New Releases
Popa Chubby - Universal Breakdown Blues
Label: Provogue
Release date: April 22, 2013
“I’m my own man for better or worse,” Popa Chubby a/k/a Ted Horowitz says. “I’m living in a wild time. That’s also what inspired ‘Universal Breakdown Blues.’ There are my issues but the picture is much bigger than me and my situation. Everything is breaking down in the world. The lines are being redefined. We all need something.” What we need is some raw, powerful, edgy blues and that’s just what Popa Chubby renders. We get to chew on some deep, moving, searing cuts that come straight from the soul.
Youn Sun Nah - Lento
Label: ACT
Distribution in France: harmonia mundi
Release date: March 12, 2013
With her universal yet individual style, Youn Sun Nah gives traditional vocal jazz a new flavour, while unconventionnaly and effortlessly exploring new exciting spaces. She is one of the most outstanding representatives of vocla jazz that includes the whole spectrum of contemporary music. Lento features Nah’s longstanding duet partner Ulf Wakenius on guitar, Lars Danielsson on bass and Xavier Desandre-Navarre on percussions. The fourth member of the band is new – the French accordion magician Vincent Peirani.
Raphaël Imbert - Heavens - Amadeus & The Duke
Label: Jazz Village
Distribution in France: harmonia mundi
Release date: February 26, 2013
This prject creates an exciting bridge between Western classical music and African-American music. With his band of virtuosos, Raphaël Imbert weaves together the common themes in the worlds of Ellington and Mozart. Making each echo to the other’s sound, he conjoins them in a musical marriage which brilliantly merges their work. Heavens is an immense modern jam session, drawing on eclectic mutlicultural sources : blues, chamber music, secular song, German lied, sacred music, stomp, gospel, opera… Driven by improvisation and a swinging momentum, the saxophonist reveals the genius of these two great Masters. In Heavens, the music lover is raised to a rainbow paradise where the hearts of jazz and classical music collide and beat together, and where music is as much a state of mind as a question of style. How happy are we to experience the union of this trinity !
Big Daddy Wilson - I'm Your Man
Label: Dixiefrog
Distribution in France: Harmonia Mundi
Release date: April 01, 2013
Bluesman Big Daddy Wison hails from South Carolina but has been living in Europe for many years now. This is only his third album, since he discovered his passion for the blues and started recording relatively late; the sound quality, the quality of the arrangements and of the compositions are remarkable. If his interpretation of the blues is close to rock, the soul and gospel sounds are always close, and the electric guitar flirts with the tuba, the violin or the clarinet – and the deep voice of Big Daddy creates a communicative warmth that is difficult to resist.
Omar Sosa - Eggun
Label: jazz village
Distribution in France: Harmonia Mundi
Release date: February 12, 2013
The Afri-Lectric Experience began as an Omar Sosa commission from the Barcelona Jazz Festival in 2009. The assignment: to compose and produce a tribute performance to Miles Davis classic recording, “Kind Of Blue”, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Inspired by various musical elements and motifs from Kind Of Blue, Omar wrote a suite of music honoring the spirit of freedom in Davis’ seminal work. Featuring trumpet and two saxophones, Eggun provides a medium for musical elements from Africa to shape and develop the music. The resulting jazz textures are further enhanced by the subtle and expressive use of electronic elements. At the heart of the recording is the spirit of Mother Africa.
The Delta Saints - Death Letter Jubilee
Label: Dixiefrog
Distribution in France: Harmonia Mundi
Release date: February 12, 2013
With Death Letter Jubilee, The Delta Saints are blooming into life not as a pretty flower might, but perhaps a mushroom explosion from an atomic bomb or a feral thunderhead. After two self-released and well received EPs, fans demanded a full length and happily burst through the band’s Kickstarter goal to get it. “That is a feeling like no other,” Ben Ringel claims. “It’s awesome and also humbling. And it’s good pressure on us to succeed. It’s the kind of pressure we were able to harness and strive off of.” The result is a splendid and original mixture of energetic blues, swamp music and revisited rock from the South.
Warsaw Village Band - NORD
Label: Jaro Medien
Distribution in France: L'Autre Distribution
Release date: December 03, 2012
Their 6th album »Nord« is an encounter of musicians in search of common elements between the Slavic peoples, the Scandinavians and the aboriginal peoples of the North. The Warsaw Village Band hosts this musical summit as a tribute to the heroes and mystics, to the Viking warriors and the poets of the Saami and Inuit peoples. All of these diverse but related musical influences meet for the first time ever in the Warsaw Village Band Nord project. Music strangely familiar; harsh, but dignified, cold, rough – deep and strong, with a hint of nostalgia and with a piercing thrill of truth. “They create an edgy reworking of folk styles that can switch between furious dance pieces and passages of quirky, quietly thrilling a cappella vocals” (quote The Guardian, UK).
Sylvain Chauveau - Simple (Rare & unreleased pieces)
Label: FatCat
Distribution in France: La Baleine
Release date: November 05, 2012
“Simple” is a selection of Brussels-based Frenchman Sylvain Chauveau works for cinema, composed between 1998-2010. A diverse, yet fully cohesive collection of out-of-print, rare, and unreleased tracks, the album spans stark / minimal electronic drones, processed guitar explorations, variously-sized Chamber pieces, spare solo piano, and two 40-piece string orchestra recordings.
La Caravane Passe - Gypsy For One Day
Label: XIII BIS
Distribution in France: Warner
Release date: October 01, 2012
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Yaron Herman - Alter Ego
Label: ACT
Distribution in France: Harmonia Mundi
Release date: September 26, 2012
For the first time, Yaron has expressed such emotions on record with a quartet. Alongside him, on saxophone, is Emile Parisien, another brilliant ambassador for his generation, one that bubbles freely without any complexes; on double bass is Stéphane Kerecki, a loyal friend and peerless bassist who regularly plays on tour with Yaron. Finally, there’s also his “long-time brother”, Ziv Ravitz, an Israeli drummer who completes the line-up marvellously. And they have a special guest: saxophonist Logan Richardson skilfully contributes that special colour which typifies the new generation of musicians from New York.
