Hell Yeah Italy Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Sensory Blending is a new collaborative album from Italian collective Aura Safari and Finnish musician Jimi Tenor, born from an impromptu studio session after a Hell Yeah party in Perugia. Despite never having met, their synergy results in a vibrant record brimming with musicality and indelible melodies. Tenor, a psychedelic space-jazz-funk virtuoso, joins forces with Aura Safari's skilled musicians, known for their label regularity and sublime Island Dreams album. From the seductive opener 'Bodily Synesthesia' to the dramatic finale 'Indigo,' Sensory Blending offers a seamless fusion of talents, hinting at potential live performances later this year.

Review: The master of instrumental downtempo funk and soul returns with four more sides of gloriously laid back grooves as the label reissues his Before album. Fukagawa Kiyotaka was in top form here with supremely sunny sax motifs and deep, lush drums sinking you in right from the off. He then leans on his cultural heritage with Eastern melodies drifting over starry-eyed chords, layers in plenty of serene strings and even gets jazzy on the fantastic 'Feel It.' A downtempo and Balearic masterpiece for sure.

Review: Calm is a Japanese master of downtempo and ambient. He has been turning out his sophisticated full-lengths in this scene for many years, and plenty of them have become cult classics, all while he offers up new tracks that are just as lush. Hell yeah has always been a keen supporter of his work and now the label reissue his early and excellent Moonage Electric Ensemble. It's a mix of spoken words and captivating melodies, downtempo beats, trip hop grooves and new classical melodies all with a fresh jazz sensibility that means it is as smooth and vital now as it ever was.

Review: On paper, this may seem an unlikely collaboration - Japanese ambient and deep acid stalwart meets eccentric Finnish lounge, jazz and exotica veteran - but it's a genuinely brilliant EP. 'Big City Takes' genuinely makes the best of both Calm and Jimi Tenor's talents, with the latter's eyes-closed vocals, evocative flutes and shuffling exotica rhythms fitting perfectly with the former's stirring strings and immersive ambient electronics. Tapes remixes, first delivering a jazzy hip-hop informed head-nodder before serving up some ambient dub/digi-dub fusion, before Calm delivers his version of a second Tenor collaboration, 'Time and Space' - an ambient jazz masterpiece. Vendetta Suite's warming, subtly tropical Balearic rework of that track is also brilliant. Tip!