They say timing is everything. The time to meet the right person. The right time to start over. Blink, and you might miss them. But is there ever really a perfect time? Or does timing just feel perfect when we’re finally ready to listen? The release of Full Circle at the first hint of spring feels almost too on the nose: an album about retreat and renewal arriving just as the world thaws out. For Tom Misch, timing does a lot for narrative work. After years of constant motion, his long-awaited second studio album captures the lightness of transformation and the undeniable bounce of realising you’re once more in bloom.
Once upon a time, Geography cemented him as a defining voice of the late-2010s bedroom producer wave. Everything felt easy. Since then,…
Category: soul
Loose collaborations can go in two directions – some sort of loose jams that just might go nowhere, or innovative chipping of ideas that result in some interesting musical results. In the latter case, there is usually a core set of musicians that bring in a sort of semblance to a possible chaos, leading the way to something that is tangible and ultimately listenable.
For At Your Pace, their second album offering, Modha, a core Berlin-based duo of Dhanya Langer and Max Scholl operate as a sort of collective bringing in outside talents of the likes of Shanice Ruby Bennett (bass), Käthe Johanning (Rhodes), Fabiano Lima (percussion), Konstantin Döben (horns), and Tim Sensbach (guitar), as well as a set of guest vocalists/rappers like…
Coming off two excellent records released on Habbi Funk that showed off his skills as a beatmaker, sample wrangler, song crafter and arranger, the Lebanese musician Charif Megarbane teamed with the Indonesian trio Ali to make a record. Tirakat is the result of the pairing and it’s brilliant. Organic, genre-bending, flowing and free, the album was recorded in three days’ time and feels like a well-curated journey through an amazing record collection. They jump all over the map, trip through time, and visit as many styles as possible, all with a mix of precision and spontaneity that makes the record a joy to listen to.
They venture into disco on “Mosaics”, Arabic funk on “Kuda Arab”, tender balladry on Ahmad’s Lament”, dancehall reggae on…
Almost three years after the release of É Soul Cultura, Vol. 2, Luke Una harvests another unmixed crop of deep dancefloor truffles that spans decades, genres, and continents. The well-traveled U.K. underground club institution asserts his intent with track one, “Spread Love” – impelling disco-funk from Harris & Orr, a duo on the same wavelength as Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson.
The ’90s and 2020s are each represented with two cuts, including DJ Harvey’s aloft and beatless mix of DJ Food’s “Peace” and a shadowy downtempo gem from Fatdog. All else dates from the latter half of the ’70s through the late ’80s, and though there’s wide variety even among what was made within close proximity, a dialogue of sorts occurs from track to track.
The newest studio album from singer/songwriter Son Little finds the fluid artist touching on a wide range of genres. CITYFOLK uses synths, soft beats, acoustic strums, and much more as Little delves into his history, love life, and modern-day societal hardships for inspiration across the eleven tracks presented here.
Little was dealing with severe flooding in his Atlanta home, so he headed to Muscle Shoals, AL, to soak in that town’s famous musical history and work with Ben Tanner (Alabama Shakes), who co-produced the record. The talented Little plays everything from mellotron to banjo as he refuses to be restrained by music industry expectations.
For most of CITYFOLK, the programmed beats and synths provide a mellow backing…
As AI becomes an increasing threat to humans trying to make a living from creative activities, Nubiyan Twist’s latest album is a defiant riposte. It is a celebration of the joyful energy and chaos that comes from musicians getting together in a room to play. While that could imply a scrappy sound, it would be a wildly inaccurate description of the ensemble. Chasing Shadows represents a skilful interception of jazz, afrobeat, R&B and electronics, fused with a mastery that reflects the nine-piece band’s background having formed in 2011 while studying at the Leeds College of Music.
Their fifth album resists the temptation of indulging in extended jams, all eleven tracks timing around the four-minute mark. New vocalist, Eniola Idowu, brings an extra soulful touch…
James Blake sometimes feels like pop music’s arch, ultra-serious older brother, floating above the scene with warbly torch songs that never quite come down to earth. He’s left his ghostly prints on artists ranging from Beyoncé to Rosalía to Lil Yachty, and it’s a testament to his influence how widespread his once novel, weightless style of production has become.
