With so much good music coming through thick and fast, it’s easy for brand-new music to drop online and go overlooked. To help prevent this, we’ve picked five new releases you may have missed but need to hear — stream music from Schemes, Reginald Omas Mamode IV, Gigi “Illuminated Audio, Greg Foat, and Minyo Crusaders. If you like what you hear, hit the links and support the artists.
Schemes – Schemes
Montreal-based collective Schemes come through with their self-titled album. The band is comprised of session musicians and this 7-track release was recorded in several studios’ in-between the member’s session work, with all the music you hear created live, giving the project a warm organic feel. Breezy, golden age-tinged sounds where jazz, hip-hop, soul and head-nodding mellow beats flow effortlessly together to create and fresh new whole. File under albums you didn’t know you needed. Highly recommended.
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Reginald Omas Mamode IV – Where We Going?
Reginald Omas Mamode IV has released a new project on Five Easy Pieces titled Where We Going? With influences ranging from golden era hip-hop, jazz, soul, afro, funk, Sega and Maloya, and music from Africa, the Caribbean, South London and the US; Mamode IV attempts to evoke feelings of universal love and compassion. Since debuting back in 2013 Mamode IV has gone from strength to strength and his new record may just be his best yet – listen to the album below and make sure you support!
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Greg Foat – The Mage
Greg Foat’s 9th album ‘The Mage’ joins the dots between the past and future of British jazz. Enlisting the talents of jazz/library/soundtrack legends Duncan Lamont, Art Themen, Ray Russell and Clark Tracey to collaborate with drummer Moses Boyd and Heliocentric’s Malcolm Catto to create something undeniably British but outward looking and global. Our end of year list beckons for ‘The Mage’. Stream this absolutely wonderful album below, it’s timeless.
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Minyo Crusaders – Echoes of Japan
Minyo Crusaders rework historic Japanese folk songs (min’yō) with Latin, African, Caribbean and Asian rhythms for their debut album Echoes of Japan. Originally sung by fishermen (Kushimoto Bushi; Mamurogawa Ondo), coal miners (Tanko Bushi) and sumo wrestlers (Sumo Jinku), these songs deal with topics such as the returning spirits of ancestors (Hohai Bushi), Japan’s smallest bird (Toichin Bushi) and a bride’s love for her husband’s pockmarked face (Otemoyan). The music fuses cumbia, Ethiopian jazz, Thai pop, Afro-funk and reggae.
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Gigi – Illuminated Audio
Kay Suzuki’s Time Capsule imprint recently reissued Illuminated Audio by Bill Laswell. The album features dub reinterpretations of Ethiopian singer Ejigayehu Shibabaw”s (aka Gigi) 2003 self-titled US debut album. Curated by Tokyo record collector, and music researcher Ken Hidaka who describes Illuminated Audio as a “masterful sonic exploration into ethereal ambience and dub” and made sure this reissue also contained a full remaster to give its “deep musicality” much better dynamics and density in the overall sound. A dazzling rediscovered masterpiece that everyone should listen to at least once or maybe twice…
