Juno Recommends Brokenbeat / Nu Jazz June 2021

Review: Artist management agency Sounds Familiar has released some terrific seven-inch singles on their offshoot record label, including essential 45s from Sadar Bahar, Danny Krivit, Specter, Kai Alce and Mark Grusane. Here's another courtesy of one-man production factory Kaidi Tatham, who continues to hit the mark with each successive release. A-side 'Feeling Happy' is little less than superb: a languid, slow-motion shuffler rich in sun-drenched guitars, warming Rhodes keys, cascading trumpet solos and the kind of fluid, positive piano motifs frequently found on great jazz records. Flipside 'Sooner or Later' is equally as positive and righteous, with funkier broken beats making way to dancefloor jazz-funk beats and more mazy, sun-ripened piano solos.

Review: Review: Even after his death, Tony Allen is still delivering ground-breaking and genre-bending releases. There is No End, a posthumous album largely recorded in 2019 but finished (with Allen's blessing) following his death by co-producers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle, veers away from the Nigerian drummer's Afro-beat, Afro-jazz and Afro-disco roots, instead combing his brilliant polyrhythms with elements of grime, dubstep, hip-hop, soul and funk, plus vocals from a veritable who's who of MCs, spoken word artists and singers. The results are hugely impressive and forward-thinking, offering a fittingly on-point post-script to Allen's exceptional career.

Review: Swedish outfit Sven Wunder have a third new album on the way. If you've never heard them before get ready for a super clean and refreshing take on jazz that is luxuriant, expansive and emotive in equal measure. Here Mr Bongo serve up a taster single for the record in the form of 'Impasto.' It's got a hint of Brazilian artists like Arthur Verocai with its lavish sweeping strings and melodies. 'Prussian Blue' stars calms but builds with an uptempo beat and percussive workout that has eastern melodies and Italo library music references.

Review: Review: Even after his death, Tony Allen is still delivering ground-breaking and genre-bending releases. There is No End, a posthumous album largely recorded in 2019 but finished (with Allen's blessing) following his death by co-producers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle, veers away from the Nigerian drummer's Afro-beat, Afro-jazz and Afro-disco roots, instead combing his brilliant polyrhythms with elements of grime, dubstep, hip-hop, soul and funk, plus vocals from a veritable who's who of MCs, spoken word artists and singers. The results are hugely impressive and forward-thinking, offering a fittingly on-point post-script to Allen's exceptional career.

Review: The late precision edit maestro Ryuhei The Man has taken his scalpel to a couple ,ore jams here and turned out typically high grade, sympathetic but essential edits that rework the tunes into dance floor dynamite. First up is Tusuke Hirdao's 'Early Bird' which is a driving, gliding, smooth as you like jazz-funk gem with knotted bass and expressive live drums. On the flip is the more cosmically minded 'Sonar' with its shimmering xylophone melodies, frenzied drum playing and heart warming chords. Amazing stuff.

Review: Killer Japanese cover versions of Roy Porter's Jazz Funk classic Panama with new versions by the late Ryuhei The Man

Review: Vancouver-based DJ and producer Nick Bike here recasts lyrics by East Oakland rapper Too Short's 'Blow The Whistle' in his own fine and inimitable style. The original - a hyphy track aimed right at the floor, with bubbling synth bass - came in 2006 and was produced by Lil-Jon and here is returned to its 70s funk roots. Donna Summer's 1979 chart-topping hit 'Bad Girls' gets sampled and dropped int this new version with extra whistles, chanted mantras plenty of sure fire, disco-ready energy. It's a reinvigorated hip hop anthem destined for hardcore spin backs once the clubs reopen.

Review: Given the quality of Sons of Kemet's previous albums, hopes are naturally sky-high for the Shabaka Hutchings'-helmed quartet's first full-length excursion since 2018's Mercury Music Prize-nominated Your Queen is a Reptile. Happily, we can confirm that Black to the Future delivers - and then some. The band's most politically charged release to date, it's as energetic, intense, righteous and angry as you'd expect, offering a take on jazz that's expressive, percussively heavy and full of primal, guttural saxophone squeals courtesy of Hutchings. Throw in superb contributions from some fittingly impressive guest stars - grime MC Double E, Moor Mother and jazz poet Angel Bat Dawid all feature - and it all adds up to the most impressive Sons of Kemet album yet - and that's saying something.

Review: For their latest new album on Gondwana, and seventh full length overall, Portico Quartet draw on American minimalism and ambient music genres as well the work of the cult Japanese composer Midori Takada. They composed and recorded most of it last year and it features three movements of their typically elegant and graceful sounds. The tracks are all built around central, repeating tenets which weave in and out of one another to hypnotic and beautiful effect. Often reaching for the cosmos, the delicate drumming and serene pads all instantly grab your attention and then take you on beautifully immersive rides.

Review: Even after his death, Tony Allen is still delivering ground-breaking and genre-bending releases. There is No End, a posthumous album largely recorded in 2019 but finished (with Allen's blessing) following his death by co-producers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle, veers away from the Nigerian drummer's Afro-beat, Afro-jazz and Afro-disco roots, instead combing his brilliant polyrhythms with elements of grime, dubstep, hip-hop, soul and funk, plus vocals from a veritable who's who of MCs, spoken word artists and singers. The results are hugely impressive and forward-thinking, offering a fittingly on-point post-script to Allen's exceptional career.

Review: This release marks something of a departure for Athens of the North, a label predominantly known for reissuing ludicrously rare funk and soul sevens. For starters, it's a brand new album, written, performed and produced by jazzman Greg Foat and Warren Hampshire, who's best known for being a member of The Bees. Then there's what it sounds like. While there are nods to the organic, immaculately produced soul of Rotary Connection, for the most part Galaxies Like Grains of Sand is a luscious fusion of hazy, Cinematic Orchestra style jazz, folksy downtempo compositions, and the blissful, head-in-the-clouds bliss of new age influenced ambient. Surprising or not, it's an utterly beguiling album

Review: For their latest new album on Gondwana, and seventh full length overall, Portico Quartet draw on American minimalism and ambient music genres as well the work of the cult Japanese composer Midori Takada. They composed and recorded most of it last year and it features three movements of their typically elegant and graceful sounds. The tracks are all built around central, repeating tenets which weave in and out of one another to hypnotic and beautiful effect. Often reaching for the cosmos, the delicate drumming and serene pads all instantly grab your attention and then take you on beautifully immersive rides.

Review: The Algorithm Smiles Upon You is the debut EP from Berlin based band Aver & Move 78. The trip consists of Doron Segal on keys, Nir Sabag on drums, Hal Strewe on bass and Aver on sampler and production and all of the music here has been finely crafted for endless hours of live jamming in the studio. Additional strings, flutes and horns lend a lush feel to the music which taps into the current wave of jazz, soul and broken beat that is proving so vital. Managing to be both free flowing yet beat driven, it is an escapist, sun kissed album of real musical catharsis.

Review: The latest volume in Colombian imprint Nomada's 'White' series of EPs is an expansive affair featuring three tracks apiece from Last Nubian and Sofatalk. The latter handles side A, first roping in vocalist Inbal to sing sweetly over a superb fusion of broken beat and electrofunk ('Five Folds'), before delivering some sun-kissed jazz-funk/synth-boogie flavours (the early Floating Points style 'Hot Jupiters') and a dash of Dego and Kaid Tatham style bruk ('Kelper's Laws'). Last Nubian takes over on side B, flitting between deep, loose and jazzy house ('Farewell Boogie'), sci-fi deep house ('You're a Shepherd') and thickset, analogue-ruch dancefloor colour ('Brown Be My Caller').