A.S.M (A STATE OF MIND) - Crown Yard

A State of Mind (A.S.M) is a Hip-Hop English collective, native of Canada, Germany and England which influences come from Funk to Hip-Hop and even Reggae. 

The main group members are: Green T, FP, and Flat. They are accompanied in studio and on stage by Ludivine Issambourg flutist of Wax Tailor, Marco Bernardis, Paul Burton and Mike Davis (saxophonist, trombonist and trumpeter of 6ix Toys) but also the "Rice Krispies" saxophonist Romain Alary, the trombonist Geoffroy de Schuyter and the trumpeter Alex Herichon.

They worked repeatedly with the French DJ Jean Christophe Le Saoût, known under the name of Wax Tailor. The first title arising from this collaboration is "Positively Inclined", then "Say Yes" and finally "Guaranteed", available on albums "Hope and Sorrow", "In the Mood for Life" from Wax Tailor and on "Platypus Funk" from A.S.M .

On 2007 the group brings out his first EP "Pre-Emptive Nostalgia", in March 2008 brings out to Japan the second EP "Cosmic Flavour". In 2010 went out the first album marketed in France:"Platypus Funk".

Their second album Crown Yard went out on October 31st, 2011. A new musical maturity, with the same Hip-Hop vibes, optimistic and 'true-school' found already in their first album "Platypus Funk", an enormous European success arisen from the collaboration with Wax Tailor.
 
What makes this new album different and unique, it's the sophistication of its arrangements and the depth, in which they investigate the musical genres previously only brushed: more specially the Funk, in its original version, but also the Motown Soul, the Reggae-roots and the Afrobeat.

 
This new album of ASM looks like a 70s movie Soundtrack. While their young and overflowing energy shines in each of the pieces, the depth of grooves, the precision of the rhythms and the musical complexity of highlighted "CROWN yard" send a very clear message… ASM is in the place!!!

Harmonic Hip-Hop : Tumi And The Volume - Reality Check - Pick A Dream

In honor of all South African singers, I pick up this group to commemorate 1990, the official end of apartheid and my daughter birth "Léa".

With a sound shaped by urban South Africa and honed during incandescent live performances, the Johannesburg quartet Tumi And The Volume have quickly forged an identity as rising stars of new African music.

They have released three albums in six years, yet Pick A Dream feels like their first proper studio album. Following At The Bassline, recorded in concert, and TATV, which also had a ‘live’ feel, they have developed a precise sleek sound, pulling in a wide range of atmospheres. 

With this new offering, the group have really opened up their music to embrace the world.

                

Styling themselves as headless men, their quest for identity takes them into hypnotic waves of strings and percussion ("La Tête Savante"), where butterflies gently break bad news ("Through The Sunroof"), things are tough, frustrations many, and life spools along as in a film ("Moving Picture Frames") and where rebellion meshes with hope ("Play Nice").

It’s Hip Hop – as on killer track "Asinamali" and the explosive "Reality Check" – with added dimensions.

There’s a South African flavor throughout, especially on "Limpopo", but the message is universal and delivered in stunning poetic force by master MC Tumi Molekane.

The album contains a few surprises too with Danyel Waro guesting on vocals and kayamb.

This new project extends beyond music - they asked Hippolyte, a young French artist living in La Réunion, to supply the artwork. The result is a great album cover and a little graphic story inside the booklet which tells a mythological tale about the group’s beginnings. 

It’s a beautiful piece of work, and one which you can’t download.

With Pick A Dream, TATV take their place as the most powerful African voices for the new generation. Turn up the volume!

Infectious Electro-Jazz : Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna

Mr Scruff makes such a good sound that his record company even authorizes him to draw badly big whales in the shape of balloons on its cover album. 

More seriously, Mr Scruff built up to himself a graphic and special personal sound who made of him one of the members most respected by the label Ninja Tune.

And that makes everything crushes ten years ago when his first record 'Keep It Unreal' became cult after his release only with the piece 'Get A Move On'. 

7 years later with 'Trouser Jazz', and after some mixed compilations where he shares his rather funky influences, he's back with a real album Ninja Tuna. 
A record which will help him to unstick to the easy-listening label, because he tested every piece in club and validated their efficiency.

It's true that the groove is omnipresent in Andy Carthy's titles, to begin with 'Test The Sound' which acquaints with your speakers and verifies if they are authorized to allow to pass big beats , jazzy melodies and hip-hop flows .

OK let's go there, our mister 'Potatoes' invites Alice Russell on 'Music Takes Me Up' who teleports us in a piano bar where everybody would pay with spirit its piña colada's round.

You'll always distinguish a point of humor in these pieces which would even force a grin to inspector Derrick: no effort at all for speaking of the already classic and cheerful 'Donkey Ride', and let us discover the house pumpin of 'Get On Down', and then the R' n B dynamic of 'Hold One' and the very soulful 'This Way' well served by the pleasant voice of Pete Simpson.

'Hairy Bumpercress' is an old fashion jazz ballad and 'Whiplash' offers its lesson of dive in corals sometimes sharpened, sometimes comfortable with its aquatic bass line. 

Always there to trap us in a conceited trap, Roots Manuva makes an appearance on 'Nice Up The Function' which combines dubstep spirit and discreet trumpets, directly followed by the annoying man 'Bang The Floor' where Mr Scruff has fun with Danny Breaks sending us some heavy groove.

 

The carnivals 'Kalimba' &'StockportCarnival' give the occasion to brass instruments to show themselves under the sun of Rio. 

  

Who wanna mess around and test the sound?

Funky British Pop: Just Jack - Writers Block - Overtones

 

Overtones:An impertinent album by its fraicheur and sound from feet to nose in everything the stereotypes of the hip-hop.

The crystalline singing of an acoustic guitar, the power of a cello, the punch of the percussions, everything is there. All the tones but also all the feelings: of the dance 'Stars In Their Eyes' in the sorrow of 'Mourning Morning' by way of the bondissante 'Glory Days' which will make you Valium forget. 

An unique style which makes us travel so easily in a universe of 80 ' No Time' that in the British rap close to that of Dizzy rascal with ease!

It's weird, this mixture of accent so British and of the phrasing which would make, Hip-hop singers go pale with good envy. Just Jack: This small young person is full of energy, and he mixes the styles with such an ease. It's disconcerting!

If you are not really fit, listen to him; if you're full of energy, also listen to him!! It's the kind of Funky British Pop album that we can listen to again and again without ever growing tired of it...This album is a real jewel led with class.