Portico Quartet
Isla

Other Mirror was formed by longtime friends, Jonny Cuba (Soundsci Producer) and James Tilley (multi-instrumentalist). In 2018, the band found themselves creating music together, for a project that they had talked about starting since becoming school friends many years prior. Although this is the band’s debut album and debut on KingUnderground, the members who make up the group are far from newcomers.Each individual brings a strong track record of music and creative experience to the project, which informs each of their musical philosophies and approach to collaborating and conceptualizing art together.

Deluxe Edition pressed on 180 grams vinyl.Iconic and much sough after self titled LP by Piry Reis now re-issued as a deluxe edition containing an extra bonus track (spaced out Jazz interpretation of No Risco Do Relâmpago).After playing for several years with Egberto Gismonti group and other prominent Brazilian acts, Piry decided to record this album which was originally released in 1980 featuring a special guest appearance by Egberto Gismonti.

Jahmal Padmore’s debut solo album, Esparonto, arrives via Telephone Explosion Records on May 28th, 2022. Padmore has been honing his producing, songwriting, and drumming skills since 2007, working with artists like MSTRKRFT, The Carps, Just John and Brendan Philip. This extensive studio & collaboration experience has primed Jahmal for a standout debut, one that encompasses the diversity of his past musical work. Esparonto is a stunning collection of ten post-Afropunk R&B tracks that are languid, sexy and wry.

As Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times, “the aggressive and sublime first album by the band Elder Ones, Holy Science, is a kind of gauge for how strong and flexible the scene of young musicians in New York’s improvised and experimental music world can be. At the center of it are drones and phonemes. The group’s leader, the 30-year-old composer and singer Amirtha Kidambi, holds forth behind a harmonium, the small keyboard instrument with hand-pumped bellows; it’s commonly used in bhajan, the Indian devotional-singing tradition that was central to her musical experience while growing up in a South Indian family.”Kidambi formally trained in classical music, singing works by avant-gardists including Nono and Stockhausen, but the pull of free jazz and Alice Coltrane drew her toward a different path. The influence of both Alice and John Coltrane is especially apparent on the new album, as is her work with composer and saxophonist Darius Jones, and her study of Carnatic music.While in Darius Jones's a cappella group, Kidambi developed a language for wordless vocals, freeing her from being tied to syntax, a technique she uses through most of Holy Science. The music is anchored by bass-lines and drones on the harmonium, often doubled on the bass by Brandon Lopez. Matt Nelson on the soprano saxophone evokes the sound of the Indian double-reed nadhaswaram, and the playing of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, blending with and harmonizing her voice and the reeds of the harmonium. Drummer Max Jaffe’s ability to seamlessly pivot between complex grooves and timbrally explorative free-playing, completes the equation. Each musician was chosen for their unique improvisatory language on their instrument, ultimately informing Kidambi’s compositional approach.Reflecting on her various influences, Kidambi explained, “I grew up Hindu, but with a pantheist universalist bent, the idea that all religions are different paths to the same God or Truth. Not only is the music of John and Alice Coltrane so influential, they both practiced universalism. Alice's primary guru was the same one that my family followed, and she participated in the bhajan singing tradition. I grew up singing with the harmonium, and I know all the tunes on her Huntington Ashram records. She looms large for me as a figure who blended so many different styles and traditions, uncompromising in her vision and authentic to herself. She was, in a way, a universalist in her music, blending her influences of Stravinsky, gospel, free jazz, the avant-garde, world music, and her spiritual practice into a totally individual sound. I really relate to that way of thinking about music and the universe.”The first piece composed in the suite was "Dvapara Yoga," which began as a meditation on the death of Eric Garner. The album title derives from a 19th century text written by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, which scientifically explains the yugas, or eons of cosmic time in Hindu mythology. The four movements Sathya-Yuga, Treta-Yuga, Dvapara-Yuga and Kali-Yuga, explore themes of creation, destruction, and rebirth, with the final movement pivoting on the Vishnu Sahasranam Vedic chant, and ending with an apocalyptic reset of the time cycle.

A new star rises in the twilight of funky-soul-jazz as Ernie Hawks releases his debut album Scorpio Man on Timmion Records. The impressive trombonist/flutist is known to hold no punches when performing live in the ranks of The Soul Investigators. Here he delivers a fierce selection of S.O.U.L. and Cymande flavored instrumentals that also bring to mind some of the finest sample-fodder library music. Take a chance with the Scorpio Man, his sting will give you a high much better than what they sell in the streets.