NOT TiGHT is the long-awaited debut album from virtuosic Gen Z duo, DOMi and JD Beck, released on Anderson .Paak’s new label Apeshit in partnership with the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records. It features the likes of Thundercat, whose deadpan funk is their closest antecedent, Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Mac DeMarco, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and .Paak himself. Their music finds both humour and greatness in harmonic complexity and rhythmic shiftiness, abruptly adopting and ditching tempos, toying with time signatures, and sneaking extra beats into bridges. They offer winking breaks and gleeful pivots, but the album is more composed than anything they’ve done before, toying with pop structures and pretty restraint. That befits their origin story. The duo first played together in a room full of blaring demos at a trade show, but they bonded over gauche keyboard FX and mom jokes. Over the next year and a half, they wrote and recorded much of the album at JD’s house in Dallas on drums and a 49-key MIDI board with just a few mics. Along the way, DOMi and JD Beck have sat in with Herbie Hancock and backed Thundercat, Ariana Grande, Eric André, and more; they also co-wrote “Skate” on .Paak’s Grammy-winning album with Bruno Mars as Silk Sonic.
A host of horns, trumpets, sax, electric guitar and traditional Senegalese drums all feature on Awale Jant Band’s new studio album – YEWOULEN –Senegalese soul recorded and mixed in the heart of south London’s Peckham Road Studios, SE15. Awale Jant Band have good reason to celebrate! The band’s last 2019 concert was an all-African celebration headed by "perhaps the greatest drummer ever" (Brian Eno), Nigerian percussion master Tony Allen and then straight into 2020, with YEWOULEN - their first signed album for international release on the ARC Music label.
Ravel and the Basque Country have always been one and the same. His Concerto in G major is the central work of this album and is presented here in an original arrangement for piano and small ensemble. Pianist Aurèle Marthan also pays homage to his splendid hometown, Guéthary, where he founded the festival Classic à Guéthary. All of the works recorded here illustrate the richness of a region that has been cherished by so many artists: Stravinsky arranged his Petrouchka in Biarritz, Pablo de Sarasate chose to reside there and Isaac Albéniz opted to spend his last days there. Another Basque celebrity, although on the Spanish side, is Alberto Iglesias, director Pedro Almodóvar’s house composer. The Basque coast is often compared to California because of its excellent beaches for surfing; Aurèle Marthan evokes the Eagles as well as his passion for the American minimalists (Glass) and for cinema, with music from the films Amen and Waltz with Bashir; he also provides a piano version of the Biarritz-based rock band La Femme’s hit Sur la planche.
Compilation with all 40 participating songs: The Eurovision Song Contest enters the 66th round. This year Ukraine is the clear favorite, which is not surprising due to the current situation.
Handels ninth major opera for London, Alessandro was written as a showcase for the Rival Queens, the two famous Italian sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni whose supposed enmity, both personal and professional, not only generated good publicity for Handels latest opera but also added extra dramatic frisson to the two divas jealous clashes on stage.