Category: good to hear

Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz
La Sandunga | Flor Amargo
Flor Amargo used to be a Mexican Rock band but soon went solo in the person of Mayté Carballo who won fame as the semi-finalist of La Voce, Mexico’s equivalent to The Voice. Her fresh and powerful sound from pop to electronics, imbued with the poetry of a contagious passion for life, is inspired by the great jazz stars of the Twenties and Forties to pure and simple rock and even a touch of cabaret and burlesque. Flor Amargo calls It Cathartic Pop, also known as sadbangers. She plays piano and keyboard, has been linked to music since she was very young and studied to be a classical pianist. “La Sandunga” is a traditional song from the region of Oaxaca.
Bleupelle Music

Chiquelo-Marco Mezquida
Chiquelo-Marco Mezquida
Chicuelo-Marco Mezquida is a duo of two Spanish musicians playing guitar and jazz piano. Goya award winner and brilliant soloist – Juan Gómez “Chicuelo” is one of the most famous and most innovative gitarist of the flamenco scene, Marco Mezquida an overwhelming musician with a unique style. Here we hear them at the Jazzahead 2017 in Cologne, where they gave a highly emotional concert. Flamenco serves as their base, from which they erupt into jazz, fusion and world music.
Live at Kölner Philharmonie

In My Blood
Shawn Mendes
Mendes is a Canadian singer-songwriter who launched his career five years ago by posting song covers on the video-sharing app Vine. He went on to become  one of five artists to ever debut at number one before the age of eighteen. As a philanthropist Mendes has raised consirable sums of money for various projects such as his www.dosomething.org, addressing low self-esteem, depression and awareness of self-harm, and he has been open about suffering from anxiety disorder, another cause for which he raises the awareness.
Island Records

Live at Berklee
Berklee Indian Ensemble ft Shankar Mahadevan
„With members from 42 countries to date, the Berklee Indian Ensemble provides an open and inclusive creative space for musicians from all over the world to explore, study, interpret, and create music influenced by the rich and varied mosaic that is Indian music today. From a Carnatic thillana or a high-adrenaline konnakol conversation to Indo-jazz experiments or qawwali, the ensemble performs an expansive repertoire with the ultimate goal of presenting concerts entirely comprising original student compositions.”
Berklee College of Music

Gustav Mahler Symphony No 9
Daniel Harding | Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
If eternity has a source, Daniel Harding somehow found a way to tap it in this poignant account with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Like all of Mahler’s symphonies, the Ninth — his final complete work, written in 1909 two years before his death — is consciously self-referential. Harding teases out its autobiographical aspects (the faintly syncopated rhythmic motif that opens and guides the first movement, widely believed to represent Mahler’s irregular heartbeat; the muted brass riffs that mimic the famed trumpet fanfares of his First Symphony) with immense patience and sensitivity, thus rejuvenating instead of overburdening this “music coming from another world” (Herbert von Karajan). Here we see and hear Harding directing Mahler’s 9th in an earlier version with the Wiener Philharmoniker.
Deutsche Grammophon

Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz
Hugh Masekela
This is a tribute to the great South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer and singer Hugh Masekela (1939-2018), the father of South African jazz, the author of many anti-apartheid songs, and one of the finest and most distinctive horn players the world has known. Together with Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) he recorded the first jazz album his country produced. After the infamous Sharpeville Massacre, in 1960, the politically outspoken musician left South Africa and established himself first in London and later in New York, where he attended the Manhattan School of Music (1960 – 1964). In 1985 Masekela founded the Botswana International School of Music (BISM), which held its first workshop in Gaboron that same year. He received many awards, recorded with many intenational stars and finally returned to his homeland under the leadershp of Nelson Mandela. He died in Johannesburg last January.
Blue Thumb Records

Gaia
Rachelle Ferrell
Composer, lyricist, arranger, musician, and vocalist Rachelle Ferrell is a recent arrival on the contemporary jazz scene. Born and raised near Philadelphia, she started singing at age six. This no doubt contributed to the eventual development of her startling six-octave range. She decided early on, after classical training on violin, that she wanted to try to make her mark musically as an instrumentalist and songwriter. When her father bought her a piano in her mid-teens with the provision that she learn to play to a professional level, Rachelle secured her first professional gig as a pianist-singer within six months. At 18, she enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston to study composition and arranging. She graduated in a year and taught music with Dizzy Gillespie for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Through the ’80s and into the early ’90s, she’d worked with some of the top names in jazz, including Gillespie, Quincy Jones, George Benson and George Duke.
Capitol Records

