Lady Blackbird

On his new album Always Centered at Night, Moby has once again conjured into reality a collection of heartachingly beautiful, tender-yet-defiant songs, made in collaboration with uniquely talented, soulfully aware, other-worldly vocalists. All the songs are love letters to the unrestricted and enchanting music scene of late ‘70s, early ‘80s New York that shaped Moby as a musician. The featured vocalists were given the same assignment: “Please don’t write anything commercial. Let it be weird. Let it be personal. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

Singer, songwriter, and pianist Jamie Cullum is back with The Pianoman At Christmas – The Complete Edition, a deluxe repack of his 2020 holiday album which is due out Nov. 19 via Blue Note Records in the U.S. and Island Records elsewhere. The new release completes last year’s part 1 with a thoroughly enjoyable 13-track part 2 that features 11 covers of classic Christmas songs, as well as 2 festive original songs including the lead single “Christmas Don’t Let Me Down”.

Finally after 10 years I have a release in the country I live in! This is a very special project for me. It is my first album of all Standards which I had wanted to do for probably close to 20 years! My hesitation for the longest time was that all of my heroes had recorded the end all versions of these tunes and I struggled with feeling it was disrespectful to redo what had been done to perfection already. But then everybody started recording these American masterpieces and I began to change my tune, so to speak. I heard some wonderful versions sung by my contemporaries and I also wanted to jump on the Standards band wagon! With the magical arrangements written by Dori Caymmi and the comfort of my band it was so easy to sing and tell the stories of these songs. The quality of the music and lyrics is almost impossible to match now a days so it does make sense why singers are turning backwards to find great songs to sing! I am so at home with both Jazz and Brazilian music that this project was a natural for me! By Kevyn Lettau

Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy is a highly respected and experienced musical selector and curator, founder of the album listening event and content hub Classic Album Sundays and an authority on music, sound and the vinyl renaissance. She was mentored by David Mancuso at his seminal Loft parties in New York City. Together they co-produced the compilation series David Mancuso Presents The Loft and worked together on David’s record label The Loft Audiophile Library of Music. In 2000, David told Time Out New York City “ She is very devoted and very pure about the music. She’s one of the only people I would trust, both with the music and with the equipment, to fill in for me.” She is one of the musical hosts at The Loft, the co-founder of the Lucky Cloud Loft parties in London and DJs internationally on the world’s best sound systems and dance floors.