45 RPM | 25 July 2024
Featuring Jasmine Myra, Lava La Rue, RJD2, Denzel Curry and much, much more. Noisy. Even when it's quiet.
I’m hearing reports that the manufacturers have received a mysterious call from a Florida number.
That’s right, in the week in which Olympians found out they would be sleeping on ‘anti-sex’ cardboard beds, 45 RPM returns with 10 new Future Jazz tracks, all of which will kill ‘the mood’ quicker than crashing through some old pizza boxes during the vinegar strokes.
So start working on your breast stroke and wrap your hands around your pole [vault] as give you a quick run-down of what’s on the mixtape this week.
SIDE A
Denzel Curry + Key Nyata: ULTRA SHXT
Soundcloud rapper, Denzel Curry released his debut mixtape ‘King of the Mischievous South, Vol. 1.’ in 2012 (thems be the days of DatPiff for all you young bucks out there). This week, Volume 2 was released (note: Curry has had several albums in between. What’s the difference between an album and a mixtape, you ask? Who TF even knows any more). ‘ULTRA SHXT’ is the first proper track on the record and I’ve picked it ‘cos I just absolutely love the production on it. Is that a guitar part played the background? A keyboard? Who knows. What I do know is that it is gloriouuus.Lava La Rue + AUDREY NUNA: Poison Cookie
Lava is an artist that I first got into when they released their Butter-fly EP in 2021 (indeed, ‘Magpie’ featured on this, here, playlist). This week, they unleashed their ‘funkadelic britpop from lavaland, west London’ on the world in it’s fullest glory, dropping debut full-length ‘STARFACE’. After it’s mellow beginnings, stand-out track ‘Poison Cookie’ takes a beautifully belligerent turn, expertly mixing the sweet with the sour like, I don’t know, a toxic biscuit.GUM + Ambrose Kenny-Smith: Ill Times
After featuring King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard last week, one member of the Gizzard parish, Ambrose Kenny-Smith returns with his old mate GUM (that’s probably not what his parents named him, mind) of Tame Impala's touring-band fame. Their album ‘Ill Times’ dropped this week and the title track is insanely (I mean insaaaaaaanely) groovy bluesy psych rock from a far-away, inhospitable planet. Or, Australia as some people call it.Jasmine Myra: Still Waters
You know the claim that Inuit people have, like, 500 words for snow? Well, here in Cornwall, we take a similarly specific approach to types of moving water and, I’ll be honest, Jasmine Myra’s ‘Still Waters’ sounds more like gently undulating waves to me. Be that as it may, the saxophonist (who also featured on last week’s Kessoncoda review) has made a phenomenally precocious sophomore album in latest release ‘Rising’; rich with textured, mature jazz that appeals on both a cerebral and emotional level.Jónsi - Cherry Blossom
Lead singer of Iceland’s Sigur Rós, Jónsi (I bet he knows a few words for snow too) announced this week that he will be returning with new album ‘First Light’ in August 30 and teased us with two tracks from it. ‘Cherry Blossom’ is a gorgeous, piano-led composition. But, here’s the thing. Even when he hasn’t got his band-mates behind him bashing away, Jónsi has a knack of making music that is, somehow, impactful. Don’t write this off as background music. It’s subtly powerful.
SIDE B
RJD2: What I Do, Man
Turntablism, for me, always has a child-like playfulness to it. All the more reason why I always love hearing new material from RJD2 (or, Ramble Jon Krohn as his Mum calls him when he’s in trouble); because he has a way of infusing his work with an epic-ness that gives the tunes considerable gravitas straight off the bat (the team behind Mad Men certainly seemed to think so). ‘What I Do, Man’ comes from his new LP ‘Visions Out of Limelight’ and it also features the coolest future jazz acoustic drum-kit break down in the middle of it.Les Amazones d’Afrique: Flaws
To call Les Amazones d’Afrique a World Music artist, or even an African folk music artist is to oversimplify their output to the point of borderline ridiculousness. Nowhere is this more evident than on the genuinely fantastic (and in no way flawed) ‘Flaws’ which is as good a piece of ‘Western’ electronic music as it is a funk banger and a straight-up brilliant pop music track. Founders, Mamani Keïta, Oumou Sangaré, and Mariam Doumbia - as well as the vast collective of powerful African female voices they’ve collaborated with - are breaking down barriers as well as borders.Avra Banerjee: Triraga Confluence
Ever heard math metal played on sarods and tablas? No, neither have I, but I think ‘Triraga Confluence’ is as close as we’re going to get. A mesmerising concoction of 7/8 time signatures and bass lines that sound vaguely reminiscent of Justin Chancellor’s in Tool’s ‘Schism’ it also features the prominent percussion of prodigious talent Zuheb Ahmed Khan who many of you will remember from his fabulous 45-featured work with Yaatri, of course.Emile Londonien: Inside
An associate and I were trying, this week, to work out what the trifecta would be of Europe’s most boring cities. I’ve forgotten one of them and we couldn’t decide on a third but Strasbourg was definitely in there (admittedly, a somewhat boring anecdote without many of the key details). Well, no more, because I’ve just discovered that one of my favourite emerging future jazz bands Emile Londonien are from there. On new single, ‘Inside’ you can really hear their Yussef Kamaal influences coming to the fore as the moody, mellifluous bass line guides you insidiously, yet ever more irrepressibly, through the piece.Luke McCombs: Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma
The original 1996 film ‘Twister’ centred on Jo and Bill, a couple who are on the brink of divorce but who must work together to confront their personal issues while chasing violent tornadoes. Sounds like standard parenthood to me. This week, its stand-alone sequel (the cleverly titled ‘Twisters’) came to the movie theatres and, with it, a swirling storm of a soundtrack capable of causing as much devastation as an actual hurricane (or, indeed, my two kids after a handful of Skittles.) Kick off track ‘Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma’ is a gnarly stomping blues rock beast that will blow your cowboy boots off.
And on that note, I’m off to ask Tom Daley what he meant by “Six boys, five rings”, leaving you to enjoy this week’s collection…