Twilight Zone (Official Music Video)
Ministry
Watch Jourgensen take down the (fake) American President! „Ministry is an American industrial metal band, founded in 1981 by Al Jourgensen in Chicago, Illinois. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry shifted its style to become one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the mid-to-late 1980s. The band’s lineup has gone through many changes throughout its history, with Jourgensen remaining the only constant as the band’s main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. Notable musicians who have contributed to the band’s studio or live activities include Paul Barker, Martin Atkins, Bill Rieflin, Chris Connelly, Nivek Ogre, Mike Scaccia, Rey Washam, Paul Raven, Tommy Victor, Jason Christopher, Tony Campos, Monte Pittman, Burton C. Bell and DJ Swamp.“ (Wikipedia)

Finesse (remix)
Bruno Mars, featuring Cardi B.
A song viewed by more than 313 million people can’t be bad! Finesse was co-written by Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence, Christopher Brody Brown, James Fauntleroy, Johnathan Yip, Ray Romulus, Jeremy Reeves and Ray McCullough II. It originally reached a much lower posiition in the charts than the remix released by rappper Cardi B. which received widespread acclaim upon release as a funky version of new jack swing.
Atlantic Records

Debussy: Violin Sonata, Cello Sonata, Piano Trio
Trio Stradivari
Brilliant classics is a recording label domiciled in Leewarden (The Netherlands) releasing super-budget recordings of popular classical composers in top quality. Their policiy of selling these masterpieces of calssical music in supermarkets and drugstores has brought them to an audience otherwise alien to classical music. Here, Claude Debussy’s compostions are played by the the Italian Trio Stradivari made up of Jolanda Violante (piano) Federico Guglielmo (violin) and Luigi Puxeddu (cello), spanning the composers protean career, from the early Piano Trio of 1880 to the Cello Sonata of 1915 and the Violin Sonata, completed in 1917.
Brilliant Classics

Thiossane
Hervé  Samb
The Senegalese Guitar virtuoso and composer has recorded on more than hundred albums and performed in almost every part of the world, with artists like Pat Metheny, Cheick Tidiane Seick, Toure Kounda, Paco Sery, Lionel Loueke and Hamid Drake Jimmy Cliff, David Murray, Pharaoh Sanders, Meshell Ndegeocello, Oumou Sangare, Amadou & Mariam, The Syndicate, Linley Marthe to name a few.

Musica popular
Brasileira nordestina
A collection of albums representing Northeastern Brazil folk music. Northeastern music is a generic term for any popular music from the large region of Northeastern Brazil, including both coastal and inland areas. Rhythms are often slow and plodding and derived from accordions and guitars instead of percussion instruments. Portuguese melodies and influences meet African rhythms to form maracatu and dance music called balão. Most influential is the music from the area around Pernambuco: forró, frevo and maracatu. The diversity of this collection is mind-blowing!

Hot Buttered Soul, Black Moses and Shaft
Isaac Hayes
Re-issues of Hayes’ seminal work created in the late sixties and early seventies. Should be out on YouTube any moment now but here’s a little sample to start with. See also: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/20/i-didnt-give-a-damn-if-it-didnt-sell-how-isaac-hayes-helped-create-psychedelic-soul

Relaxing Piano Music 2018
Dreamscapes
Nine hours of music for meditation or to chill with.
Meg Backing Tracks, January 2018

Light at the edge of the world
Wade Davis
Talk about the challenges and pitfalls of trying to make the world a better place.

ChillyDippyTrippy
PJ Wassermann
PJ Wassermann is a Swiss composer, live musician and producer as well as a pioneer of electronic dance music. Recently, he has re-issued some of the classical tracks he and his late wife Stella performed in the eighties under the name Schaltkreis Wassermann (Wassermann Relay). With ChillyDippyTrippy PJ creates psychedelic chillout music with live guitar and vocals that he turns into a light & dance show during his performances, adding projections and sometimes dancers. A third project PJ pursues is called „Eternal Live Guitar Psy-Trance“. You’ll find this and furter information as well as sound bytes, videos and more on his bilingual website.

