Fresh Faves: Batch 604

I wrote the faves reviews for fresh on the net this week so I thought I’d publish them here. BUTTER FUNK FAMILY – Love Power Printz Board · Love Power (feat. Nadav Peled) To kick off this week’s faves we have a psychedelic funk track that takes us all the way back to the early …

Track Of The Day: “Sunset And Memories” – Blue Lab Beats X Kaidi Akinnibi

First up – this track is way too catchy – if you’re not disciplined enough to hold it down and keep it calm in public then I suggest you don’t play this. I’m serious. From the beginning you have a melody that hooks you, that’s sung by Colenso Abafana Benkokhelo and it’s pure fire, add …

Track Of The Day: “Rich Man” – Hapin Usuwo

Now this is a track that is a meal suitable only for the Asantehene! A bit of folk, combined with soul, and a bit of an Afrobeat groove to sweeten the Ghanaian jollof rice of a track that we have here. If you know you know. This starts off with a cool guitar riff, leading …

Track Of The Day: “We Are The People” – Oli Rockberger X Laura Mvula

Oli Rockberger is back with a track that’s soul stirring but then that’s on brand for him. But he’s not alone he brings along Laura Mvula for the ride too. She reduces me to a blubbery mess with “Father Father” so her contribution here already told me before I hit play that this was going to be …

Interview: Michael Rudd

Congratulations on the release of Ways Of The World, how does it feel? It’s always bittersweet. I love the process of writing and seeing how the songs evolve in the studio and working with the band. But I love what came out of the sessions, and the songs remain important to me. Its origin story is quite …

Track Of The Day: “Can We Make It Real?” – Manny Norte X Ayanna

This is a new one from Manny Norte and Ayanna, and it slaps. This is based around an afrobeat groove, and it’s smooth, you can tell they cooked it up for the summer because it gets you dancing immedately even if your’e not in the mood.  What caught my attention was the Neo soul chord …

Track Of The Day: “Crazy” – Gnarls Barkley

It’s strange to think that it’s 20 years since this came out. About a year later, I had it as my ringtone, but we’ll come back to that shortly. Gnarles Barkley was a pairing between Danger Mouse and CeeLo Green, and it was fabulous they actually went to number one with this track for 9 …

Track Of The Day: “Courage” – Marina Florance

Marina Flo releases a folk track that is essentially a protest song. First of all this track is built around acoustic guitar, and percussion, and it makes you think. With lyrics like: “Do we have the courage to speak outAgainst the human rights deniers?Against the anti immigration thugs?Against the violent mob?Since when is love a …

Album Review: “Tingling Skin, Buzzing Wires” Stephen Godsall. Words: Sammy Stein

If you think you know what a banjo sounds like, think again. Multi-instrumentalist and composer Stephen Godsall’s ‘Tingling Skin, Buzzing Wires’ presents the banjo in different ways, accompanied by flugelhorn, tenor sax, Wurlitzer piano, Hammond organ, piccolo, and more. Using combinations of instruments helps Godsall demonstrate the banjo’s potential and how we should perhaps look …

Fresh Faves: Batch 600

AMITY – City Of Stars Amity · City of Stars We kick off the faves with an artist I’ve known for a while, this is their first time on the faves and I’m really excited for them. I actually met AMITY last year at Boogaloo Radio when I was going there for an interview, and …