One of last year’s best kept secrets was Mancunian trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s sophomore album Colour Yes on Gondwana.

Colour Yes will delight fans of the dreamy astral jazz played by pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane, and that of saxophonists John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders in their more reflective moments. Above all, it will bring a warm glow to enthusiasts for trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Bill Evans circa Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959). They may also be grateful that Halsall does not, at this point in his career anyway, feel the need to adopt Davis’ dictum: “I always gotta change, it’s like a curse.” In the case of Colour Yes, more of the same, lovely, gently swinging, uncomplicated beauty is a blessing. AllaboutJazz

Found this one on the top 2009 list by Other Music (who else) and jah bless; the opener Colour Yes – where Nat Birchall’s Saxophone steals the spotlight from Matt – is an instant classic, and the rest of the six tracks put a spell on the listener. This is an album where everything goes click and things work effortlessly, it’s dreamy and meditative, perfect for every hour of the day and every weather, a desert island disk for not only the jazz afficionado, but to modern soulful music listener who takes equal joy from soul, nujazz, hip-hop. 4.5/5

Can’t stop mouth guitaring the beginning of this unforgettable Buzzcocks classic today.

You tear me up
you grab what’s mine
you tear me up
every single time
you tear me up
what a hideous crime
you tear me up
you’re a bloody swine

Jonny Trunk is the man behind Trunk Records, home to the amazing Moon Wiring Club and in the general direction of the Ghost Box clique. He has also been the broadcaster of Resonance.fm’s OST for the past 6 years, which is a heaven for all diggers of soundtracks and library music.

His 2009 effort Scrapbook is totally my kind of music: short & to the point beats from all walks of life, left behind for dead, until the right time comes and they see the daylight via a Scrapbook. I could never do this to my pieces, because this shitty digital station brings more misery every year, as plugins are outdated and samples are lost. Jonny on the other hand is a man and not a sissy like me as he works with “An EMU E5000 Ultra that works some of the time, and old Beocenter 1800, Logic 4.7 on a rather unattractive Apple G3, a Yamaha P90 electric piano and a small Mackie mixer.”

But, I digress, this is a phenomenal record from one of Britain’s most talented and eclectic crate diggers. Amazing sample based cinematic soundscapes, lots of anglohumour and a beautiful mind. Essential if you’re into Shawn Lee, The Time & Space Machine and of course BBC Radiophonics.

Harmful elements in the air
symbols crashing everywhere
Reaps the fields of rice and reeds
while the population feeds
Junk floats on polluted water
an old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number 23?
Leave your yens on the counter please
Hong Kong Garden

Tourists swarm to see your face
Confuscius has a puzzling grace
Disorientated you enter in
unleashing scent of wild jasmine

Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
a race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway
Hong Kong Garden

Shelled the first ₤1 of our lunch money to our English goldenboy Bullion. Say Goodbye to What was released as an edition of 40 7”, and of course it’s already sold out, but thanks to bandcamp you can get the digital.

‘Say Goodbye To What’ is hook-laden psychedelic funk, a pop song brimming with intricacies and a beautifully-skewed production approach. It may well be the strangest singalong track of the year.

Just received this one from Bear Funk. Soirée, labelowner Stevie Kotey’s new project with Max Essa is a real beast that fuses all the good bits from balearic house, disco, funk and anything soulful. The title tune “Zim Zim Zar Zar”, a freaky minimalist arabesque house piece with Max Essa uttering magical nonsense a la Sim Sala Bim, is an instant classic. “Overgroomed” has just the right amount of lazyness you want your dancefloor to always have. “Day to Day Life” has amazing spoken bits by Max Essa on top of an unstoppable cinematic groove. Highly versatile album with top quality songwriting from head to toe – something you rarely get from dance albums these days – you should definitely give it a go.

UK beatfreak Paul White has just released the second part of his beats EP “Sounds from the Skylight” on Bandcamp (can’t say how much I love this site!). Don’t miss this one if you’re into the UK psychbeats stuff like Bullion, Lukid, Lone etc. And somebody tell me which classical piece was Ultra Violet was sampled off. Free download.

