https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/5vvxulBeCeY49Ha3JThZMj?si=2aa00782cf264a55?display=iframe
If you know anything about Flying Lotus’ music, you are expecting some level of jazz inspired chaos with most things that he puts out. And the start of this track delivers exactly that, with a flurry of frantic guitar and bass lines playing around with complex jazz harmonies, and a barrage of drum fills, with the vocals providing the only safe haven for the ear to latch on to. Then, very quickly, under the guidance of Anderson Paak, it feels like, the song fades out and ‘restarts’ in a completely different manner. The same set of instruments, but with a much straighter beat, calmer arrangement and more accessible harmonies. Anderson Paak’s raspy rapping provides the main focal point initially and is later replaced with a series of buttery smooth vocal harmonies, duelling with Thundercat’s fuzzy bass throughout the song to create a cosy yet still lively feeling track overall.
Top level musicianship on this track.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/73IrmhGaqTEWOEOnhhbFpL?si=ccab449d0ef6458a?display=iframe
Picking up the smoothness where ‘More’ left off is this track, originally a William DeVaughn song but covered many times since, including on Massive Attack’s debut album Blue Lines. This version is a faster and groovier version of the track, with a driving beat, killer bass lines and a series of lovely vocal harmonies in the choruses.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/23UVBAUrfc2cOlLOYRQyy8?si=29415fbb1ce5409c?display=iframe
Kokoroko is a part of the recent London jazz scene that has come to prominence in the city over the last decade or so, with a sound that is clearly jazz but incorporates other influences, particularly genres like Afrobeat. Other members of this group for me include Ezra Collective, The Comet is Coming and Sons of Kemet, among others. This track starts off with the drunken singing of a brass section, followed by a more permanent groove with the bass, with the brass section, the guitar and the hypnotic vocal chants of ‘Uman’ providing the punches throughout the rest of the song.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/36l7Mf0aD0wrQ1q6GLiMq7?si=3a94077377f44b80?display=iframe
Another great contender for the east meets west theme as well as the multiple faces theme. This starts with quite a brooding section with a four to the floor kick drum and a series of little guitar licks - probably not what one imagines when the artist has ‘and His Orchestra’ in its name.
It’s clearly building up to something but even so the next section comes as quite a surprise, as it would not be out of place in Boney M’s back catalogue. Soon after, it transitions, again very smoothly, to another few sections with sweeping strings supporting the wordless vocal melodies that immediately take me to Turkish pop songs of the time. Once Rahbani decides that he’s done enough, the intro comes back in and the song goes through the exact same series of steps before finally coming to an end. It’s quite a journey, I hope you like it.
A pretty standard Turkish pop rock track on the surface but this one has a bit of a personal place for me - it was one of the songs I was able to practise my mixing skills on during my sound engineering course, so I must have listened to it a hundred times. I think the vocal performance and the melodies are pretty strong.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/6TLOi4ikQ03PovnkCF6AKK?si=6e7f5844b65c4bbc?display=iframe
Starting off with dissonant chaos, the song quickly launches into a pulsating, lounge-y groove before a breakdown at minute 2 forebodes the intense breakbeats that take up the second half of the song. After several minutes of what feels like a steadily-increasing-in-intensity jam, the song climaxes but immediately the initial laid-back groove returns as if to say, here you go, take half a minute to cool down before you go about your day. Ever-morphing, this track is a perfect embodiment of the theme of this playlist, and is just a fantastically crafted piece from the Canadian foursome.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/11XwMbRCNKdaKuO6qebn11?si=1f4526a65a464b3f?display=iframe
A beautiful soul track with an orchestral section that carries Curtis Mayfield’s somewhat loosely timed but buttery vocals on top. The song switches between a waltz-y 3/4 and a regular 4/4 time signature as if it couldn’t get any more dreamy. Really is a classic.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/1Mq4vRRox3bcruJA75M4D9?si=ac5866a919374e81?display=iframe
Always a band to mess around with song structures, Crumb delivers another psychedelic masterpiece in Part III. The straight and punchy verse descends into madness in what is traditionally supposed to be the chorus and gives the listener a feeling of falling down an endless abyss, but the verse returns quite quickly to bring a sense of safety back to the song. Next time the end of the verse comes around, we get another surprise with Lila’s vocals causing a stop to the song before taking the song again in a completely different direction. Hope you like the multiple faces of Part III.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/4HDLmWf73mge8isanCASnU?si=48a67d2d51974802?display=iframe
I wasn’t the biggest fan of this album when it came out but somehow latched onto this track eventually. James Blake’s vocal is beautiful as always, it’s impeccably produced, and André 3000 delivers a blistering verse, while the catchy and slightly wonky main piano theme ties everything together throughout. A dark masterpiece.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/7omij53d6AvXefx13NNyfn?si=02b283db0ddf4b44?display=iframe
https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2exlQm8iKJ1WuwrFl9ytj5?display=iframe