. Hiromi announces Sonicwonderland, the internationally celebrated and GRAMMY-winning pianist and composer’s new album, out October 6 (Telarc/Concord). Sonicwonderland represents a new musical adventure for the constantly evolving pianist and composer, who is a star in her native Japan. Recorded with a new quartet, called Hiromi’s Sonicwonder, the album features 9 new works with Hadrien Feraud (bass), Gene Coye (drums) and Adam O'Farrill (trumpet). Artist Quote: “In 2021, I wrote this piece called ‘Reminiscence’ and heard [Oli Rockberger] singing in my head. So I called him and I said, ‘I wrote this song and I’m hearing your voice. Would you like to co-write the lyrics?’ I thought the song would be perfectly fitting with the sound of this band, so we decided to record it on this album and I’m so happy with how it turned out.” - Hiromi. Hiromi's Sonicwonder band tours US in Oct (Seattle, Santa Cruz, Stanford, New York, Raleigh).
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