Back catalogue: Funk Soul & Jazz

Review: The state51 Conspiracy label comes very much correct early on in the New Year with this two-track grey marbled vinyl 12" in a fancy spot-varnished sleeve. It takes the form of two fresh Santaka reworks of original compositions by Rytis Mazulis and avant-garde choir Melos Collective which were first released back in 2020. Santaka, which means "confluence" in Lithuanian, is the coming together of DJ and producer Manfredas and drummer and producer Marijus Aleksa and here they layer up disembodied vocals and dark jazz melodies on 'Ramybe' and then 'Autoportretas' is a textural ambient exploration packed with fascinating sound designs.

Review: A classic track on many Cafe Del Mar compilations in the early 90s, The Hypnotist by Sisterlove finally gets a proper reissue. Thank you to Sound Migration for keeping all four original versions complete on this homage to the 1993 release. For those who enjoy the chill-out sound of the 90s where ambient, electronic and house music took on a spiritual and psychedelic overview, you will fall in love with this one. We can't say enough great things about what sound this track represents. Old skool heads and new fans of the sound, snap this up quickly!

Review: Following up 2021's acclaimed Vulture Prince, Pakistini American singer Arooj Aftab collaborates with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily on synths to present a striking exercise in dramatic, atmospheric composition. Aftab's voice remains the centre of a creative groupthink which began in 2018, and here the musical ornamentation is turned down to a simmer, eschewing percussion in favour of ambient pastures. There's also space for Iyer and Ismaily to stretch out on their own, but ultimately this is Aftab's vehicle and her voice goes from strength to strength on this standout record.

Review: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn reunite for new album Quiet in a World Full of Noise, which is driven by their shared curiosity and desire to defy genre conventions. Following their 2022 collaboration Pigments, this new work together blends atmospheric, orchestral soundscapes with soulful jazz and intimate, confessional vocals and the result is a raw and exposed performance from Richard who delivers stark lyricism that feels both personal and profound. The album redefines the worlds of progressive, avant-garde r&b and jazz with an ethereal yet grounded approach, heavenly melodies and plenty of wide open space in which to luxuriate. By merging the familiar with the unexpected, this fine pair create a sound that makes a lasting impression.

Review: Ryuichi Sakamoto is making a very welcome return here with his first solo album since 2017's async. Milan Records are releasing 12 in January to coincide with the venerated Japanese composer's 71st birthday, and the timing is poignant given the album draws from musical sketches created while Sakamoto battled for two and a half years with cancer. Sakamoto himself describes reaching for his synths as a kind of therapeutic response to a big operation, and so the music carries an added depth of personal experience from one of the most profound ordeals a person can go through.

Review: Wewantsounds has put together a re-release of the late, great Ryuichi Sakamoto's classic album Coda, which was originally issued in his native Japan in 1983. This album is a solo piano rendition of the seminal Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence soundtrack and has never been available outside Japan until now. It finds legendary composer Sakamoto perform acoustic piano interpretations of his iconic themes including the classic title track and 'Germination,' which later featured in the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack. Remastered by Seigen Ono's Saidera Mastering studio in Tokyo, this reissue includes the original artwork and a four page insert with new liner notes by Andy Beta.

Review: Released to coincide with Japanese musical Goliath Ryuichi Sakamoto's 70th birthday, To the Moon & Back was almost inevitable. Even without worrying reports about the maestro's health, there's no way anyone can have such a significant impact on global music for so long and not have people wanting to pay tribute upon reaching septuagenarian years.
And what a tribute it is. Taking elements from a huge back catalogue that stretches back to the mid-1970s, contemporary greats including Thundercat, Alva Noto, Hildur Guonadottir, The Cinematic Orchestra, and David Sylvian offer new versions and remixes of the master's stuff, with each track here chosen by Sakamoto, which is about as significant a seal of approval as you could hope for. Like the man himself, it's widely varied, consistently innovative and just really, really good.

Review: A saxophonist at the pinnacle of his game, Shabaka Hutchings presents 'Afrikan Culture, on which he explores the rich musical traditions of the African continent and combines them with contemporary, self-affirming themes. Remarkably for how well-touted his name is, this is Hutchings' first ever solo LP, bringing it to the masses under the name Shabaka (following on the smash success of Sons Of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming). It's a stunning, existential album which not only pays tribute to the Afrofuturist greats who precede him, but which, of course, looks squarely into the eyes of Afroftuture that will come after him.

