Back catalogue: Broken Beat/Nu Jazz

Review: Second chapter of the 'Inside' series of various artists eps selected by Neroli's very own Volcov. This time with a more eclectic approach than the previous volume, exploring more electronic landscapes with Domu's downtempo ambience song aptly titled 'Point Of Entry' and Jamal Moss's unmistakable sound on his opus 'Black Hands Sound 63' on the first side. On the flipside Mother Tongue's own Patrick Gibin returns with another bouncing collaboration with Kaidi Tatham entitled 'Don't Read' and new upcoming wonder producer EDB serves 'You Bring Me Joy' with the help of Alberto Lincetto on keys and NTS resident Marshmello on vocals!

Review: Kyle Hall makes another entry into the already fine discography of his Forget The Clock label with another fine four tracker. His usual raw style pervades from the off with the well swung drums and bumping kicks of the title track soon to get you in the groove. His signature diffuse synth work is what brings warmth and soul to the dusty drums of 'Track 2' while 'Sarabi' ups the pace with a more hurried groove and pent up sense of party joy. A second bonus track closes proceedings, with 'Track 4' layering up low slung drums and meandering cosmic leads to heady effect.

Review: Kyle Hall treats us to a new and special pressing of his standout Equanimity EP which was last reissued back in 2020. This one comes on limited edition translucent teal vinyl and was initially put out to mark the ten-year anniversary of Detroit native Hall's own Wild Oats label. In that decade he has established it as one of his hometown's finest for dusty deep house explorations. The four tracks on it are just that with a whimsical melody over bumpy beats on the opener, then more zoned-out beats on '4wrd Motion' and glitchy kicks and hits on 'No More Moon'. Last of all is the star-gazing cosmic house of 'Ghosten 4 A 2nd X'. A timeless EP for sure.

Review: Japanese Wunderkind Hakushi Hasegawa made their Brainfeeder debut back in 2023, dropping the incredible Somoku Hudo after a slating of similarly super jazzbreaks released independently until that magical moment. Having not yet made their mark with a wider international audience, it was up to impresario FlyLo and co. to 'break' Hasegawa, resulting first in an infamous Fuji Rock festival appearance and now a resultant repress of the initially digital mini-album. Somoku Hudo is a surreally intense jubilant jaunt through hallmarks of J-pop, neo-jungle and cutecore, ever veering on the chromatic and rhythmically errant. A crude comparison would be if Mario Kart met Tennyson met Sunik Kim, though even this is just a first-listen comparison; an auditory encounter with the Real, if you will, it's difficult to capture Hasegawa's music totally in words except for its seeming invitation to make references to other sources - which, huzzah, indicates new experimental electronic ground has been trodden!

Review: Healing Force Project is prolific Italian artist Antonio Marini. Over the last decade he has dropped plenty of heat on the likes of Firecracker, Berceuse Heroique, 2 Headed Deer, Random Numbers and more. Drifted Entities Vol 1 is his latest offering and is an experimental take on dub, cosmic funk, jazz and drum & bass with the HFP signature unifying it all. 'Tiny Germs' opens up on dark, sparse drums that are kinda haunting then 'Upbeat Damage' is a deconctructed jungle jazz cut with squealing synths that bring the horror. The flip side continues in that eerie manner with fresh musicality and loose arrangements drawing you in.

Review: HF International, the duo of DJ/beatmaker KH (Magic Ways) and multi-instrumentalist Seiki Fukuda, debut with 'Tokai', a reggae/city pop split 7" paying due homage to esteemed Japanese singer-songwriter Taeko Onuki. The duo covers Onuki's classic song 'Tokai' from her 1980 album Romantique, infusing it with their very own lovers' rock twist. On the B-side also comes a jazzy, never-released-before rework from rare groove band and Urban Discos favourite, Nautilus.

Review: Brainfeeder serves up this new 12" from Hiatus Kaiyote which finds them diving ever deeper into their own idiosyncratic world of jazzy electronics and expansive grooves. The Australian funk outfit has been nominated twice for a Grammy and their Mood Valiant album was critically acclaimed by all. The pick of this limited green vinyl is the title track 'Canopic Jar' with its lurching beats, twisted guitars and stained lead vocal. It comes as an instrumental and an Capella while the opener 'Journey To The Crystal Tomb' is a short but sweet passage of haunting ambient.

