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Already at the leading edge of the UK jazz scene, producer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Marc recently stepped into the spotlight with his lustrous and contemplative ‘Breathe Suite’ EP. Released in September and praised by the likes of NPR, The Wire and The Guardian, its sweeping strings, rippling piano and meditative vocals showed off Marc’s undeniable gift for composing and arranging. The EP and was nearly finished during lockdown when the death of George Floyd shook the world. As a result, Marc and vocalist Midnight Roba steered the release in a more contemplative direction, with the BLM ‘Breathe Suite B’ depicting struggle, panic and ultimately peace. New single ‘Way We Are’ offers a tantalising taster of what’s to come, and with an upcoming full-length album muted for release in spring, Marc has this to say on it:
"‘Way we are’ reflects on the way we live, the way we think and the way we grow. It’s the first track from my upcoming record and it came about while I was questioning what type of person or musician I am." Ben Marc
Marc, the alias of Neil Charles, has quite the musical pedigree. He grew up splitting his time between Birmingham and Carriacou in the Caribbean: at school in the English city, he started taking classical music lessons aged 10. After touring the world in school orchestras, Marc moved to London to take classical double bass at the prestigious Trinity College of Music, where Fela Kuti once studied, under the tutelage of double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku. It wasn’t until a chance meeting in Brixton with Gary Crosby, linchpin of Tomorrow’s Warriors – the crucial London jazz educators that connect the UK new wave luminaries, from Nubya Garcia to Moses Boyd – that the possibility of jazz shone like a beacon. “He was Black and holding a double bass, so I went up to him on the street and tapped him on the shoulder to find out what he was doing,” says Marc. It was the start of a game-changing journey that would see him play first with smart jazz group Empirical and then led him to forming the free-jazz trio Zed-U, alongside Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming) and drummer Tom Skinner. With Zed-U, Marc’s passion for electronic music began to bubble up. He and Hutchings would frequent London nightclubs together, soaking in the sounds of garage, broken beat and drum’n’bass at iconic former spots such as The End and Plastic People. He even took Hutchings to his first house and techno night, where DJs like Sven Vath and Ricardo Villolobos would man the decks – influences that led Marc to produce a house EP for the London-based label Atjazz. His work with other key figures has been building up, too: last year, he joined keysman Ashley Henry on the latter’s track ‘The Mighty’, which Marc wrote and produced.
In his new music, Ben Marc has unified these influences into a sublime whole. Now signed to LA’s Innovative Leisure, he’s found a home alongside similarly future-thinking artists like Badbadnotgood, Nosaj Thing, Rarelyalways and Jimmy Edgar. ‘Way We Are’ is a sign of things to come from an artist clearly at the top of his game.
Read more at Clash: https://www.clashmusic.com/news/ben-marcs-way-we-are-is-absorbing-return
On the new single, Meat Market, Iguana Death Cult explain "This angry little ditty about the death of romance is an absolute success during the live shows but we decided to keep it of the record because it felt a little to far away from the other songs."
"Frenetic, intense sonic assaults, they turn psych punk into astonishingly concise three-dimensional documents." - CLASH
"Nick Waterhouse is someone you misjudge at your peril." - Clash Magazine
LA-based troubadour Nick Waterhouse takes a spiritual look to the past on new album Promenade Blue due out this Friday on Innovative Leisure and co-produced by Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Devendra Banhart). In Nick’s musical and lyrical world, blue is a refraction of his life and memories — shadowing a deep, spiritual San Francisco that fostered his musical vocabulary but has now been stamped out irrevocably; evoking the endless tours, marathon recording sessions, and highs and lows of success he’s experienced in his decade-long career; conjuring romances that were doomed, loves that lingered, and hope for future days of parity and partnership; summoning spirits of people who have gone but permeate his mind forever. The world of Promenade Blue represents rebirth and reinvigoration as well as a clarity of purpose.
On De Lux’s first two albums the duo tackled the innocence of youth and generational anxiety. Their third album, More Disco Songs About Love, smashed them together to create an ambitious party record about all sorts of stuff you didn’t know you could love. This go-around Sean and Isaac are still funny and profound and their sound remains easy to groove to, but the band is more influenced by the fun 80’s new wave of the Tom Tom Club and the experimentation and imagery of The Clash’s “Sandinista!” than cerebral DFA era disco.
In anticipation of the LA duo’s upcoming fourth album, De Lux are releasing a string of singles and two EPs. The first EP, titled “Uneven”, contains three new songs brimming with a newfound playful confidence that is the result of throwing out the old playbook and embracing the uncomfortable unknown. After writing, performing, recording, and producing three albums themselves, they’ve traded their typically hermetic recording process at their Burbank studio for a more collaborative experience. This time Sean and Isaac invited the members of their live band to record to tape at Jonny Bell’s Jazzcats Studio in Long Beach, CA. While De Lux has always been able to write immediately danceable and quirky pop songs with a strong dose of wit, these recordings get the sonic boost they deserve to match the quality and camaraderie of their intense and acclaimed live performances.
"On and On (Till the End of Us)" is the first song on the EP. It starts with an unrelenting hiccup of a beat followed by disarming 8 bit beeps and boops before fidgety Chic style guitars and otherworldly strings come in that sound as if they could be the soundtrack to an intergalactic mission to save your home planet from being obliterated. Sean Guerin’s faraway sounding vocals are delivered with an urgency that makes you feel like you’re the world’s last hope.
As Clash reports, Nick Waterhouse unveils a new single, "Place Names," from his upcoming album Promenade Blue. Waterhouse explains: "'Place Names' is the song I have been writing my entire life. I wanted to figure out a way to astrally project the listener into all the places and pathways - metropolitan or naturalistic - I could. Look up at the light of a big sky against a hillside city dotted with lights, the sea rising before you, the street unfolding as you climb up from the subway stairs, all in some dreamy place filled with promise and wisdom it can deliver to you. Then remember everyone who ever brought beauty into your own life." Promenade Blue is due out on April 9th, 2021. Pre-order it here.