“One thing we saw very early on in the recording process was the fact that this couldn’t be one record,” Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds tells Apple Music. “There were two different directions, two stories being told, and two timelines. We had songs that I wrote right after my best friend took his life and right after my sister passed away—you know, grieving songs. And then we had songs that were written, because of COVID, almost three years later, when I was in a totally different place. I had a different story to tell.” The band decided to release two variations on a single theme: Mercury - Act 1 addresses the death and grieving process, while Act 2 unpacks the complicated task of trying to move forward."
We Like It Here is an album by American jazz fusion group Snarky Puppy that was released on February 25, 2014. The track "Lingus" includes a solo on the synthesizer performed by Cory Henry…
With the appearance of Lighthouse, singer/songwriter David Crosby, age 75, continues a late career renaissance that began with 2014's Croz – his proper studio follow-up to 1971's classic If I Could Only Remember My Name. This set was produced by Snarky Puppy boss Michael League, who co-wrote five of these nine tunes with Crosby. The producer, a lifelong fan of the 1971 album, approached Crosby about recording something quick and dirty over a couple of weeks. He was met with incredulousness. The artist was used to working on albums for months, even years. After three days, they completed three new songs, and Crosby was all in.
Acclaimed GRAMMY-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello makes her Blue Note Records debut with The Omnichord Real Book, a visionary, expansive, and deeply jazz-influenced album that marks the start of a new chapter in her career. Following her 2018 album Ventriloquism, Meshell returns with an album of new original material that taps into a broad spectrum of her musical roots. The Omnichord Real Book was produced by Josh Johnson and features a wide range of guest artists including Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Joel Ross, Jeff Parker, Brandee Younger, Julius Rodriguez, Mark Guiliana, Cory Henry, Joan As Police Woman, Thandiswa, and others.
From the moment Snarky Puppy played its first overseas show to a sold-out London crowd, they felt at home in Europe. Recorded and filmed live with a studio audience over 4 nights in the Netherlands, 'We Like It Here' captures the band at its most explorative point in its career, in both composition and improvisation. The film also contains over an hour of interviews, behind the scenes tour footage in Europe, and alternate solo takes from the recording sessions.
With the release of their last two live CD/DVDs, Brooklyn-based instrumental shapeshifter Snarky Puppy has gone from an underground secret to one of the most internationally respected names in instrumental music. The 3-time Dallas Observer Music Award winning group fuses a deep knowledge and respect for musical tradition with sonic and conceptual innovation in a way that is able to reach the most critical-or most carefree-audience. The core of the group, which remains consistent, features Grammy Award-winners Robert Sput Searight on drums and Shaun Martin on keys. Led by award-winning bassist/composer Michael League, Snarky Puppy delivers raw funk and sensitive dynamics, relentless pocket and lyrical melodicism, lush harmony and soulful simplicity, and most importantly, a delicate mixture of composition and improvisation.