Review: Eric Hilton's most recent full length album Sound Vagabond, has been making some waves in the downtempo and chill out circles. Known for his smooth urban beats, catchy grooves and unique melodies as part of Thievery Corporation, he's a celebrated name in the downtempo scene, as well as being supportive of the vinyl DJ scene too. 'Midnight Milan' was taken from the album and sees a beautiful melody riding along perfectly to the easy-going rhythm. Simple but oh, so perfect - and that's before we mention the fact it's pressed on mint green colored vinyl.

Review: Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation has long been a ardent fan of the DJ community and his most recent physical output strategy is to take key tracks from his most recent album and place them on DJ friendly 7" singles, each released with beautiful artwork and matching coloured vinyl, with an unreleased track to compliment on the B-side. 'Poppy Fields' is a funky groove that features a unique melody and urban eastern vibe to it. The flip side, 'French Bird' continues the smooth downtempo happenings. With Eric Hilton, you can always expect a great groove and a wonderful approach to chill out music - this is no exception.

Review: Eric Hilton has an album on the way called Corazon Kintsugi and this is the first taster single from it. It comes on a lovely 7" pink vinyl and the A-side has Natalia Clavier on vocals. The long-term Thievery Corporation collaborator delivers a delicate musing over the lush and Balearic downtempo beats for a most soothing listen. On the flip side is the previously unreleased track 'Niemeyer' which is just as floats light but has a little more of a percussive edge to it as it rolls on infinitely.

Review: Genesis present a 7" release of Japanese jazz singer Yusuke Hirado's cover of 'He Loves You'. The original song was written and recorded by Hawaiian jazz-fusion band Seawind, and now it's been given a silky smooth update by Hirado assisted by Yu-ri Tanaka. The track is buffeted along by the sweetest Rhodes chords and a funky, Moog-esque lead, but there's also a distinct slant from the steady tick of the drum machine patterns which form the rhythmic backbone of this version. Backed up with 'Collision In Blue', this is a perfect single for anyone who appreciates that clean, crisp approach to a jazz classic.

Review: Detroit native Jason Hogans will not be a familiar name to many, despite the fact he has been putting out music - albeit sporadically - for 20 odd years. A release on Theo Parrish's hero-worshipped Sound Signature will always put you in the spotlight, though, especially when it's as good as this. The artist explores deep Motor City house, percussive broken beats and that shamanistic, off-grid sound that label head Theo Parrish is such a master of. Standouts include the airy, spacious beat work of 'Favorite Coffee Mug' and steamy post-jungle concoction that is 'For My Solids.'

Review: The upcoming second solo studio album by US singer-songwriter and guitarist Brittany Howard (of Alabama Shakes fame), What Now follows up Jaime and its Reimagined edition, striking out with a fierce, "truest and bluest", nigh "brutal" lyricism, in which Howard addresses the titular question - "what now?" - and how today's society might respond. Written, of course, during the height of the pandemic, when such doubts were excised and up in the air (and more so than usual), the album's sonic aesthetic spans full-bodied funk, psychedelic chord progressions, and a powerful bombast. The overall answer sounds to be: move through it; surrender to "the now", gracefully.

Review: Fresh Sounds #000 is a new and unique series, limited and numbered to 150 examples thanks to the efforts of its parent company Ribo Cochlee. For the very first edition of the series, a mockley crew of newcomers come to the fore, be they DJ Moar, Disco Flegrei or Holdtight. Centring on woozy jazzdance and disco with an airily produced bent, the highlights on this one have to be Flegrei's 'Titamesque', which basks in a kind of sexy sophistry procured by the heady combination of live drums and a (we think) muted bass clarinet, and Yured Jones' 'Far Away', which breaks from the genre prescription for a more cinematic breakdown.

Review: Laurel Halo has always forged her own distinctive path from one project to the next, at times toying with the structures of electronic music and at others heading in a more classically-trained, minimalist direction. As such, it's no surprise that her new album Atlas is both unpredictable in its style, and utterly magnificent with it. Playing out as 'a suite of sensual ambient jazz collages', Halo captures something of the ghostly, barely there atmosphere of The Caretaker but replaces the cracked sadness with cosy, comforting mood lurking in the middle distance. It's a hazy, sleepy Sunday afternoon experience with extravagant detail and intention folded elegantly into gorgeously understated music, as compelling as we've come to expect from a standout maverick.

