Review: Mo Kolours 'EP2: Banana Wine'

MO KOLOURS
EP2: Banana Wine
[One Handed Music]

Beguiling. That nicely sums up EP2: Banana Wine, from the half-Mauritian, half-English, half-percussionist, half-beatmaker known as Mo Kolours. Drawing on influences as diverse as Madlib, Theo Parrish, El Guincho and Lee 'Scratch' Perry, this seven-track EP (plus a fitting leftfield house remix by Beautiful Swimmers) is a fascinating blend of the music of Mo Kolours' ancestral home and that of his current base in South London. More so than on EP1: Drum Talking. And you ain't gonna find this filed in the 'World Music' section of your local record store. While EP opener Ridda Mountain and following track Twelve weave their slow-motion magic through a thick cloud of hash smoke, both Mini Culcha and Talking Move are much more uptempo, meshing the Sega music of Mo Kolours' homeland with squelchy synth chords and digitised rhythms. It's this relative diversity which gives the EP much of its charm; though Mo Kolours' unassuming voice brings a certain realness and warmth wholly in keeping with the thick layers of chords and bass-lines found here. Impressively different without being dis-jointed or over-reaching, this is an assured step from an artist who clearly has big tings gwaan.

4 stars from 5

Check out EP2: Banana Wine for yourself here, and find out more about Mo Kolours here.

Review: Jonti 'Sine & Moon'

JONTI
Sine & Moon
[Stones Throw]

Sine & Moon was first made available as a Stones Throw podcast when promoting new signing, South African-born, Australian-resident Jonti Danilewitz, and his debut album Twirligig. The response was so good that Jonti stretched it into a full-length album - with extras and new mixes - which he's now giving away for free. Which is definitely not a sign of the quality found within. While ostensibly a collection of unused tracks and remixes of early songs, Sine & Moon is a coherent and completely engaging album, which blends Madlib, Panda Bear, Stereolab and The Beach Boys into a South Pacific beat stew. Originally recorded on 4-track, the song structures are anything but lo-fi, with a subtlety of arrangement that hints at remarkable things to come. Fans of those musicians mentioned above - along with Savath + Savalas, Julien Dyne and The Avalanches - will find much to enjoy here. Experimental, yet entirely accessible. The kid's done good.

4 stars from 5

"When I think of how to write about Jonti's music, I don't feel like writing at all. I feel like drawing a picture, with watercolours and maybe crayon - colourful, abstract, youthfully curiuos and open to interpretation. Maybe then I'd staple, glue or nail some found objects to it, recontextualising their intended purpose into something strange and beautiful." Jeremy Sole (Radio Host, KCRW, L.A.)

Check out Jonti performing live in the Stones Throw warehouse here.
Download Sine & Moon for free here. Thanks Stones Throw!

Review: J-Rocc 'Some Cold Rock Stuf'

J-ROCC
Some Cold Rock Stuf
[Stones Throw]

"Brilliant! More awesome driving music!" That was the first thought that crossed my mind when this album appeared before me. I'm a long-time fan of Stones Throw, and I've found many of their releases, particularly those by Madlib and J Dilla (J-Rocc has worked closely with both) best suit being listened to at a high volume while driving. Surprisingly, when you consider the length of time J-Rocc has been around - he founded the turntable crew Beat Junkies in 1992 - Some Cold Rock Stuf is his debut artist album. Unsurprisingly, it's a diverse and challenging listen, with a dramatic, widescreen scope spread across flavours which range from Bollywood-styled party beats to treacle-thick hip hop. His turntablist abilities are on point, and an array of spoken word samples provide a kind of otherworldly narrative on an otherwise largely instrumental album - and also show J-Rocc has a healthy sense of humour. Let's roll!

3 and 1/2 stars from 5

Check out Play This (Also) here...

Review: Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra 'World Of Funk' and 'Hooked Up Classics'

SHAWN LEE'S PING PONG ORCHESTRA
World Of Funk AND Hooked Up Classics
[Ubiquity]

There are many words reviewers use which are superfluous. That's probably a chief culprit right there.

However, the one I'm picking on introduce this brace of Shawn Lee albums is "prolific".

The LA-based DJ, beat-maker, producer and weed-head Madlib aka Yesterday's New Quintet aka Otis Jackson Jr is prolific, recording quite literally stacks of material for the Stones Throw label, under multiple aliases. Legendary American indie rock-popper Robert Pollard is prolific, churning out something like eight albums a year via his bands Guided By Voices, Boston Spaceships, Circus Devils and too many more to mention here. Brighton-born, Cali, Columbia-resident, producer, DJ and crate-digger Will Holland is prolific, recording as Quantic, Quantic Soul Orchestra, Quantic and His Combo Barbaro and many others besides.

Add American-born, UK-resident Shawn Lee to this list.

This multi-instrumentalist, producer & musicologist is genuinely prolific, having released literally dozens of albums on his own, as the Ping Pong Orchestra and in collaboration with the likes of Money Mark, Tommy Guerrero, Clutchy Hopkins - not to mention in his past life as a session musician for hire, when he worked with everyone from The Dust Brothers & Jeff Buckley to the Spice Girls, while the man has made a mint from providing the musical backing for hugely popular TV shows like Lost, CSI, House, Ugly Betty etc. You could argue he began his career as a "library" music composer and performer when he released the phenomenal Ape Breaks series back in the day.

Under his Shawn Lee and The Ping Pong Orchestra guise, he now presents two more albums of heavily conceptualised library music, each as eminently listenable as his past work.

Following in the footsteps of recent albums Soul In The Hole and Sing A Song, where Lee was joined by a roll-call of guests in albums dedicated to various readings of one musical style, World Of Funk is packed with churning, riveting afro-funk in all its many flavours.

Guests include legendary Egyptian singer Natacha Atlas, multi-instrumentalist Brazilian artist Curumin, Dengue Fever's LA-based Vietnamese singer Chhom Nimol, Truth and Soul recording artist Michael Leonhart, NOMO band-leader Elliot Bergman and others.

While some may rail against Lee ripping off or bastardising these musical styles, the fact remains that this is a labour of love for him. He really does pour himself into these albums, playing many of the instruments himself & wholeheartedly committing himself to an authentic, genuine approach to song-writing, performing and recording the music.

The second of this pair of Ping Pong Orchestra albums is inspired by the Hooked On Classics series of the early '80s (factoid: put together by ELO's Louis Clark) and follows more in the vein of previous Lee albums Hit The Hits and his Christmas album.

Hooked Up Classics sees universally known songs like 1812 Overture, Swan Lake, Dance Of The Sugar P{lum Fairy, Also Spracg Zarathustra and eight others given a right odl dressing down, with Lee taking the essential elements from each piece and reinventing them within entirely new frameworks: 1812 Overture becomes a sweet, sunny, BBQ reggae track; Flight Of The Bumblebee welcomes a freestyle "chorus" over a boom-bap beat; and Hall Of The Mountain King gets twisted into a frenzied surf-guitar stomp.

This is an entirely enjoyable, hilarious and musically unpredictable journey through some of the best known songs ever written. Upon first listen I snorted, more than once, thinking "Sure, this is fun, but how many times am I actually going to listen to this gimmicky record?"

The answer? Prolifically.


World Of Funk: SIX AND A HALF sitars out of TEN
Hooked Up Classics: SEVEN AND A HALF outraged classical music buffs out of TEN

Listen to the Radio Ponsonby Record Review with 90, every Weneri morning around 8.30am, on Murry Sweetpants' Breakfast Show. Thanks To Longroom.