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 share our mini guide to the best new albums/mini-albums/EP’s/ you need to hear — stream releases from Joe Armon Jones, Sampa The Great, Moonchild, Corey King plus a collaborative EP by Ben Vince & Jacob Samuel. If you like what you hear, hit the links and support the artists.
Joe Armon Jones – Turn To Clear View
Joe Armon Jones follows up last year’s EP ‘Starting Today’ with a new full-length album, titled ’Turn To Clear View’. The 8-track record has a similar aesthetic to the EP but sounds bigger and bolder and draws from a larger style pool. The project is steeped in jazz but the overall sound is a myriad of p-funk, bass, neo-soul, dub, hip-hop beats, rap, and Afrobeat. Co-produced with longtime collaborator Maxwell Owin, whose studio skills elevate this record even higher especially on tracks like ‘Try Walk With Me’, ‘You Didn’t Care’, and ‘Icy Roads (Stacked)’. Other notable moments include the soulful closer ‘Self: Love’ featuring the totally brilliant Obongjayar. The swaggering ‘Yellow Dandelion’ featuring Georgia Anne Muldrow is the standout of the record! With its big brassy horns, sweet synths, groovy electric piano keys and of course the honeyed vocals of GAM it’s one of those tracks that you’ll have on repeat again and again (and again)! Looking forward to seeing this dope young artist continue to grow with each release.
Sampa The Great – The Return
Debut album from Sampa The Great and The Return is a thoughtful journey of young black women trying to make it in the music industry. Her sound is an accomplished blend of R&B, hip-hop, jazz and Southern African influences, and the album has already been championed by the likes of MIMS, OkayAfrica, BBC 6 and Worldwide FM to name a few. Across nineteen tracks you’ll find her working alongside a host of talented collaborators like Steam Down, Blue Lab Beat, Silentjay, Kwes Darko, Clever Austin, Jonwayne and more. Sampa is great (pun intended) and on fire right now!
Moonchild – Little Ghost
If you loved the previous Moonchild albums (Voyager, Please Rewind and Be Free ) then Little Ghost will go down a treat. With their signature style of alternative R&B, soul and new-school jazz the trio has cemented their spot in today’s music scene, continuing to intertwine lyrical concepts with expansive glistening melodies, harmonies and irresistible interludes. Another stellar collection of songs that will delight the die-hards and gain them an abundance of new followers.
Corey King – A Loveless Sunken Sun
Corey King impresses with a killer new EP that traverses fresh musical ground. Whereas his 2016 outing Lashes leaned more towards rock and indie influences, A Loveless Sunken Sun manifests the breadth of King’s musical scope; dabbling in all forms of sounds, from electronic, krautrock to Afrobeat. Record during the passing of his grandmother and the birth of his son this atmospheric and richly impressionistic work offers a glimpse of King’s moody and rewarding experience of life. The 7-track EP is an openhearted and deeply personal recording that finds King at his most immersive yet still entirely accessible. His brilliant deconstruction and reimagining of Mark Pritchard’s Beautiful People is quite wonderful! This is something you are not going to want to miss! Absolutely love it.
Ben Vince & Jacob Samuel – I’ll Stick Around
This release is so insanely good! I’ll Stick Around sees the two prolific collaborators meet on record for the first time for a series of duets. The four-song set is rich in musicality and feeling and is a testament to Vince and Samuel’s synergy in collaboration. It’s a record quite unlike anything either musician has released so far and is a must listen in our books. An exquisite free jazz album that hits the mark from the first key chord to the very last brass blast.