Review: The fourth ever solo studio album from the acclaimed electronic artist and composer Laurel Halo, Atlas is intended to guide the listener through their own subconscious mind, coming as an intense sequence of soaring ambiences and beatless jazz montages. Finding its footing in instrumental improvisation by Halo herself, plus featuring artists Coby Sey, James Underwood and Lucy Railton - and then blowing any assumptive connotation with jazz out of the park with its subtly effected vocal processing and electronic tinkerings and washes thereafter - fans can be sure that this is not going to be your stock experimental affair.

Review: As part of his Gondwana label's 10th anniversary, masterful Manchester trumpeter and contemporary jazz trendsetter Matthew Halsall has put together a special deluxe edition of his beautiful "Colour Yes" album with thick reverse board sleeves, silver block letter foiling and two printed inner sleeves. First released in 2009, the album showcases Halsall's deeply emotive style across the 8 achingly good, supremely spiritual tracks that glow with gorgeous piano playing, gently lilting drums and his own fantastic leads.

Review: Following 2014's When The World Was One, Halsall and the Gondwana collective continue their spiritual jazz adventure with another immaculate narrative. Now with much more vocal prowess, singer Josephine Oniyama plays a lead role in the story, adding consistency and personality to the Halsall's swooning, cinematic odysseys. Highlights include the Hathaway-style half spoken/half sung "Badder Weather", the frenetic double bass and brushed drum crescendos of "The Land Of", the (lark) ascending strings and oriental scales of "Cushendun" and the smoky, faraway Coltraneisms of the title track. Modern jazz doesn't get any more authentic than this.

Review: Second time around for the late, great Rai Harakami's second album, Opa*q, gets the reissue treatment. It's long been tricky to source outside of Japan and for whatever reason has not been issued in any form since it first surfaced in 2009. It's an attractive and at times off-kilter blend, with Harakimi mixing and matching ambient textures and enveloping electronic soundscapes with jazzy keyboard solos, quirky grooves, madcap post-techno acid lines, IDM and break-core style beats, and the kind of squelchy and tactile synth motifs more often associated with boogie albums made in the 1980s. It feels pleasingly lo-fi, too, as if a writer of 1980s and early 90s video-game soundtracks had made an electronica album. This edition also includes fine remixes by Ian O'Brien and Max 404, plus two hard-to-find bonus cuts.

Review: Much has changed for violinist, composer and singer-songwriter Bev Lee Harling since the release of her acclaimed debut album, Barefoot In Your Kitchen, nine years ago. It's these changes - parenthood, family life, the difficulty of retaining artistic creativity and vision when it plays second fiddle to other life commitments - that inspired Little Anchor, a sophomore album recorded at different times and places over the last decade. First and foremost, the song is full of superb songs with plenty to say, with Harling's distinctive vocal delivery being joined by imaginative musical arrangements (her violin is naturally present throughout) and production that variously touches on soul, future synth-pop, jazz and dreamy electronica.

Review: The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon over the course of the Pandemic, and was a chance to give their creative friends the ability to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted for release on the label. The music had to be great and able to be presented as a standalone album, just like the best 'Music Library' releases of the past, be they on labels like Italy's Sermi, Germany's Bruton, France's MP2000 and the UK's DeWolfe. And, like those albums, it had to work as easy, one-stop clearance for background cues in film and television production and, as producers have been indulging since the 1990s, for sampling. Joe Harrison's top-up to the series is just one of many, and brings a heated, undeniably infectious array of instrumentals to the table, all of which we're sure will be put to good use in the decades to come.

Review: When Keyon Harrold lists the influences that he turned to during the creation of his rich and evocative new album Foreverland, he cites the likes of Radiohead, Fleet Foxes, Fela Kuti, John Coltrane, and, for a second, he becomes vulnerable; the list is too basic, too serious-music-listener-starter-pack. But, out of that moment of insecurity, he spins an indelible flex: "You are what you eat, and I have a pretty strict diet in dope shit. Taking in Keyon Harrold's career to-date, it's clear that the 'world-class trumpeter' (Essence) and composer is very serious about that diet. He's a jazz musician but in the most expansive sense, working with a list of dream collaborators: generational legends Keith Richards and Diana Ross; rap stars like Mac Miller and Nas; neo-soul icons Erykah Badu and D'Angelo; and modern soul stars Black Pumas and Leon Bridges. His circle of regular collaborators is formidable and includes his music industry mentor Common (who hired him for his first touring gig), his New School classmate Robert Glasper, and GRAMMY winners Maxwell, PJ Morton, Gregory Porter, and YEBBA. Even apart from its compositional intricacies and stylistic innovations, Foreverland is a triumph of resilience and empowerment. "What will be said when you're gone?", says Keyon. "If you're not living life - getting beat up, getting your heart broken, winning, losing - what are you doing? What about your life can people learn from? If you don't put yourself in the ring sometimes, there won't be anything." On Foreverland, Keyon takes life's challenges head-on - and emerges, in both music and in life, with a renewed sense of purpose.

