Crucial Material – Best Releases of the Week (August 18th, 2018)

Good albums just keep coming!

To help you avoid the task of sifting through hundreds of new releases every week, we’ve selected what we think are the best… hopefully you discover something new!

DJRUM “Portrait With Firewood”

Genres: Electronic / Orchestral
Label: R&S
Purchase

Really really beautiful stuff from DJRUM on R&S, and in R&S fashion coming correct with something to please the club, the headphones, the artists, and the musicians. Ruff and rugged perc loops are juxtaposed with pristine string arrangements and choral melodies creating a highly emotional atmosphere which belongs more outdoors among the trees rather than in a dark and sweaty venue. Wherever it’s played, it will grab the audience’s attention no matter what.
-Mike Jones

10.4ROG “up&outURbody: 2014-2017”

Genres: Beats / Funk / R&B
Label: Self-Released
Purchase

This Oakland native producer is always displaying his versatility, and this project demonstrates just that; an instrumental project, consisting of beats from his vaults made from 2014 to 2017 – Lo-Fi Hip Hop, Trap, Funk, R&B.
-Selected by Walla P

OURI “Escape”

Genres: Electronic / R&B
Label: Ghostly International & Make It Rain
Purchase

Great to see the highly talented Montreal-based singer / musician OURI finally get some shine internationally! She’s been bubbling around the music scene in the city for some time now, and I think everybody knew she was a cut above from the get go. Can’t wait to see where she takes things, and I have no doubts that the best is still to come!
-Mike Jones

Chevel “In A Rush And Mercurial”

Genres: Weightless / Ambient / Techno
Label: Enklav
Purchase

Ok so maybe it didn’t come out this week, but if we missed it chances are you did too! “In A Rush And Mercurial” is a rapid follow up to the Italian producer’s LP “Always Yours” which came out on Logos & Mumdance’s Different Circles. It comes with the intensity, tempos and energy of Grime and Techno but leans more towards the Ambient / Experimental sides of things… which I think is now becoming considered as “Weightless”. If you dig it, try out “Cold Mission” by Logos, anything on Lee Gamble’s UIQ label, or “Sponsored Content” by Antwood.
-Mike Jones

Slick Don “Hold Out”

Genres: Grime
Label: BAD TASTE
Purchase

Grime. Four tracks to dance to from Birmingham’s Slick Don, with Walter Ego and Jammz in the production credits. Press play and go!
-Mike Jones

Theadora Ifudu “First Time Out”

Genres: Cosmic Soul / African Soul
Label: PMG Audio
Purchase

“First Time Out is a cosmic soul transmission from Nigeria’s own Diana Ross, Theadora Ifudu. The arty co-host of hit TV program, ‘The Bar Beach Show’ hooked up with the guys from Monomono to created an album that is sultry, sexy and effortlessly cool. It’s a smoky, New York Soul Club on wax. A graduate of the New York film school, Ifudu considered herself an artiste, and the opening track, ‘Hello There!’ Is arresting in its cinematic scope and intriguing strangeness. After briefly channelling Miriam Makes in ‘Gbata Ngwa’, she moves into full diva mode. ‘(When Will It Be) Right Time’ features vocal runs that Mariah Carey would be proud of and ‘That Man’ has a smoky, jazz club vibe. It’s easy to imagine Theadora, under a single spotlight, dazzling in a sparkling figure-hugging crowd, holding a hard-to-please New York audience in her thrall. At times funky, laidback and smooth, the greatest compliment that can be paid to First Time Out is that it sounds international. The musicianship is first class, the vocals faultless and the mood super smooth. Theadora Ifudu, the self-proclaimed ‘moon watcher, ragdoll and artiste’, created an Afro soul masterpiece for the ages.” – Peter Moore

Yazz Ahmed “La Saboteuse Remixed”

Genres: Jazz / Beats
Label: Naim Records
Purchase

“Following the 2017 release of La Saboteuse, her highly acclaimed psychedelic Arabic jazz album, this remix EP brings together three of Europe’s eminent electronic DJs. This confluence of individual artistic visions creates music of deeply saturating polyrhythms, placing the listener into a curious state of relaxed tension. The sense of a personal narrative runs through all of Ahmed’s work and here is no exception. La Saboteuse as a whole is a journey of self-examination and with this remix EP, the reflection continues in both linear and abstract directions.”

Ramzi “Phobiza Vol. 3: Amor Fati”

Genre: Electronic
Label: FATi Records
Purchase

“RAMZi’s smudged ‘Phobiza’ cycle culminates with Vol. 3 and the birth of her highly promising FATi Records label. Taking the artist’s impressionistic trilogy to a natural conclusion, ‘Phobiza Vol 3: Amor Fati’ seals the series with a warm kiss off in 11 parts featuring guest input from Asael, Regularfantasy and Hashman Deejay. It’s a lush, blunted, tropical session. Arriving five years after Phoebé Guillemot’s debut, ‘Amor Fati’ is love letter to an imaginary island perhaps unrecognisable from the infamous Ibiza of ‘Uncovered’, and parallels the sensual spaces dreamt up and enacted by white isle dreamers such as Tony Pikes or N.O.W. Still, even those dreamers stop short of RAMZi’s fantasias, rendering a series of head-melting scenes in flux between hallucinatory dub, early hours house and balearic vapours that work so well as a psychedelic, late night soundtrack for tripping romantics.”

Get out there and enjoy!