There was a time when it wasn’t common for mainstream artists to sing over instrumentals that sound like they would crumble against a gentle caress, or pitch vocals up and down to inhuman extremes. All of that experimentation, coupled with his heart-on-sleeve, midtempo songwriting, has lent Blake a somewhat dowdy image, like a Tory councillor who liked dubstep before…
…Over the course of those decades, Ace Records has established a number of long-running series including their Songwriters and Producers lines. A recent release in the Songwriters series celebrates two of the all-time greats in both categories: Philadelphia’s Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. Love Train: The Gamble and Huff Songbook brings together 24 songs from the Philadelphia International Records duo who also formed two thirds of Mighty Three Publishing along with the late Thom Bell. Though some of PIR’s brightest lights are represented here (The O’Jays, Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, Lou Rawls), the collection draws heavily on the songs written by G&H that left Philly to resonate in Detroit, Memphis, London, Jamaica, and beyond.
“Johnny can do what he wants,” Sturgill Simpson told Uncut when his new alias debuted on 2024’s Passage Du Desir, which found him rolling through Paris streets “like a cork in a bottle” while listening to ‘70s soft rock and Serge Gainsbourg.
His first five albums proper had burned Nashville bridges during an odyssey through outlaw country, psychedelia, synths and Kentucky bluegrass, while tracing the five metaphysical phases of the Western soul.
Johnny Blue Skies blew this preordained cycle away. He feels more real this time round, not as a Ziggy-style persona but as a means of instantaneous, unshackled creation. Mutiny After Midnight is a dirty boudoir record, a Southern take on Emotional Rescue, staged in a small-town…
Flying Mojito Bros released The Swamp Fox, an album featuring their remixes of recordings by late singer-songwriter Tony Joe White. Tony Joe White, known as The Swamp Fox, was a native of Louisiana and wrote such noteworthy songs as “Polk Salad Annie,” “Undercover Agent for the Blues” and “Rainy Night in Georgia.” White died in 2018 at age 75. White’s son and official archivist, Jody White, contacted Flying Mojito Bros (London-based duo Ben Chetwood and Jack Sellen) to collaborate with them on the remix album.
…”During the late 70’s and early 80’s, Tony Joe was blending country, swamp and disco into his own recipe of funky dance music,” Jody White explains. “With some help from the Flying Mojito Bros, these songs are about to see the light…
Throughout his career, Chicago-based trumpeter Marquis Hill has traced and celebrated Black life, while reflecting a hard-spun hope in everyday life. Further, the Black Church has remained influential on his art and spirituality. (Beautifulism) Sweet Surrender is a ten track EP, that focuses its sound and creative gaze on spirituality and transcendence with an audacious cast. The core players include guitarist Emmanuel Michel, bassist Junius Paul, saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Marcus Gilmore, percussionist Juan Pastor, and a slew of guests including Makaya McCraven, vocalists Amyna Love, Zacchae’us Paul, and Manessah, and rappers Cisco Swank and Kumbayaaa. The music on this 34-minute set dances a loose line between contemporary jazz, neo-soul…
Owelu Dreamhouse (pronounced Oh-WAY-lew) is a collaborative project masterminded by vocalist Nkechi Anele and multi-instrumentalist and arranger Nic Ryan-Glenie, both formerly of the band Saskwatch, with whom the pair helped shape the Melbourne soul renaissance. They now return with their new band, focused on a contemporary take on cinematic soul, supported by a myriad of musicians from their local scene.
Opener ‘Kellen’ sets their stall with its crisp percussion, sweeping strings, funk guitar licks and a searing trumpet solo in the track’s last leg. Anele lights up the record with her commanding vocals that vary from subtle and nuanced on ‘Tourist’ to searing intensity on the Afro-funk meets disco stomper ‘Struggle for Kasawa’.
When Stockholm-based musician Kendra Egerbladh started sharing her music under the handle waterbaby in the early to mid-2020s, she was noted for a sophisticated alt-pop that combined light touches of jazz, hip-hop, downtempo, and atmospheric bedroom pop on songs with highly personal lyrics.
Her full-length and Sub Pop label debut, Memory Be a Blade, reveals a surprising evolution in sound that retains the influence of jazz and broader alternative inspirations while relying less on gloss and aura and more heavily on acoustic instruments like strings. The result is something physically closer, more delicate, and more diaristic while at the same time more intricate. The album was produced by Marcus White, her main…
Most all within the sphere of my reach has a reverence for classic soul music. Not upper-cased to designate any genre distinction, but closer to the ground… the small “s” signifying what truly changes and crosses the course of our blood. We’ve sought solace and direction as if a spinning disc were a communion rail before which we surrender; as if at the bent knee of our parents. It’s a ritual that has remained fortifying and alive – because the music itself has: refusing challenges to its legacy and relevance by evolving as we do.
