Artist: Marbin
Title: Last Chapter of Dreaming
Label: Moonjune Records
Genre: nu jazz/fusion jazz
Review by Dawoud Kringle
Do you like music that is difficult to define, brings you to familiar places, takes you somewhere you couldn’t expect without losing its continuity? Marbin’s CD Last Chapter of Dreaming is just what you’re looking for.
Artist: Pedra Preta
Title: Your Choice
Label: Unit Records
Genre: Afro-beat / Dub / Jazz
CD review by Matt Cole
Pedra Preta is an international trio, with members from Brazil, Italy, and Switzerland, and with a sound rooted in jazz but with many influences and components. Their album Your Choice was released in 2010 on the Swiss label Unit Records. The band includes Munir Hossn on guitars and vocals (and most of the songwriting), Toni Schiavano on electric bass, and Flo Reichle on drums and percussion.
Arist: Lo’ Jo
Title: Cinema El Mundo
Label: World Village
Genre: French avant pop/ world
The CD begins with jungle sounds, and a poem (in French, which unfortunately, I don’t understand) by singer / keyboardist / band leader Denis Péan. This led into the second track; a soft, lilting ballad with memorable melodies, seductive backing vocals, and Péan singing / reciting his story.
Lo Jo’s latest release, Cinema el Mundo is a multi-faceted recording marking their 30 year existence as a group, and proving their creative wellspring is far form dry. Péan is joined by his longtime partner Richard Bourreau (violin / kora), Kham Meslien (bass), Baptiste Brondy (drums), and the Nid el Mourid sisters Yamina and Nadia (vocals), Cinema El Mundo guest artists include Menwar, Gan Guo, Andra Kouyate, Vincent Segal, Stephane Coutable, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib and Eyadou, Niaz Diasamidze and Robert Wyatt.
Artist: Manu Koch
Title: Triple Life
Label: self released
Genre: genre border-crossing music
I had the pleasure of attending a live performance by Manu Koch not long ago (for which I wrote a review). The concert was amazing, and I was eagerly anticipating taking the time to listen to what he and his colleagues would come up with in the studio. The results were pleasantly unexpected.
The lovely jazz poetry of a Fender Rhodes floats out of a void. It slips like incense smoke into the framework of the bass and drums. Lush chord melodies speak softly like a lover. This dreamy dialogue surrenders to a funk beat with ornaments of clavichord, synth, and vocals. Thus begins New Year’s Labyrinth, the first track on Koch’s CD Triple Life.
Artist: Elikeh
Title: Between 2 Worlds
Label: Azalea City Recordings
Genre: Afro Beat
Review by Matt Cole
It is difficult to even say where the band Elikeh is from; band leader, vocalist, and rhythm guitarist Massama Dogo hails from Togo, in West Africa, and other members of the band come from a diverse array of places, including California, Nigeria, New York, Maryland, and Benin. It is not surprising, then, that their recently-released CD, Between 2 Worlds, shows influences from a wide variety of sources.