Review: Brainfeeder looks back to Japanese hybridist Hakushi Hasegawa's first album Air Ni Ni here and reissues it on limited grey marbled vinyl. Although on the surface it might be thought of as pop, get in between the beats and you will find a challenging record that fused everything from bubblegum pop to breakcore, prog jazz to video games and much more besides. The record first came in 2019 and remains astonishingly diverse and new in the way it mashes up traditional genre boundaries and draws on alt-rock. Fans of label head Flying Lotus are sure to love it as is anyone who heard it first tie round.

Review: The Jon Hassell retrospective series from Ndeya Records continues with 'Further Fictions', one of the recent three to explore the visionary composer and performer's ideas centring around the idea of the Fourth World. Further Fictions is a double CD anthology of the music on the vinyl editions, with a disc devoted to each album in hardbound book style packaging and an extensive booklet containing sleevenotes and archival images.

Review: The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things by the Power of Sound, to give its full title, is one of the less talked-about Jon Hassell albums, but it's just as worthy of celebration. The Fourth World pioneer and raga trumpeter had established his fundamental sound by the late 80s, and this album works so brilliantly as a demonstration of that sound in action. Hassell's distinctive treated trumpet remains the central focus, while undulating rhythms and atmospheres unfurl around it as we're quickly buffeted away to strange and distant places. The mood Hassell captured on his finest works is a rare and unique thing - intense and subtle, ominous and calming, mysterious and yet so immediately appealing.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Listening to Helado Negro feels like you've finally had a shower, got changed, and made your way to the wooden veranda of your Air B&B on a lush tropical beachfront after a hard day adventuring. We're not going to tell you what you're drinking, though - it wouldn't be in keeping with Far In's attitude.

If all that sounds a little vague and abstract, let's move to the music itself. Slowly, woozily strolling out with 'Wake Up Tomorrow', this is downtempo, late night shadows dancing on walls, blues-tinged, jazz-infused chill out made with real instruments and plenty of emotions, with the odd slice of relaxed, warm, slow dance throw in for good measure. It's nice, beautiful and incredibly intelligent stuff, ideal for any occasion, and out of place nowhere.

Review: Roberto Lange is back with a new album for 4AD which feels in stark contrast to his previous outing, 2021's Far In. That album was a definite lockdown record, and now Lange is in the mood to reach out and celebrate the sunshine, funnelling his dense and dusky production and playing into some wonderfully varied songs. There's a unique sentimentality to the Helado Negro sound captured in the huge reverb tails which spiral out of songs like 'LFO (Lupe Finds Oliveros)', but there's no immediate fix for the curious charm of his dusty indie rock sound.

Review: Psych voyagers par excellence The Heliocentrics are back, some three years after they dropped the incredible soundtrack to LSD documentary "The Sunshine Makers". "Infinity Of Now" drops on Madlib Invazion, which speaks to the fertile crossover zone The Helio's occupy where funk and hip hop collide with psych in scintillating fashion. The sound is fierce and heavy as the album opens up, with a dose of horror schlock poured into tracks like "Venom", calling to mind some of the German kosmische trippers like Brainticket. Raw, wild and oh-so live, this is up there amongst the best from a band with a glittering track record.

Review: Seven years since its initial release, this is the deluxe repressing of 'Choose Your Weapon' by Australian jazz/funk band Hiatus Kaiyote. The Grammy-nominated four-piece's second LP returns to stereos with this 18-track, 70-minute odyssey that takes listeners on a journey through the group's self-created ecosystem, populated with songs each embodying its own mini-cinematic sonic soundscape. Pressed on gorgeous photoluminescent vinyl, paired with a bonus 7" featuring a Roman Soto Cello rework of side B's 'Breathing Underwater' and a genius club mix of 'Making Friends with Studio Owl', the second half of the interlude from the original - a highpoint in sound.