Review: Composer and multi-instrumentalist Shabaka Hutchings releases his sophomore LP Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace', building on his increasingly impressive career working with Andre 3000, Sun Ra Arkestra and heading multiple bands - not least the, now dissolved, The Comet is Coming. The album marks the king's return to music, following his abandonment of the saxophone in 2023. Here he returns to his original instrumental calling, the clarinet, but a wide array of wind is on offer. The first single, the opening track 'End of Innocence', is a succinct clarinet and piano marriage. The reverberation of the keys softly emanates behind the masterfully controlled clarinet lead, with perfectly placed percussion sprinkled throughout. It's introspective, serene and understated - a supremely narrative feel that only instrumental jazz can give off.

Review: Joseph Shabason, Matthew Sage, and Nicholas Krgovich form a harmonious triangle, both musically and geographically. Hailing from Toronto, Colorado, and Vancouver respectively, they converged at Sage's barn studio nestled at the foot of the Rockies to explore their shared talent for finding beauty in life's mundane moments. Shabason, known for blending late 80s adult-contemporary and smooth jazz aesthetics into ethereal soundscapes, joins forces with Sage, who combines instrumental prowess with synthesis and field recordings to evoke the natural world's whimsy and profundity. Completing the trio is Krgovich, whose observational poetics add a relatable touch to their calm expressionism. Their collaborative album, warmly Shabason, Krgovich, Sage extends the wry and melancholic micro-miracles established in their previous works.

Review: Kakashi is the latest in a long line of largely forgotten Yasuaki Shimizu albums and side projects to be given the reissue treatment. The album was originally released in Japan by Better Days back in 1981, and saw the jazz man-turned-ambient explorer join the dots between melodious, post-punk era jazz-fusion, new age influenced downtempo grooves, dub, ambient and eccentric, hard-to-pigeonhole experimentation. While musically diverse, the album hangs together beautifully. This is primarily down to two key factors: the ubiquity of Shimizu's evocative saxophone, flute and clarinet playing, and the richness of the multi-instrumentalist's superb production.

Review: Featuring a tenor saxophone and digital keyboard with subtle additions of other instruments, it offers up an effortless and expansive exchange between Shiroishi and Kurek whose collaboration first began during a BBC Radio 3 remote session aired on Jennifer Lucy Allan's Late Junction show in February 2024. The easy chemistry between them continued after the show and soon resulted in tracks that celebrate intuitive expression and the tenderness of first takes. Across these immersive sounds jazz sounds their sense of trust and discovery is there for all to hear as their sonics elegantly complement each other's voices and gestures.

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Review: Space Drum Meditation is back with a reissue of Four Tusks, a 12-track odyssey of dreaded sonics and trepidatious treks through augmented wildernesses. Their debut album and seventh reissue on the eponymous label, the duo of Eddie Ness and Liem were once fixtures of the house musical landscape at large, yet only with SDM did they turn their hands to demurer experimental soundscapes, informed by the "tribal" gloom and etherics of an electro-auxed rainforest. Throughout Four Tusks, we hear the sleeker, pantherine side of their catalogue, with ritualistic drumming heard well-melded into many a grim, cowled and rattling texture, all glued by the faint but here still oppressive sound of rain, not to mention vapour steaming off the megaphylls.

Review: The vinyl edition of the erst CD album The Love It Took Took Leave You by Colin Stetson is now upon us. The esteemed saxophonist and multi-reedist marks his first full-length solo recording since 2017 here, delivering an album drawn on the experience of love lost, and yet zest for life regained. Written some years before its release - yet always lurking in the background, waiting for recognition apropos the right moment - The Love It Took To Leave You was recorded over the course of a week in early 2023 at The Darling Foundry, a 144-year-old former metalworks facility in Montreal, now transformed into a contemporary art complex, with a voluminous main room that still maintains its raw architecture of brick, concrete and steel. With an arsenal of saxes and clarinets, Stetson builds a heartbroken yet integral tapestry of emotions, his saxophonic welt-geist riffing upon whirling, looping maelstroms of breath, chamber reverb and unerring focus.

Review: You don't need to know that Craobh Haven was made during a one week residency at a tiny cabin in a remote Scottish village of the same name. One play through of the latest stunner to land on the ever-excellent ambient institution SWIMS and it'll feel like you were there in person. A witness to the creation of this strangely natural-feeling, highly technically-crafted, six tracker. Everything about the work by London-based musician and visual artist Loz Keystone and Glaswegian synth explore and jazz trumpeter Christos Stylianides feels in the right place. Its warm and fuzzy but vast and windswept. It's avant garde and abstract, but rounded and complete. It's incredibly inviting and slowly hypnotic. Distant samples of inaudible chatter and looped melodic refrains. Distorted walls of noise masking the patient power of aching brass. You get the point.