Mali Foli Coura
BKO
“BKO is from Mali, and these three letters are those of the airport code of Bamako. Other than that they are not dedicated to staying in their country, nor do they cling to traditions or conventions. The music of the Bambara hunters crosses that of the Mandingo-speaking griots, and their meeting is electronic, as you can hear on this latest tracks of theirs, Tangwanana.” (Les Inrocks) Melodious, dense, rhythmic, urgent, and, despite their eclecticism, fervently African!
www.bkoquintet.com, 15 October 2017

Skankin’ Master ft. Kuntri Ranks
Dub Smugglers
More great black music from the other side of the planet. Out of Manchester, England, the Dub Smugglers are no strangers to playing their own high energy productions in lively DJ sets and creating unforgettable vibes. They are also attempting to progress sound system culture in their own way, building one of the finest sounding, hand built sound systems that you will find anywhere. The sound system creates a strong sub bass along with crisp clear detail.
Released 6 March 2015

A World of Masks
The Heliocentrics
The Heliocentrics are a London-based psychedelic jazz collective with roots in the ‘90s, combining funk, jazz, psych and library influences based around drummer and producer Malcolm Catto, Bassist Jake Ferguson, Guitarist Adrian Owusu and multi-instrumentalist Jack Yglesias. Here we hear them enhanced by the haunting voice of Barbara Patkowa. „ Face-melting psychedelia opens up the album as Patkova, backed by ominous arpeggios and electronic squeaks, goes from a murmur to a shout. In four minutes, she reaches total abandon, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album, where anything can happen – as long as it’s in a minor key.” (Adriane Pontecorvo)
ChillYourself, 30 May 2017

Wildflowers
Hart Sawyer
A lyric discovery somewhat reminiscent of the young Kate Bush, Hart Sawyer composes and writes her own songs, plays the piano, the ukulele, the guitar and has a strong and clear voice. Sawyer hails from Kentucky and began playing and singing at a young age. In 2016, she was invited to both Coachella and the Lightning in a Bottle Festival. Wildflowers is the latest of her videos.
Released 15 July 2017

Flowers. Beautiful Life Volume 2
Jimmy Greene
“Tenor sax great Jimmy Greene continues to be a beacon of strength as he channels his grief of losing a child to gun violence into some of the most vibrant, lyrical jazz coming out of America today. “Flowers: Beautiful Life, Volume 2” is a gorgeous testament to the vibrancy of his late daughter, 6-year-old Ana Márquez-Greene, which relishes in the playful energy of childhood with the assistance of not one but two phenomenal groups.” (Ron Hart)
Mack Avenue, March 2017

Bone on Bone
Bruce Cockburn
Bruce Cockburn is one of Canada’s most beloved songwriters, earning 12 Juno Awards and spots in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame over the course of his storied career, which spans nearly five decades. The new collection of songs, produced by Colin Linden, touches on many subjects close to Cockburn’s heart, including the poet Al Purdy, life in Trump’s America, and the complexities of personal spirituality.
True North Records, July 2017

Pharma (Orange Milk)
Nmesh
“Experimental and innovative, with equal attention given to the pure musical aspects and the pillaging of old movie clips, commercials, and general media. Perhaps Pharma is about information overload, misplaced nostalgia, and digital decay – if those phrases mean anything. But the fragments are so fleeting, the tone so transient, it’s hard to say if the album embodies this paralytic postmodern ambivalence, or just sidesteps it altogether. Listen to this thing. It’s a goddamn psychedelic album. It concerns itself with memory, but these memories are indelibly glossed over, redacted, and memed into a higher dimension. This is your brain on drugs in 2017.”
Vapor Memory, August 2017

The Animal Spirits (Border Community)
James Holden & The Animal Spirits
Progressive electronic dance music. Long-term collaborators Etienne Jaumet of Zombie and Tom Page of RocketNumberNine are among the members of the Animal Spirits chosen by British indie prodigy James Holden, as are Marcus Hamblett, Liza Bec and Lascelle Gordon, mingling synth with natural sounds in a giddy maelstrom of cosmic prog, krautrock, techno and psych-folk.
Fagano l’afgano, November 2017

Diamonds and Demons 
Nessi Gomes
Born on the tiny Island of Guernsey to a Portuguese family, British singer- songwriter Nessi Gomes channels influences from both sides of her ethnicity, blending the essence of the traditional, emotional and ‘larger than life’ Fado folk music with British contemporary inspiration. Her quirky and emotive voice reflects a brutally honest inner world where shadows and hope, sanity and insanity dance magically together; where mysteries are unveiled.
Amaqui Producciones, December 2017

www.neilyoungarchives.com
By becoming a member, the Neil Young Archives give you free access to all songs and recordings of the Grandfather of Grunge

Come along
Cosmo Sheldrake
Cosmo, son of biologist Rupert Shekdrake and voice teacher Jill Purce, is a 24-year-old multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer from Hampstead, London. His music is not easy to place but sounds like something between classical modern and pop. This lovely tune has all it takes to become the song playing in your head.
Transgressive, 13 October 2017

