Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue

To me previously unknown British artist Stephen Wilkinson aka Bibio made one excellent album that’s, as all good ones, kinda hard to describe – it’s largely electronic music but at the same time it floats back and forth between folk and funk let’s say. Mellow but experimental, it grows on me on each listen. I don’t associate the music to a perfectly ordered street with identical cars parked on the side… rather to an afternoon out on a hill.

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The Herbaliser – Same As It Never Was

Same as it never was begins as if it’s an instrumental hip-hop album. And hip-hop really is the root of Herbaliser’s music, played by a mini orchestra around Londoners Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba. But only a couple of seconds later it reveals its true kaleidoscopic face, made of glaring elements of funk, jazz, soul and backed by beats that knock on every hip club’s door. By the time catchy Can’t Help This Feeling is over, you’re most likely going to be completely in love with Jessica Darling’s absolutely stunning and timeless voice. Instrumentals though is how Herbaliser lads started, and there’s handful of them here too. They are an intriguing experience, and more than once I thought that the music could end up on a James Bond soundtrack.

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Marvin Gaye – Anthology

I once saw a movie where the main character was planning all the time how he’s gonna take a girl home, put on some Marvin Gaye and then they’ll undoubtly get laid. Well I think he’s onto something.

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Blue Break Beats

I have most of the Maestro Blue Note compilations (Sunrise/Sunset, Gettin’ Up/Gettin’ Down etc), and they’re all really nice. So I was looking for some more Blue Note stuff like that and found this. All these are not the “classical” jazz compilations, as you might expect given that Blue Note is the most famous jazz label. Rather they are a collection of tunes from artists who focus more on the beats and emphasise the funky side as opposed to the usual approach in jazz, the improvisation. Songs like these eventually gave birth to various fusion styles and even hip-hop.

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