5 Tunes You Need To Hear This Week #2

More necessary sounds for the soul.

I thought midweek might be a good time to put out this series of posts, however I’ve just realised that if you’d like to hear how all of the tunes fit into my On Rotation playlist, you’ve only got until Friday morning to do so. I’ll have to rethink and maybe try to get these out on the weekend in future. That said, I’m going to start off with a track that came out last Saturday and so will no doubt be on the next one anyway.

Xenith - Breakfast at Ramones

I’m totally biased with this track as I’ve known every one of this group for years. Asha Jane not quite as long as Dregz who is my longest serving compadre or C-Live (fka Evil C), Johnny B and DJ Jaffa, all of whom I’ve known since the 90s and have plenty of history with. However this is a great soulful hip hop track, full of warm nostalgia whether you were there or not. Asha absolutely tears up the chorus, Jaffa rips up the cuts and I’m pretty sure it’s one of his beats also. All the boys deliver strong verses in their individual styles, which although updated from the early Potato Skinz or Keltech & Johnny B releases, still don’t sound like anyone else out there. I’m really looking forward to hearing the full album. You might even hear a certain other member of the Potato Skinz pop out of retirement briefly.

Estelle ft LaRussell & Keyon Harrold - New Direction

Estelle is one of those artists who can turn her hand to many different genres and never lose her identity. I loved her back in the UK hip hop days and I was a huge fan of her Lover’s Rock album in 2018. ‘Love Like Ours’ still gets regular plays, but now she’s deep in her disco phase and I’m so here for it.

This is probably my favourite out of her last few singles, which to be fair have all been quality. It’s definitely got a bit of a Michael Jackson / Quincy Jones feel to it and her guests both bring their positive vibes to the table. Keyon Harrold had one of my favourite albums last year with the jazzy and uplifting Foreverland and whilst LaRussell is fairly new on my radar you only have to glance swiftly through his projects to know he carrys good energy. My only gripe in fact is that both Keyon Harrold and LaRussell have had Tiny Desk Concerts. What happened to Estelle’s Tiny Desk? Surely that has to be well overdue. Don’t make me start a petition NPR!

Photay - Aeilion

Photay’s one of those artists that I’ve been keeping an eye on for ages but then don’t actually know too much of his music. I associate him with my Chrome Kids days and sure enough I heard this when my good friend Mevs aka Snowskull came round the other day and we went through potential tracks for a reunion show sometime this year (you heard it here first).

We certainly used to play a lot of tunes from the Astro Nautico label who put out his early releases, but I went through our final shows from 2014 and 2015 and I’m actually not sure we have played him before.

This particular track is from the newly expanded version of his album Windswept which originally came out last year on the Mexican Summer label. It’s got a real late 80s house or Detroit techno feel to the production but with art-pop style vocals which makes me think of David Byrne to some degree. It’s catchy, cute and very addictive.

Photay’s name came up again recently as my mate Bev Burton has been working on an amazing event in London which is happening the first weekend of May. Polygon Live LDN is a audiophile’s wet dream. It’s a spatial audio-focused festival with “dual-dome stage design,100 speakers installed across each LED-lit dome. The system includes 12 L-Acoustics speaker arrays surrounding the audience; a sub-wall; and four overhead arrays.” The line up is incredible too. As well as Photay it includes Jon Hopkins, Gold Panda, Arooj Aftab, Halina Rice, Nitin Sawhney and Tinariwen. I’ll be there at some point although I’m playing here in Cardiff on the Friday with a local electronic group called Black Metro, and have to take my grandkids to the Minecraft Experience on the Saturday, so hopefully I won’t miss too many of my favourites.

Arp Frique & The Perpetual Singers - The Gospel of Jesamy

If you don’t know Niels Nieuborg’s work as Arp Frique then I would implore you to dig back through some of his previous releases, but this is as good a place as any to start. Inspired by the birth of his daughter Jesamy he has created a whole gospel mini album, which like last week’s offering from Big Freedia is perhaps more of a homage to the form than authentic seekers out there may appreciate, but it’s no less uplifting and reverent.

The Arp synthesizer is a foundational backbone as ever and the period they were made from 1969 until the company went bankrupt in 1981 has a big part to play. On the album as a whole you can hear the soul and funk of famous Arp advocates such as Bernie Worrell in Funkadelic, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, William Onyeabor and Joe Zawinul from Weather Report. It’s also worth checking the rest of the release for UK reggae legend Dennis Bovell going full George Clinton on the track ‘Look Up Johnny’.

The Perpetual Singers are actually The Gospel Experience from Amsterdam led by Texan singer Brandon Delagraentiss and for this release featuring Dutch afro-fusion singer Mariseya, who has been with Arp Frique for much if his musical journey, and Rocq-E-Harrell from LA who has been a backup singer for countless soul legends and who might be familiar with folks my age for her Ian Levine produced 1989 single ‘My Heart Keeps Beating Faster’, which was a Hi NRG take on Northern Soul.

You really don’t have to be religious to appreciate the message on this funky and high energy title track from the album to, “hold on, change is coming” and it will no doubt find its way into my DJ sets over the summer, especially at It’s A Disco Thing.

Black Country, New Road - For The Cold Country

I first heard this band from their tracks ‘Opus’ and ‘Instrumental’ from their debut album For The First Time back in 2021. I was excited because they sounded like a band who wouldn’t be completely out of place at Boomtown, but were definitely not of that world. Their second album Ants From Up There was a bit of a switch up in sound, their ADHD friendly influences seemed to include bits of Bowie, grunge, post punk and jazz with various 90s and noughties alt rockers. It was like tuning a radio between various stations that all happen to be BBC 6 Music but it was great. I was constantly getting them confused with black midi, who are completely different in reality but do have a similar Gen Z approach to influences (and both start their names with ‘black’). It’s made me really want to see these guys live but somehow that’s never happened. I did manage to get some tickets to their Rough Trade show in Bristol recently, only to discover after chasing the waiting list for a few hours that it was just a listening party of the new album and the band weren’t to be there at all.

Forever Howling is out tomorrow and seems to be a whole new journey of influences with a heavy leaning on 60s and 70s folk singers, which gives this most recent single an incredibly familiar feel. Vocal duties are now fully taken on by the women in the band and while I’m open to where the rest of the release might go, I’d be more than happy for more of the same throughout. This is delicious.

If you’re quick enough you can catch most of these on this week’s On Rotation playlist which is updated every Friday. I’ll be back next week or maybe even later this week with another 5.