New Blue

Sturgill Simpson makes his long-awaited return to music this year with a new album under a new name, Johnny Blue Skies. After promising to release only five studio albums under his own name, Sturgill Simpson marks the beginning of a new era with Johnny Blue Skies and the release of Passage Du Desir. Released on his own independent label, High Top Mountain Records, the album includes eight songs produced by Johnny Blue Skies and David Ferguson and recorded at Clement House Recording Studio in Nashville, TN and Abbey Road Studios in London, England.

Rising from the ashes of the legendary British post-punk unit Joy Division, New Order triumphed over tragedy to emerge as one of the most acclaimed bands of the 1980s; embracing the electronic textures and disco rhythms of the underground club culture many years in advance of its contemporaries, the group's pioneering fusion of new wave aesthetics and dance music successfully bridged the gap between the two worlds, creating a distinctively thoughtful and oblique brand of synth pop appealing equally to the mind, body, and soul.

Keiko Matsui's last album, 2000s Whisper From the Mirror, was picked up and reissued by the Narada label in 2001, and Narada is also releasing her 12th album, Deep Blue. It's an appropriate match-up for the Japanese pianist, since Narada is known primarily as a new age label, and, though her records are being released on its Narada Jazz imprint, "new age" is actually the best category to place her in. From the start of her career, Matsui has been shelved under "jazz," but that has always been more a marketing ploy than anything else, and never more so than on Deep Blue. Her compositions are melodic tunes, many of which sound like songs without lyrics, while others seem like soundtrack excerpts from a film not yet made.

Here’s a musical excursion in the best Blue Knights tradition - eclectic, evocative and firmly anchored in the urban American groove. Come along with Curtis McLaw, Jay Heye and friends as they cruise down a California highway, greet a steamy night in the tropics, stroll a city street and comb a remote Far Eastern beach.
The excursion begins with an uptempo “Wake Up Call,” featuring Heye’s bluesy piano over McLaw’s keyboard rhythms and harmonies. They’re joined by Bill Joseph Flynn on guitar and Mr. P.T. on sax. That’s George Bishop doing the plaintive soprano work on “Nightfall” and Flynn in a similar vein on acoustic guitar in “Missing You.” And all hands show major-league chops in the driving, staccato counterpoint of “Tropical Night”…