music

Limited Edition Black Vinyl Avishai Cohen once again opens an essential gateway into a new creative and expressive dimension. From Darkness sees the Israeli composer and bassist go back to the very core of his musical idiom and activity. A belief reinforced by the influence of two outstanding partners, pianist Nitai Hershkovits and drummer Daniel Dor. This unity between human and sound owes a lot to a virtue brought here to its highest intensity; mutual listening, a soulful and heartful science that presides over the destiny of true music. All eleven compositions were recorded with the impact of a live performance with clarity. From Darkness charts a path from obscurity to light. It is indeed a key step in Cohen’s long-term quest for the absolute and for purity. The art of this trio is rich and condensed; swarming with new ideas, reduced to the essential and crossed by a thousand subtly harmonized shades. “Here, three becomes one.”

The mix compilation is a playground of house, techno, electronica and breakbeat tracks where character and animated melodies wander and develop, all the while grounded by an acute sense of harmonic progression and rhythmic precision. The vinyl package is a set of two vinyl plates featuring 15 of the 22 tracks from Bonobo’s opening mix for the new fabric presents series. They are the full unmixed versions including both Bonobo’s exclusive tracks Ibrik and Flicker plus his Boston Common cut previously limited to vinyl only.

Includes Mp3 download Late Night Tales presents Automatic Soul is a mix album compiled by Tom Findlay of English electronic music duo Groove Armada, released 3 November 2014 as part of the Late Night Tales series. The mix features tracks from artists such as Mtume, Zapp, Donna Allen, The Gap Band, Alexander O'Neal and Thelma Houston. As Sugardaddy, Findlay and Tim Hutton recorded an exclusive cover version of Dennis Edwards’ "Don’t Look Any Further" for the release.

Limited Edition, MP3 The fourth release in the Switched On compilation series for the art pop band includes tracks from out-of-print EPs, 7-inches, and outtakes. Electrically Possessed contains some of their most daring, buoyant and surprisingly solid set of songs, framing Stereolab as a band who managed to stay adventurous and weird right to the end.

The six-piece group, led by bandleader Jake Long, bring a fresh slant to the weighty spiritual jazz tradition. Spiritual jazz is a tradition that's leaden with its own traditions, histories and stories. Maisha carve out out their own style through that weight of expectation: they take stock of that history, channelling the greats like Pharoah Sanders, while filtering their own influences - which range from jazz to Afrobeat - through every part of their musical process. It's a sound which rests on trance-inducing rhythms, instinctive musical interchange and repeated, deeply enriching melodic refrains. It's a combination which has made for their own singular sound. Each of its tracks provokes a feeling of intense revery which is timeless, on the one hand, but realised through a confluence of sounds and circumstances which are undeniably of the present.

Previously released Dub album by Nkrumah “Jah” Thomas from Kingston, Jamaica. Re-issued on colored vinyl. Nkrumah “Jah” Thomas is an esteemed reggae deejay and record producer who first came to prominence in the 1970s, later setting up his own labels ‘Midnight Rock’ and ‘Nura’.

Gatefold 180g, MP3 and Poster Floating Points’ personal collection of global soul, ambient, jazz and folk treasures form the latest in the warmly revered Late Night Tales series. Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points’ music taste is notoriously tricky to define, ranging from ethereal classical at one end to coruscating techno at the other, united only in a firm belief in the transcendental power of music to move hearts, minds and – yes – feet. Similarly, his production career has ranged from early experiments in dance music with breakout records such as the ‘Shadows EP’ and collaborating with legendary Gnawa master Mahmoud Guinia to his expansive album ‘Elaenia’, which met with critical acclaim upon its release in 2015. This Late Night Tales excursion into the depths of the evening reflects his broad tastes. The globally-travelled producer has collected untold treasures on his travels from dusty stores in Brazil to market stalls near his hometown. There’s the gorgeous ‘Via Làctea’, culled from Carlos Walker’s debut album, Abu Talib’s (Bobby Wright) plaintive ‘Blood Of An American’ and Robert Vanderbilt’s gospel reworking of Manchild’s ‘Especially For You’. Raw soul and feeling oozing from each song’s pores. At the other end of the music scale are the modernists, such as Québécoise Kara-Lis Coverdale who weighs in with the indelible ‘Moments In Love’, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith whose ‘Milk’ is an exercise in tranquility, while Sarah Davachi’s meditative mix-opener offers respite from a weary world. We have some tracks exclusive to Late Night Tales; alongside Davachi’s offerings there is also Toshimaru Nakamura’s ‘Nimb #59’, as well as the now traditional cover version. Shepherd delved into his childhood memory for this one, a track taken from the first album his parents bought him, Kenny Wheeler’s ‘Music For Large & Small Ensembles’: Sam offers up his interpretation of ‘Opening Part 1’. Wheeler also contributes horns to Azimuth track The Tunnel, written and performed by Norma Winstone and John Taylor who, coincidentally, are the parents of Floating Points’ drummer Leo Taylor. Closing the album, Lauren Laverne reads the suitably nocturnal poem ‘Ah! Why, Because The Dazzling Sun’ by Emily Brontë. “I’ve learnt about a lot of incredible music from listening to the Late Night Tales compilations over the years, so I jumped at the opportunity to compile one myself. The music is a selection of the kind of records I play to set the tone when DJing all night long.” - Sam Shepherd (Floating Points), 2019

Younge and Shaheed Muhammad started by mining Valle’s back catalog for direction and inspiration. Unlike most artists of his stature, Valle is still actively recording and releasing music, but Marcos Valle JID003 is different from all of his others. If spontaneity and improvisation are trademarks of jazz music, then this album stands out in the maestro’s lengthy discography as the closest thing to a jazz album. Valle impressed Shaheed Muhammad with his professionalism and confidence in this new environment with limited time to capture the music: “Marcos is so focused on getting it right. A couple of songs he sat down in the moment and wrote some lyrics about what was actually happening, and that’s how free and open he is.”

Rock the House is the debut album from the hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. The album was released in February 1987 in Europe and on April 7, 1987, in the United States, and was subsequently re-issued in 1988 in Europe and the United Kingdom. Three tracks from the album were released as singles: "The Magnificent Jazzy Jeff", "A Touch of Jazz" and "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble".