It’s 2020 baby and the Bastards are not sleeping on the job!
2019 has been a fruitful year of music discoveries, and we hope that this year will be as good or better! We will also try to be more active on the blog in general. But no matter how lazy the Bastards get, one thing remains : the Monthly Finds !
Here is the full playlist followed by the description of our picks !
Emapea – Seeds, Roots & Fruit (2016)
This dude gets it! I can’t remember I the last time I listened to an album I wasn’t familiar with from start to finish, with no skipping ahead. I got an ad for a repress of the record on instagram, and I could tell by the cover that it would probably be pretty good. The design elements echo what a crate digger is looking for when trying to find a good record to sample. I quickly put it on Spotify and was not dissapointed, this album was solid start to finish. Classic Boom-Bap beats mixed with a bit of jazz, and some reggae. You could have told me this was a lost Pete Rock album from 1994 and I would have believed you. This holds up to anything made in Hip Hop’s prime.
Human Bloom – Nightshade (2016)
Chicago souljazzfusion. Nightshade is their debut album, but they just put out a saucy new single in 2019. In my heart I hope Human Bloom puts out a full length this year that kicks off a US jazz/neo-soul wave similar to the one the UK’s been building for the past few years. Maybe wishful thinking, but yOu nEvEr kNoW…
Jamael Dean – Black Space Tapes (2019)
Jazz by a 21-year-old. Likely to put you in a cosmic trance. Gets hip-hoppy-ish towards the end. Maybe the lankiest thing I’ve submitted…or ever will submit.
Takashi Matsunaga – TAKASHI (2004)
Amazing jazz pianist. His play style is always busy and clustered with notes allover, probably seen best if you listen to his interpretation of Caravan in this album. Moreover he was only just 17 when he releases this album. This album also contains other classic jazz standard song like highway blues and Beautiful Love.
Overall, great debut album and for all the weebs out there, he is the pianist behind the soundtrack for Sakamichi no Apollon. Oh I also link discogs info cus all of the song tittles are in Japanese.
https://www.discogs.com/Takashi-Matsunaga-Takashi-/release/10084441
Gianni Brezzo – New Magic (2019)
Im sad I missed this album when building my 2019 top50. Simple and Smoth, a blend between Azymuth and BADBADNOTGOOD.
Fred Pallem, le Sacre du Tympan – L’Odyssée (2018)
This album is a very unique experience that I cannot really describe.
Burlesque? Strange? Mystical? Quite an interesting musical voyage.
Nick Drake – Pink Moon (1972)
Sad folk with pretty guitar, minimal backing, quiet singing.
Roberto Cacciapaglia – sonanze and other works (1975-)
Classic of progressive electronic/electroacoustic. I only discovered it now, and it’s all I wanted it to be: weird and trippy straight out of the 70s.
Woodkid – Woodkid for Nicolas Ghesquière – Louis Vuitton Works One (2019
I liked woodkid initally, with his heavy use of orchestral elements, but ultimately discarded it as it was ultimately too easy and popish to my taste. So I was very positively surprised by his latest turn to more experimentations. Overall, nice modern classical to consume in a one listen.
Bahla – Imprints (2017)
Woah. THIS IS MY JAM. This is what I would try and do if I was a good musician. Good jazz with many other influences from around the world and amazing post-rock-esque build-ups.
Marco Shuttle – Ritmo Elegante (2020)
Could be too repetitive for some, but if you’re into trippy progressive music, this could hit home. It’s clearly techno, minimalist in its construction, but with also trippy, sometimes psychedelic sounds and ambience. Despite it getting little love on RYM, I’m confident in my enthusiasm!
The Ncy Milky Band – Our Gurus – Dorothy Ashby & Both Worlds (2020)
Who is this french band ? This is seriously hot.
Tha God Fahim- Lost Kingz (2020)
Fahim does it again and released another album. It has great samples and paired with fahim’s conscious raps makes it a nice half hour listen. Has some Mach-hommy features. Zazazazaza
Bells Atlas – the mystic (2019)
I forget who on JQBX played a track from this, but major thank you because this Oakland band brings the perfect combo of psych & soul. Some IGOR fans may appreciate that this is a concept album – their About bio describes it as “a sci-fi fantasy of two first-generation Nigerian American women coming to terms with a mental health diagnosis, and at the same time, a very universal exploration of how we make sense of reality.”
Cory Wong – Elevator Music for an Elevated Mood (2020)
The album is mostly instrumental. ‘Treehouse’ is one of the few tracks with vocals, but is also one of the standout tracks with playful melodies, and easy-going singing. There are several layers to listen to and focus on, with Wong’s guitar being a central feature. The very next track, ‘Meditation’, is another favourite. It signals a different pace from ‘Treehouse’ and seems to strip back the layers we just built up, but the two tracks work nicely together, and ‘Meditation’ does feel quite meditative.
Eh voilà ! Our first LBMF of 2020 ! Hope you dig the muzak, we will be back with another edition, first monday of February !
