Cykada
Metamorphosis

** Available exclusively at The Pusher **After their debut album Space Voyage for Warner Chappell, Eleven76 are back with a new album commercially available for the first time entitled Occhio Occhio.The album contains insect-themed outernational grooves with tropical and Arabian flavours and smooth and buttered tunes with soulful vibes that are reminiscent of classic European library music. Vintage synthesizers and hot tape-recorded drums continue to lead Eleven76's mystique, with travels through funk territories and all the while frenzied percussion-heavy break beats keep b-girls and b-boys moving on the floor.Including the sold-out first two singles "The Scarab’s Quest" & "The Hornet’s Nest" plus 3 exclusive tracks for this vinyl edition.

Originally released in 2006, this album sold more that 300.000 copies. It is now reissued by Schema Records in a new special edition, consisting of a 2-LP set, blue transparent colored vinyl enclosed in a gatefold sleeve Everything about this incredible album, that hit like a bolt from the blue at the time, has already been said. Mario’s deep and warm voice recalls the great soul and rhythm’n’blues music interpreters. Many will think of a black singer, while Mario comes from the town of Catania, Sicily. “Handful of Soul” ranges between jazz and soul, resulting in a very enticing music release, whose sound swings from smooth vocal melodies to rhythmic tracks to dance to. The singer and the producers successfully managed to find out songs that wouldn’t change the nature of Mario’s voice, that could highlight the deepness of his tone, yet in the same time would still be able to represent the artistic direction and the music lead followed by Schema Records.The love for r’n’b and soul, the styles of music mostly appreciated by Mario, brought him to listen to a certain music repertoire, in particular some of the most representative related artists (Earth, Wind & Fire, Donny Hathaway. Billy Paul, Luther Vandross, Lou Rawls, Aretha Franklin, Eryka Badu, Will Dowing...).The songs on this record have been played by trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso and his High Five Quintet, a strong all-star ensemble with an excellent interplay that involves some of the best musicians in today’s Italian jazz scene: Daniele Scannapieco on tenor sax, Luca Mannutza, Pietro Ciancaglini and Lorenzo Tucci, respectively on piano, double bass and drums, forming a solid rhythm section. Mannutza and Ciancaglini were also in charge of the arrangements. High Five are able to play Jazz in an instinctive way; they perfectly adjusted to this production in a natural way, making this album a very pleasant listening.

Harlem Pop Trotters is one of the best jazzfunk albums in the French library, and one of the grooviest too. Written & produced by Jean Claude Pierric & François Rolland for Les Tréteaux in the mid ‘70s, this real masterpiece is now reissued on Underdog Records (Janko Nilovic, Martial Solal) in a rare colored edition!

Tapestry, first LP of Namas; a modern jazz band from Rennes BZH, is a self-produced piece mixing the traditional sound of a trio and modern hip-hop grooves. It is where night falls that Namas finds his universe through dreamlike compositions, influenced both by the London jazz scene and pictorial art.

It would appear that Polish jazz is a well-known subject through and through. Dozens of outstanding albums, biographies of the masters, hundreds of journal articles. As it turns out, it is still possible to find music that has been waiting for years to be discovered. On the 80th birthday of Tomasz Stańko, Astigmatic Records presents the first part of Wooden Music, a conceptual project created by the maestro and his legendary quintet, which has been stored in the archives of Radio Bremen for 50 years.Tomasz Stańko was an exceptional Polish jazz trumpeter. He passed away in 2018, leaving behind a legacy of numerous releases, soundtracks, concert recordings and wild stories involving him. Before rising to the top, he honed his craft alongside Krzysztof Komeda and Andrzej Trzaskowski. In the mid-1960s, he appeared on Astigmatic and Polish Jazz Vol. 4 – the albums that were a creative manifesto for Polish jazz of those years. However, all this time he was constantly thinking about starting his own band.In 1968 he completed the line-up – Janusz Stefański on drums, Bronisław Suchanek on double bass, Janusz Muniak on tenor saxophone and Zbigniew Seifert on alto saxophone, which he soon replaced with the violin. Stańko classified the quintet's output into three periods. The first, composed, is associated with Music for K, Stańko's publishing debut as a leader, which became a permanent entry in the canon of Polish jazz records. The second period is wooden music – it's the free jazz period, the least known in the quintet's history despite the fact that it spanned more than three years. The third and final period is linked to the release of the band's final album, the cult Purple Sun. However, the entire period between Music for K and Purple Sun is shrouded in mystery, as the band was mainly in Western Europe at the time. In the early 1970s, all the musicians take one-year visas. In between tours they live in Germany: first in a hippie commune in Wurtzburg, then in Darmstadt. They play in clubs on a day by day basis. The quintet is said to be distinguished from other bands by their ability to completely "burn" in the fire of improvisation. They lead their lives as a single organism, touring without wives or girlfriends. The compositions are blurred, the fascination with free music prevails. Short pieces and motives are the starting point for further performance. The ensemble does not plan, they just play. On 28 May 1972 they play at the Iserlohn jazz festival. JG Records would release this performance as Jazzmessage from Poland. The very music recorded there represents what the quintet called Wooden Music.The foundation of wooden music is the sound of the double bass and the violin, but it soon becomes apparent that all instruments except for Tomasz Stańko's trumpet are wooden. A string orchestra is born, over which the metal trumpet can weave all sorts of hues accompanied by the saxophone. What fascinates the quintet in wooden music is the melody, rhythm and timbre - where these are usually just an element, they fill the entire piece in their case. Bronisław Suchanek, the last living member of the quintet, recalls:"Wooden music is all about total improvisation. We used to arrive at a gig, start playing without really knowing where we were heading. The only thing that guided us was the common and mental compatibility, understanding, friendship and respect along this musical journey. Music was the first most important element to attribute to – it was free jazz in its purest form. If there are any moments that seem orchestrated it is because we played together for several years, evening after evening, going from club to club. We knew each other better than our parents knew us, we had total trust in each other – that's what made this music exist in the way it did."

Broc Recordz presents their new release, L'Obsession by the Italian composer Louis Fontaine. The album is a fictional soundtrack, between Library music and Italian OST from the 70's in a Jazz style.