Review: Since its inception, producer and composer Joe Acheson has carefully developed Hidden Orchestra from a simple initial project concept of 'an imagined orchestra' into something that has flourished into a widespan musical universe of its own, truly unlike anything else. While new album 'To Dream is to Forget' certainly maintains this mission statement, it also brings about a sea-change for the project on a few fronts. Released via Acheson's own newly formed Lone Figures imprint, the musical direction for the record involved a concerted effort to condense musical themes and ideas into more immediate arrangements, with less utilisation of field recordings than previously released material. Amounting to a slow-building sublimation for cathartic live-feel buildups and neoclassical slowdowns, the album sums up its title nicely, quoted from poet Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa - 'no one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake.'

Review: The inimitable Jamal Moss comes forth with his second offering for Madrid's Apnea records. 'The Moon Dance' unfurls over 11 tracks- in turns pensive, elegiac, and slammin'. Between the sedate expanse of opener 'When The Earths Shadow Falls On The Moon' and the final cymbal strokes of gauche, machine funk closer 'Mawu', Moss lifts us on yet another Afrofuturist space flight of fancy, passing through superclusters of deep house, tactile techno and stroboscopic piano jams along the way.
Standout moments include the smoove-as-u-like-it intergalactic lounge jazz diversion 'The Moondance Moon Walk Version'; its steezy stride-piano vamp seamlessly intertwining with Moss' signature babbling acid intrusions, the irresistibly groovy bump of 'Tethered 2 The Divinely Spaces With In' and the hypnotic sway of 'Celestial Poems Of The Lady With 10000 Names', which opens up from Terrence Dixon-esque introspection into broad windy city string washes and synapse-tickling bleeps. With this collection, Moss pens yet another crucial chapter in the seemingly bottomless hieroglyphic being scroll. While 'The Moon Dance' is one of his most accessible and harmonious works to date, it doesn't lose an ounce of the rawness and immediacy of his previous work. Essential listening!

Review: Thievery Corporation member and co-founder of Eighteenth Street Lounge Music Eric Hilton is here with his latest full album titled Sound Vagabond. With 14 songs in total, Eric gathers his cast experience with fusing genres into a more singular vision on this long player. Fans of Thievery Corporation will definitely feel at home with this, like seeing an old friend. The sounds are crisp, clean, laid back and a perfect balance of a loose fusion yet jazzy and patterns constructed with sharp beats. The creative instruments introduced into many of these are perhaps the most impressive thing about these tracks. It makes this style come alive anew. This album is presented on fantastic looking blue vinyl.

Review: Thievery Corporation veteran Eric Hilton is on a roll with his Montserrat House label, operating out of DC and adding new layers to his considerable legacy in downtempo sounds. As was teased by the 'Amor Astral' single from 2023, this new album finds Hilton working closely with long time Thievery collaborator, Argentinian singer Natalia Clavier. Her coolly soulful tone hovers over the buttery funk jams Hilton lays down, where the drums are tight and crisp and the basslines wrap themselves around the groove with snake-like grip, all the better to sink into when you need a little chill-out time from a certified master of the art.

Review: Kryptox returns with yet another incredible album, once more hammering home their untoppled status as the best out their for weirdo jazz at the minute. This one's from Joel Holmes, a jazz pianist mainly stooped in the dance world, having worked with Carl Craig, Roy Hargrove and Common to name but a few. Into The Abyss is a sonic tour of the the present Berlin jazz and electronic scene, with fellow Berliners such as Ziggy Zeitgeist appearing as cameos, cropping up alongside other international guests such as London's Tenderlonious.

Review: Shafiq Husayn has been a driving force on the Los Angeles music scene for decades. He is a producer, songwriter and vocalist who is part of the agenda setting trio Sa-Ra Creative Partners and has produced for greats like Erykah Badu, Robert Glasper, Ice-T, Bilal and Jurassic 5. The Grammy winner is also leader of the expansive The Dove Society collective with whom he links here for a new album So Gold. It's an eclectic, love-fulled fusion of jazz, cosmic soul, hip hop and r&b that is packed with lush musicianship, smooth vocal flows and timeless grooves.