Otis Redding, being but one sharp example, continues to sound like a living human being leaping from a pair of speakers because, in a very real way, he is one: his voice still reaching out with what poet William Carlos Williams…
In 1971 several dozen African American soul, jazz, and gospel artists embarked on a journey that would change the lives of everyone involved. They traveled from New York City to Ghana, West Africa to take part in a 13-hour concert entitled Soul to Soul. The concert was a celebration of 14 years of Ghana’s independence from British rule. For most of these artists it was their first trip to Africa. For the African American musicians, this was a journey about personal roots, the ancestral homeland, history, discovery, loss, pain and joy.
Directed by Academy AwardⓇ winner Denis Sanders and produced by Tom Mosk & Richard Bock, the concert film/documentary had a limited theatrical run in 1971. It now returns restored with the original edit reconstructing each scene…
The newest release from Buffalo, NY instrumental jamband, Organ Fairchild, continues their tripped-out grooves mixed with smooth flowing vibes that lovers of their live shows have come to cherish. BOOM! is a sweet collection that takes the listener on a journey with the band, knowing that the tracks will shift and morph when the group enters their natural habitat, the stage.
For this studio effort, Organ Fairchild (Joe Bellanti- organ and keyboards, Corey Kertzie- drums and percussion, and Dave Ruch- guitar) worked with Justin Guip (Hot Tuna, Levon Helm), who recorded, mixed, and co-produced, and Alan Evans (Soulive), who mastered the record.
Opener “Westside Bowl” mixes smooth lounge-ready sounds with chicken scratchy guitar…
New 2026 Edition of 600% Dynamite, part of Soul Jazz Records classic compilation series of Jamaican music, featuring killer reggae in all styles – ska, soul, rocksteady, dancehall, funk and dub. Originally released in 2003 this album has been out of print for nearly 20 years making it one of the most-collectible of Soul Jazz Records’ Dynamite! Series.
Newly remastered and relicensed for 2026, the album is packed with dancefloor classics and non-stop reggae anthems such as Tenor Saw’s ‘Golden Hen’, Johnny Osbourne’s ‘Buddy Bye’, Dennis Brown’s ‘Wolf & Shepard’ and Sister Nancy’s ’Transport Connection’ alongside hard-to-find cuts by Tall T and the Touchers, The Interns, Tetrack and others, making the album a superlative…
Justin Hicks‘ vast body of work as a vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and sound artist extends beyond recording studios to galleries, museums, theaters, and other spaces. A keen collaborator with connections to myriad artists across disciplines, Hicks earned a Drama Desk Award nomination with his music for the Lynn Nottage play Mlima’s Tale, and he is an integral part of Meshell Ndegeocello’s band. He’s all over The Omnichord Real Book and No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, winners of the first two Grammys for Best Alternative Jazz Album. One standout from the latter is “Love,” featuring co-writer Hicks in harmony with the voices of wife Kenita Miller-Hicks, drummer Abe Rounds, and bassist/leader Ndegeocello,…
James Brown wants to know one thing before he and his band begin Sex Machine. “Can I get into the thing, really?,” he asks. His cohorts enthusiastically respond in the affirmative. And for the next hour and change, Mr. Dynamite gets into it and more, turning in a sweat-soaked, feet-moving, hip-swiveling, emotion-purging, in-the-red, drop-everything-you’re-doing-and-dance performance for the ages. Ranked by Rolling Stone among the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the sweeping 1970 effort towers as a testament to Brown’s inimitable legacy as well as the peak powers of his voice, vibrancy, and bands.
Sourced from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition hybrid SACD presents Sex Machine in audiophile sound for…
Almost four years separate Waves from Starfruit, the Grammy-nominated fifth record that brought Moonchild’s first round of guest features and gave the trio wider footing without altering the music’s center of gravity. Starfruit was recorded remotely during lockdown, populated by collaborators like Lalah Hathaway, Rapsody, Alex Isley, and Tank and the Bangas who slotted into the band’s pocket without disrupting it. Amber Navran has said the new project grew from a difficult stretch of personal reckoning, and the love songs that filled every prior Moonchild release have mostly vanished. In their place are songs about cutting people off, surviving hurt without pretending it ends, and telling yourself the truth when you’d rather not. Waves continues the collaborative instinct, but the subject…