Lead by Portishead’s Geoff Barlow, Matt Williams on keys and Billy Fuller on bass Beak> is a new trio from Bristol who just released their debut on Ipecac Records.

The band has some pretty rigorous guidelines in place. They record all their music in one room and they don’t use overdubs. The band wrote their entire album over the course of one 12-day session. In a statement about Beak>, Barrow says, “It’s really good to create music under different conditions than you’re used to.” Pitchfork

Now I haven’t listened to the full album, but from what I’ve heard the band has created a claustrophobic lo-key kraut & psych sound with 70s analog electronic sensibilities not unlike Silver Apples.

BEAK>, then, is a record that gradually gives up its secrets with each listen, in turns sombre, blissful, angry and energetic – a record of moods and their transfer to disc. The ingredients, and the musical personalities, combine to make a very intriguing and invigorating listen. MusicOMH

review by urufixx :

Beak> Portishead’den Geoff Barrow’un önderliğinde, Billy Fuller ve Matt Williams’ın biraraya gelip oluşturdukları yeni bir grup. Grup albümünü öve öve bitiremeyeceğimiz Ipecac Records’dan çıkardı. Genel olarak kraut-rock ve psychedelic rock unsurların başını çektiği deneysel güzel bir çalışma. Albümün psychedelic tarza uygun olarak ağır ilerlediği söylenebilir. Bazı parçalar ise hissettirdiği duygular aracılığıyla albüme dinamizm katıyor. Bass ve davullar ön planda hissedilmekte. Deneysel ses efektlerinin müziğe oldukça renk kattığını rahatlıkla söylenebilir.

Son yıllarda 70′ler müziğine bir geri dönüş yaşanıyor farkında mısınız? Beak> de 70′lerin o leziz psychedelic ve kraut-rock gruplarının ruhunu alıp 2000′lerin müziğine oldukça güzel uyarlamış gruplardan biri. Kendilerine özgü kaliteli bir müziğin oluşmasını sağlamışlar. Çok da iyi yapmışlar bence. Bu albüm mutlaka desteklenmeli. Kraut-rock,psychedelic rock,experimental müzik ve Ipecac records severlerine, fanlarına şiddetle tavsiyedir. İyi dinlemeler.

Mumford & Sons, been hearing about them for some time, was kind of guessing that they were the annual Fleeting Foxes. So their new video Winter Winds is not surprising in that sense, but It is totally repellant with massive amounts of rural beard-o-cliche. I proceeded to ask Boran Guney, one of my partner buddies at Etrafta to write three lines about it critically knowing how he hates everything hip, folk & cliche. Here’s what he blurted out :

“Another shameless example of rampant irishxploitation, these blokes sound as ethnic and authentic as doner kebab in Brixton (or the Irish Pub in İstanbul). Roll over Celts.”

He should be a regular commentator, isn’t he?

UK producer Dom Stanton aka Domu announces that he has quit making music :

The point is that I am no longer Domu. He is a character, always has been, and as of Friday 13th November 2009, he no longer exists. Neither does Umod, Sonar Circle, Bakura, Yotoko, Rima, Zoltar, Blue Monkeys, Realside or any of the other names I put out music under. I am cancelling all my gigs and not taking any more. My hotmail is closed, my Twitter is closed and my Facebook is closed. If any of you want to talk to me and know me well enough to have my mobile number then that is still the same, and please feel free to call any time. My other email address I mail from occasionally is still open to tie up any loose ends.

The urban dance community is shaken with this emotional final letter from Domu :

I have had an amazing time. I’ve travelled the world, drank and partied and made a decent living out of entertaining people throughout all of my 20’s. I met some incredible people in cities I never dreamed I would visit, shared my thoughts and collected wisdom from a huge range of deeply profound and lovely people. But I have also met some real arseholes, and I could feel I was becoming one.

We thank him for all the music. Hope he sorts everything up in his life.