You see all my Light (Shlohmo RMX)
Jacques Green
Greene is an acclaimed Canadian DJ and electronic music producer known for his house tracks, often incorporating R&B and U.K. garage influences. Through several well-received singles on labels like Night Slugs and LuckyMe, Greene (along with artists like Disclosure and Kingdom) was instrumental in updating house for a post-millennial audience, mixing the U.K.-born post-dubstep/future bass sound with contemporary R&B.
LuckyMe, New Album: 17 November 2017

Mix Hamburg
Kutiman
Ophiel Kutimir, better known as Kutiman, is another discovery you may have missed – just like us. While working at a local convenience store in Tel Aviv, Israel, Kutiman discovered a college radio station that was playing genres of music that were vastly different from the classical jazz he had been accustomed to. When he met Sabbo, another Israeli artist, he was introduced to Afrobeat and funk music, including the sounds of James Brown and Fela Kuti. In 2003, Kutiman embarked on a journey to Jamaica, where he researched reggae and worked with both Stephen and Damien Marley.
Melting Pot Music 2015

Cumbia Sobre el Mar Quantic Flowering Inferno
Lee Scratch Perry
„Caviar for the ears,“ one of his fans comments. Lee „Scratch“ Perry (actually Rainford Hugh Perry, *20 March 1936 in Manchester) is a Jamaican music producer and musician. He is deemed one of the most influencial people in the development of Reggae, Ska and, most of all, Dub in Jamaica. His fame is due to his excentric ways and his highly daring treatment of effects and mixing console. The great man lives right here among us with his family, in Einsiedeln, in the Canton of Schwyz.
Leescratchnelpi, 17 August, 2017

Towards the Light
Natascha Nikeprelevic, Overtone Aria
Vocalist Natascha Nikeprelevic is one of world best overtone singers. Originally, this mysterious technique came from Mongolia and Southern Siberia. It designates the rare capability of simultaneously producing two notes with one voice. Nikeprelevic studied at the Italian Accademia Capraia for six years and later taught at the same conservatory, while perfectioning her technique. Meanwhile, she regularly tours Europe, Asia and Canada and teaches the art of overtone singing.
Encore, 31 Dezember 2014

Old castle by the river in the middle of a forest
Chick Corea & Hiromi
Chick Corea needs no introduction; Hiromi Uehara (born 1979) is a highly acclaimed Japanese jazz pianist, who does not only infuse this genre with new energy but has also brought her scorching style to jazz-rock-fusion. Here we are listening to an older probe of her art that can be equaled with that of veteran Chick Corea, with whom she plays here. For those who want to hear more, further pearls of her exceptional talent can easily be found.
Yasuhisa Tanaka, March 2010

Turn up the quiet
Diana Krall
A further sure value in the world of jazz has published a new album this year and promotes it with a world tour. Diana Krall, married to Elvis Costello, was born into a familiy of musicians and began to play the piano at age four. Add her warm and far reaching voice and, thanks to her husband, her own compoistions and texts. On Turn up the quiet, characterized by standards, she is accompanied by a series of wellknown musicians such as Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Tony Garnier (bass) or Karriem Riggins (drums).
Vevo, March 2017

Give More Love
Ringo Starr
Ringo has surrounded himself with friends and released an all-star album, on which, next to Paul Mccartney, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh (Ringo’s brother-in-law), Peter Frampton (formerly Humble Pie), Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) or Don Was can be heard. Qualitatively, the tracks are rather varied but – hey! – it is Ringo Starr who remains a great drummer and still has a lot of fans.
Roccabella, September 2017

Chicha Çoçek
Szkojáni Charlatans
The gipsy band hails from the mysteriously sunken village of Szkojan in Transsylvania, of which nobody ever heard again. The at least three sometimes four or maybe five or six musicians around the young violinist Kjartan Code live in Budapest and Santiago de Chile, travel around the world and  delight who hears them with the wild and dreamlike quality of their sound. The band formed in 2012 with the intention to prove to their audience that folk music is still and always the best party music, standing in a mystic tradtion no-one can pass by. And so they play Balcan rhythms and gipsy music with a strong muti-cultural, urban influence. Janoš Bito is great on the accordion though not as much in evidence in this song as in others.
Video by Mussy Parra, Ramon Madariaga and Valeska Aracena, March 2017

Leonard Cohen Playlist
Leonard Cohen
Here fans find the entire work of Leonard Cohen in chronological order as a free 22-hour-stream.
Open Culture, October 2017

Why is there so much beauty in the world?
Rupert Sheldrake
Why is there so much beauty in the world? And Psychedelic Expriences and Morphic Resonance
Two talks by Rupert Sheldrake (about 40 min each)