José James spent a decade reshaping jazz with the genre-blurring verve of a crate-digging beat guru, before becoming a solo R&B star. The last couple years he lived in Bill Withers' shoes — recording and touring his legendary songbook for the Lean On Me project. Now, the satin-voiced songwriter's latest is No Beginning No End 2, a sequel to his 2013 album that resurrects the bold eclecticism audiences first fell in love with. After the Bill Withers tour, James recalls: “I wrote a thing on Instagram saying I was thinking about No Beginning No End 2 and people went insane. They wrote thousands of comments about how the first one changed their life. I don't sit around and think 'my work is so important' so that was kinda nice."
Ten years after his first album Bad Bad things, musician Max Guiguet aka Blundetto unveils his second album Good Good Things on Heavenly sweetness. The circle of intimates already present on the first album (Blundetto, Hindi Zahra, General Electric, Chico Mann) has expanded to include regular accomplices (Biga Ranx) and artists with whom Blundetto felt an obvious connection (Crime Apple, Leonardo Marques) for this second opus.
LIKE an early taste of summer, the new double CD compilation of ‘So Frenchy So Chic’ is here, with yet another great line up. Now is the chance to hear some of the musical acts who will appear at the January picnic parties in Melbourne and Sydney, such as Lou Doillon, who will be playing songs from her highly acclaimed folk rock record ‘Lay Low’. There is also the wonderful voice of the Franco-Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra, whose music is drenched in a hypnotic world blues universe.
Tamikrest return with a vivid, irrepressible rock and roll statement. Their most powerful album since 2013’s wildly acclaimed Chatma, Tamotaït finds the band not only turning up the volume, but also sharpening their ruminations on the state of the Sahara and the world beyond. Features acclaimed Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra and Japanese traditional musicians.
A lounge electronica compilation series by french DJ Stéphane Pompougnac.
Hotel Costes is one of France's most famous hot spots, and regularly attracts stars of the film and fashion world. Pompougnac released his first CD in 1999, titled Café Costes. Pompougnac's second CD, Costes, La Suite, met with more success and the song "Sympatique" was used for a car ad in France sending record sales over 100,000. His first two albums were released in France through Barclay Universal; his increased success, however, saw a deal with MSI for his third compilation, Etage 3, released in October 2000. His first three compilations together sold nearly half a million copies.
José James has already established himself as a trailblazer for his intoxicating blend of jazz, hip-hop, R&B and electronica from his previous three albums. His 2008 debut The Dreamer and its 2010 follow-up, BlackMagic – both produced by the world-renowned DJ Gilles Peterson – transformed the Minneapolis-born, New York-based singer into an underground sensation in both the modern jazz and DJ culture scenes. His musical path follows its own rhyme and reason. James is a musical omnivore, an artist that resists being pigeonholed, equally at ease on stage with jazz legend McCoy Tyner as he is in the studio with rapper Oh No or electronica pioneer Flying Lotus. His new album and Blue Note Records debut, No Beginning No End, is a seamless musical experience that moves between different styles with remarkable fluidity, bound together by James’ transcendent voice.
On November 13, 2020, Thomas Naïm's new jazz/blues trio opus, "SOUNDS OF JIMI" (Rootless Blues/L'autre Distribution) has been released. This is an important event for Thomas cause it’s an album that pays tribute to a musician that had a great impact on him, the American guitarist Jimi Hendrix. This album also benefits from special guests Hugh Coltman, Erik Truffaz, Célia Kameni and Camille Bazbaz.
Guitarist, composer and producer, Thomas Naïm began playing the guitar at the age of 12. Influenced first by Rock, he then became interested in many musical currents: Funk, Brazilian music, Reggae or electronic music and finally became passionate about Jazz.
Eleven years after her passing, Nina Simone still fascinates. Her work will forever be universally celebrated as that of a major figure in American 20th century music. Verve Records pays homage to her with an album in which her emblematic titles have been revisited by the cream of the new generation's Pop and Soul artists.
Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age fame has scored and soundtracked a new film called ‘In The Fade’ that premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival.
As Variety reports, the film is directed by German filmmaker Fatih Akin. ‘In The Fade’ is a drama that follows a woman who takes revenge after her son and husband are murdered by the neo-Nazis of the National Socialist Underground group.
Akin revealed why Homme ended up scoring the picture. He said, “That was a big surprise. When I was writing this, I was listening to a lot of music by Queens of the Stone Age. I had the feeling that this could be the music that the character was listening to, it has a self-destructive attitude and somehow the film is about self-destruction.”…