Lockdown forced an unexpected creative process on the group’s latest recording. The band members were separated but able to access each other’s contributions online. “It morphed into this beautiful collaborative experience. Ed and I would skype each other. We’d say this is the key, this is the tempo, we’ve got 20 minutes. We’d send each other the rough recordings and listen to them at the same time. Eighty per cent of the songs on the album were written like that,” she said. The trio’s music blends synth pop keyboard layers and soulful beats underpinned by Tu-Bryant’s rock influenced guitar playing and melodic vocals.
Quick, think of a jazz instrument. What is it? Chances are you might have a mental picture of a saxophone, trumpet, or drums. Or even a piano. But that black and white keyboard’s kissin’ cousin, the organ (if thought of at all) is probably way down the list. After all, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk are far better known names than Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, or Richard Holmes.
Royal Potato Family album cover
Musician Robert Walter skilled at playing all sorts of electric organs and keyboards like the Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Hammond B3 organ, Clavinet, and Mini Moog certainly feels that way. He thinks it just comes down to perception.
Robert Walter has announced his long out-of-print 1996 debut album
Spirit of 70 will be reissued May 7 on limited edition 180-gram, purple smoke vinyl and digital formats via RPF Records. Pre-order begins today exclusively on Bandcamp. At the time of its recording, the eight-track LP, that JazzTimes called can t miss funk, was the second edition in a planned series of solo albums by individual members of The Greyboy Allstars the band Walter co-founded, and 27 years later continues to play keys, alongside saxophonist Karl Denson, guitarist Elgin Park, bassist Chris Stillwell and drummer Zak Najor. The concept for the solo recordings was to emulate the rotating personnel of the Blue Note and Prestige labels where a core cast of musicians would take turns as a leader, while drawing on the others as sidemen. The idea was further expanded by inviting a guest from the previous generation that had been influential to The Greyboy Allstars sound to record with them. For Spirit Of
(This time Comrade Aleks interviews one of the members of the unorthodox Peruvian metal band Kranium, whose roots go back to the early ’90s and whose new album
Uma Tullu (which you can stream below) was released on December 1st, 2020.)
Kranium is a legend of the Peruvian underground. The band was formed in 1985 as
Murder but since 1986 it’s been known as
Kranium. Their early material tended towards savage a thrash/death meta, but years passed, some members left and others joined the band, and their first full-length
Testimonios finally was released in 1999. The story behind its making is long and far from easy, as