The Sultan's Swing
The Sultan's Swing Sessions

A festival organizer asks for a solo, and it is for Kham Meslien the trigger as much as the revelation. Twenty years of loyal service in a band, and Kham left the artistic direction of his career to the strings of his double bass. From now on, this one should take the less codified road of music where freedom reigns. That of jazz and its improvisations dictated by the moment, that of purely instrumental compositions. Written and honed on stage, Kham's compositions have benefited from an imposed lock down to be refined and immortalized in "Fantômes...Futurs", his first solo album.Double bass player turned leader, Kham has placed his double bass, a fine mix of power and gravity, at the center of a virtual band in which he occupies all the positions. Percussions struck on the wood of his imposing instrument, discrete brooms or rhythmic double bass have handed over their spells to the printed circuits of a looper. Looped, cadenced, each one was then replayed on itself, the time of several measures. The time for Kham to install the deep tone and the warmth of strings that resonate on the wood to become storytellers. A music with images where the vibrations blacken the first lines, impulse melodies and themes, then leave the solos the freedom to speak to write the following.An intense, instinctive, emotional speech.To cross a melancholic storm before finding the immensity of a plain above which to glide. To follow the novel of an Andean charango playing oriental melodies, blurring both places and distances, mixing cultures to become one. Clinging to the suspense of the notes, following the sinuosities that lead to darkness as well as to light. Or go the other way around. To settle down near Anthony Joseph for the attentive listening of a poetry, only vocal title of the album.On the voluminous body of an instrument in balance on its foot, the climates follow one another, the lively and velocity fingers fade in favor of the bow which will go to seek in the strings dramaturgy and buried feelings. "Ta Confiance", "The Alarm" or "Le Saule Pleureur", each title tells Kham's story as much as it gives the indication of the track to follow. Each one is then free to go where he wants, the paths being different as the listening goes on and especially as the moment passes.

Michel Legrand's cult soundtrack for Jacques Deray's 1969 classic 'La Piscine' gets reissued with three bonus tracks making their vinyl debut. Featuring newly remastered audio, gatefold sleeve designed by Eric Adrian Lee and Liner notes by Jeremy Allen (The Guardian, The Quietus).The RSD Edition will also include Michel Legrand's super rare and funky 7" OST for Deray's 1972 film 'Un Homme Est Mort'.

Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy are back with a new single release after their album debut "Mam Yinne Wa", which can be seen as a harbinger of the second album. You can hear another Frafra Gospel masterpiece by the king of this genre."Doose Mam" is a soulful piece that goes straight to the limbs with its repetitive rhythm. The jubilant middle section, in which the wind instruments and the choir pass the balls to each other, is to be emphasized. "Gure Yose Me" ties in with the Frafra Gospel tradition of making use of reggae rhythms. Here we hear a stepper played by Josie Coppola, Europe's No.1 reaggae drummer. Both pieces were produced both in Berlin and in Kumasi by Max Weissenfeldt in Philophon's in-house Joy Sound Studios.

The compilation “Celestial Birds” reveals and focuses on the widely unkown electronic compositions of the AACM founder and jazz pianist MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS. #5 in the Perihel Series, curated by zeitkratzer director REINHOLD FRIEDL.Anybody interested in jazz knows that Chicago has always been an impressive hot spot for new talents – and still is. One essential landmark in the history and development of jazz was the founding of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) in May 1965. This non-profit organization was a melting pot (and starting point) for artists like ANTHONY BRAXTON, ROSCOE MITCHELL, GEORGE LEWIS or LESTER BOWIE and his ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO but one of its actual founding members is known only to the deep connaisseurs: MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS (1930 – 2017). The autodidact pianist and composer left music school and university, deciding to learn music by himself. From 1961 on, the EXPERIMENTAL BAND was his first ensemble, but it soon turned out that ABRAMS‘ interests went beyond jazz and that he was open to the avant-garde and new music and most of all: electronic music. Which led to a double problem: On the one hand, black musicians had almost no access to the rare electronic music studios located in and funded by universities or broadcasting corporations. On the other hand, there were strong reservations regarding electronic music in the black music community. In his important book “A Power Stranger Than Itself – The AACM and American Experimental Music” GEORGE LEWIS writes that “the use of electronics … proved controversial and widely misunderstood in a world of jazz in which acoustic instruments became conflated with musical, and eventually, cultural and even racial authenticity.” ABRAMS‘ response was to actually „hide“ his electronic pieces on the B-sides of his albums, and this compilation focuses on some of his best electronic experiments: the 22-minute long epic „The Bird Song“ from 1968 in its original version incl. the reverb that was removed on the later CD reissue on DELMARK, the synthesizer compositions „Conversations With The Three Of Me” (1989) and “Think All, Focus One” 1995) plus “ Spihumonesty” (1980) with a 2nd synthesizer played by GEORGE LEWIS and YOUSEF YANCEY on theremin.“Celestial Birds” casts a new light on the underrated experimenter MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS, his innovative approach to composition and pieces that lay dormant for way too long!

55 years have passed since Bobby Cole lay this one down in 1965 but that has done nothing to diminish its charms. This reissue from Omnivore has been fully sanctioned by the Estate of Bobby Cole and rightly so because it has had the full treatment - produced for release by Grammy-winner Cheryl Pawelski and remastered by Grammy-winner Michael Graves it captures Cole at his best. He was said to be Frank Sinatra's favourite saloon singer and the range he shows here goes some way to proving why. For some reason, the album was a critical but not commercial success.