Guide to the Week of Music: Music news, new sounds and visuals

Welcome to the Guide to the Week of Music, a round-up of music news, media and releases from the wide musical world. This week, we see how Don Giovanni records plan to expand their practice and dive into some new sounds, films and music videos.

Don Giovanni records reach expansion goal

Don Giovanni records, the New Brunswick-based label renowned for championing artists from New Jersey and nearby Philadelphia, achieved their Kickstarter goal for label expansion yesterday. In achieving their $10,000 target, the grassroots label will be able to realise their ambition of releasing more music by emerging artists, as well as funding the creation of forthcoming releases by Moor Mother, Ex-Void, Sammus and many more.

There’s still time to help the label grow. Their campaign closes in a couple of days time and there are various musical incentives to encourage each contribution. Among those are test pressings and original artwork by Marissa Paternoster, lead guitarist and vocalist of the label’s flagship group, Screaming Females.

Paternoster also stars in a hilarious, D.I.Y. interview with label founder Joe Steinhardt to help promote the campaign, which you can check out below. Screaming Females, who released their album All At Once with Don Giovanni earlier this year, come to Band on the Wall next month and you can check out the record label’s newly released video for Tenement’s Garden of Secrecy here.

Stream Kyle Morrison’s moving rap short, Mott Haven

Speculative links between rap music and street violence have long been employed to besmirch the artform. Yet hip-hop has been proven time and again to be a positive force in communities where violence and poverty are prevailing issues. Take the South Bronx neighbourhood of Mott Haven. Social worker J. C. Hall took the opportunity to create a studio in the old storage room of a “second chance” high school and set about helping young creatives cope with loss, and process the social situation they find themselves in. Hall’s efforts were documented in the moving short film Mott Haven, which follows the young people he worked with developing as individuals, making informed choices and achieving the grades they needed to graduate. It was published online via VLADTV this week and you can check it out below.

New sounds

‘Despite being American, I feel Mancunian, and I couldn’t think about making another record, until I got back.’ These the words of BC Camplight, who just days after releasing his tremendous 2015 album How To Die In The North, was deported, placing him back in his birth state of New Jersey. Needless to say, he’s had a tough few years. So as you could imagine, myriad emotions pierce through the sonic membrane of Deportation Blues. New single Fire in England, with its dark, Post-Pop Depression-like production and biting lyrics, is a rousing retort to the system, and individuals, behind his ordeal. We’re glad the man is back, both in form and physical presence. Read more from BC via Far Out magazine.

Funk bassist Sven Atterton returned with a new track entitled Taboo this week. Anyone who caught him opening for Tuxedo here in 2015 will be privy to the man’s audacious slap bass sound, but if not, check out this killer chunk of electro-funk, complete with stacked drum machines and controversial synth programming.

MOBO award-winning jazz drummer Moses Boyd announced his new Exodus LP, Displaced Diaspora, earlier this week. Three new tracks are available to stream, including Frontline, which features Kevin Haynes’ Grupa Elegua and the unmistakable low end frequencies of Theon Cross’ tuba. Vocalist Zara McFarlane, saxophonist Nubya Garcia and trombone player Nathaniel Cross are amongst the album’s other featured artists, making it yet another vital record for followers of the ever-expanding London jazz clique.

Pianist Misha Gray, formerly of Beats & Pieces Big Band and currently of funk outfit Heavy Lemo, released his new Prehistoric Jazz Quintet album this week. Seven Wonders of the Ancient World builds upon Gray’s fascination with the history of music and the ancient wonders of the earth and mankind. Stream his track Colossus of Rhodes below, which features beautiful, unison tenor sax and trumpet work by Kyran Matthews and Nick Walters.

Finally, Brownswood artist Skinny Pelembe released a track featuring fellow Future Bubblers alumna Yazmin Lacey last week. Its lush, psychedelic production immerses the mind and makes the five minutes breezy by!

New Visuals

RnB artist Jerome Thomas, who headlines the next Inner City Waves show at Band on the Wall on 17th August, stars in the new video for Talos’ Slow Traffic. He also contributed smooth vocals to the track, calling it the first of many tunes that the pair have worked on. Talos’ Lowlights EP is out now on High Focus records and features saxophonist Nubya Garcia and MC Coops among others. Check out the full EP on Bandcamp. An altogether different voice in contemporary RnB, XamVolo continues to take our breath away. His new session for Colours is simple, yet so effective – his voice clear, strong and moving.

Freddie Gibbs must have enjoyed Uncle Drew! The rapper from Gary, Indiana stars as Uncle Fred in his new video for Automatic, conceived by Gibbs himself and shot by Trevor Penick & Stefan Vleming. Uncle Fred’s highly irresponsible childminding methods call to mind the Johnny Knoxville’s Bad Grandpa, while the track itself, beginning at 2:30, is prime Freddie.

Finally, Digital Dubs new track with Brazilian legend Tom Ze and dub producer turned frontman Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is certainly worth checking out! Animated by Alexios Leite, the video sees all three artists falling through a psychedelic vortex, braving the fires of Babylon and setting up a sound system in the presence of a super ape.