Results for "Soothsayers"

Soothsayers

Soothsayers: Soothsayers Meets Victor Rice & Friends

by Chris May
June 25, 2022

Nobody does it better, so the song goes, though whether the innuendo resonates most strongly with the singer, Carly Simon, or the lyrics's supposed protagonist, James Bond, depends, as it were, on the direction in which the listener is pointing. But whatever. In the context of Soothsayers Meets Victor Rice & Friends, the song's hook becomes ...

TC & The Groove Family: First Home

by Chris May
June 9, 2022

The nine-piece collective TC & The Groove Family are based in the northern English city of Leeds. All but one of the members studied at Leeds College of Music. They play a goodtime mash-up of Afrobeat, jazz, funk, hip hop, dub and samba, reflecting the cultural melting pot which exists in most English cities and which ...

From George Coleman to Meeco: Ten Overlooked Classics

by Chris May
May 10, 2022

The only thread running through this installment of Building A Jazz Library is that of unsung quality. No particular artist is spotlighted, nor any particular genre. There are simply ten, randomly selected albums, recorded in the US and Europe between 1953 and 2021, which show jazz off at its finest, but which, for one reason or ...

Ill Considered - Reconsidered

by Karl Ackermann
November 9, 2021

London Calling, AgainAround 2010, the South London jazz scene began breaking with tradition for an alternative union of music rooted in global cultures. It represented a fundamental change in the way young Londoners related to music; the rhythms were infused with hip hop, spiritual jazz, dubstep, funk, groove, reggae, and future soul in various combinations. In ...

Soothsayers: We Are Many

by Chris May
March 10, 2021

Straddling jazz, Afrobeat, conscious reggae and dub, South London's Soothsayers is among the top ten must-see attractions on Britain's club circuit (on hold for the duration). Soothsayers can make the lame not merely walk, but dance. We Are Many is the band's ninth studio album and it is a superbly well-realized production, up there with an ...

Zara McFarlane: Songs Of An Unknown Tongue

by Chris May
July 14, 2020

It takes courage for a musician to depart from a successful recipe to the extent that the British singer and songwriter Zara McFarlane does on Songs of An Unknown Tongue. The disc is not a complete shift from the paradigm of her three previous albums, but it is a radical spin on it. ...

Afrobeat: An Alternative Top Ten

by Chris May
May 5, 2020

It would be hard if not impossible to compile an Afrobeat Top Ten which was not wholly made up of Fela Anikulapo Kuti albums. Such was Kuti's centrality in the creation and development of Afrobeat, such was the productivity of his recording career--his catalogue totals more than fifty albums, not counting reissues and compilations--and such was ...

Tradition

By Soothsayers

Label: Wah Wah 45s
Released: 2018
Track listing: Tradition; Good Vibration; Heart Rules Head; Nothing Can Stop Us; Goodnight Rico; Sleepwalking (Black Man’s Cry); Dis & Dat; Overcome; Watching The Stars; Take Me High; Natural Mystic.

Lokkhi Terra meets Dele Sosimi: Cubafrobeat

by Chris May
August 12, 2018

A younger version of London's Grand Union Orchestra, founded by world-jazz pioneer Tony Haynes in 1982, Lokkhi Terra was put together by keyboard player Kishon Khan in 2005. Both ensembles have made a specialism of jazz / South Asian fusion, with Lokkhi Terra also giving as much attention to music from Cuba, where Bangladeshi-born, London-based Khan ...