As you might have guessed last solstice was reason enough for us to draw up a list with our best albums of 2016 until this day. Here goes! Continue reading
Tag Archives: Jazz-Funk
The Heliocentrics – From The Deep
Following the spacy film score to The Last Transmission (2014) The Heliocentrics decided to pick up where they left us in 2013 with 13 Degrees of Reality and with that I mean releasing work solely under their own name. Although the jazz-funk collective usually collaborates with others they are also very capable to push the musical boundaries forward themselves. If you take out all collaborations, From The Deep their third album and as you’ve might have guessed, again is of a sun swallowing nature.
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Gregory Porter – Liquid Spirit (2013)
Lets face it, Gregory Porter is all about superlatives. With his impressive appearance and magnificent voice Porter is among today’s top jazz vocalists. Since the release of the debut album Water (2010) everything he touched turned into gold. Water was enthusiastically welcomed by the press and received a Grammy nomination in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category. In 2012 his sophomore release Be Good proved to be just as successful as its predecessor. Be Good was a number-one debut on the iTunes Jazz Album Chart and reached top ten positions on various other charts. Moreover Porter was honoured with another Grammy nomination for the single ‘Real Good Hands’. Recently I saw Gregory Porter perform on the North Sea Jazz Festival with the Metropole Orchestra and, to throw in another superlative, it was breathtaking. Porter is on a high, so there´s no surprise a new release in 2013 was on the stocks. Beforehand there was no reason for fans and critics to worry about quality of Liquid Spirit, for Indeed the brand “Gregory Porter“ already stands for high quality jazz and soul. I However am obliged to uphold a critical attitude to all that´s hyped and hip and therefore question if the towering achievements of Porter
don´t lead to a case of the Midas touch. Continue reading
The Heliocentrics – 13 Degrees of Reality (2013)
Critics do tend to categorize new music into genres so it’s understandable for everyone. Certain bands however seem impossible to pin down. The Heliocentrics are such a band, for they play jazz and funk. Well… that’s done and dusted you might think. Now for the tricky part, the Londoners intermingle the before mentioned styles with avant-garde, electronics, psychedelics, hip hop and ethnic traditions. So obviously no category seems to suit the well-orchestrated eclecticism of The Heliocentrics. Luckily there is always room in the extraordinary universe of Afrofuturist, Sun Ra, with whom the band is frequently compared.
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