Gondwana Vinilo y CD

Review: Before landing a privileged spot on the legendary Blue Note label, Manchester's GoGo Penguin had released a string of LPs, through Gondwana Records, that have become notoriously difficult to find. Moreover, they are respected by the very best of the contemporary DJs, including Worldwide FM's ever-present Gilles Peterson. This deluxe edition of V2.0, the ensemble's second studio album, will provide you both with a decently-priced copy of the vinyl edition, along with plenty of added bonus takes and interludes that were missing from the original cut. Thanks to subtle waves of electronica and improvisation, GoGo Penguin are putting the "contemporary" into jazz and, along with that, providing us with an LP that is changing conceptions of the genre for younger audiences.

Review: Matthew Halsall's Gondwana label is seeing a busy August what with the imprint flooding our jazz charts with reissues and, of course, new releases such as this wonderful collaborative effort from The Gondwana Orchestra and Dwight Trible. Trible's voice is like silk, running up and down the delicate waves of melodies from the collective, with "Colors" and "The Creator Has A Master Plan" both capable of making the toughest of audiences feel utterly uplifted. On the flip, "Love Is Everywhere" shines bright amid a flurry of flutes and intricate drum percussions, while "You've Got To Have Freedom" rides off a much smoother, deeper sort of vibe that's got a little funk at its core. Wicked.

Review: Matthew Halsall's trajectory as a leading light of spiritual jazz in the UK continues apace with his stellar new album An Ever Changing View. Restlessly prolific and drawing from a seemingly bottomless well of ideas, he approached this record as a reset of sorts, affording himself freedom to explore sound in all aspects. The end result remains true to his velvet-smooth approach, delivering understated instrumental flourishes around delicate grooves to make for the gentlest of access points for the labyrinthe halls of jazz, but as ever there's much nuance and complexity bedded into these delicate compositions to yield new discoveries over repeated listens.

Review: Second time around for Matthew Halsall's sixth solo album, Salute to the Sun, a set that many critics cited as being among the best contemporary jazz albums of 2020. As the title suggests, it's unarguably Halsall's most summery album to date, with the celebrated bandleader and trumpeter - accompanied by some of Manchester's most accomplished players - offering up a swathe of relaxed, life-affirming compositions that combine modal and contemporary jazz themes with gentle, Latin-influenced rhythms, breezy instrumentation (harps, kalimbas, marimbas and so on) and subtle nods towards Charles Stepney and Terry Callier. Some of the woodwind and brass solos are similarly superb, while the album's sun-soaked, easy-going atmosphere is alluring whatever the weather.

Review: As part of his Gondwana label's 10th anniversary, masterful Manchester trumpeter and contemporary jazz trendsetter Matthew Halsall has put together a special deluxe edition of his beautiful "Colour Yes" album with thick reverse board sleeves, silver block letter foiling and two printed inner sleeves. First released in 2009, the album showcases Halsall's deeply emotive style across the 8 achingly good, supremely spiritual tracks that glow with gorgeous piano playing, gently lilting drums and his own fantastic leads.

Review: Reissued on Gondwana after an unexpected sea-change, Matthew Halsall's Bright Sparkling Light was originally conceived as a tour-only exclusive, its three exquisites, averaging seven to ten minutes per suite, serving only the most loyal and dedicated of fans eager enough to clasp their mitts around the limited edition at the time of his EU and UK tour in October-November 2023. Now, its rarefied airs get dropped; so too do the folk scramble to lend it a second listen, discovering Halsall's preference for hypnotic drones, tenor sax progressions crafted around lush flute loops, and portrayals of the artist's favourite rural location: Newborough Forest, both at daytime and nighttime. 'The Tide And The Moon' is the closing highlight, nicely closing the gap between dewey morning and crept-in crepuscule.

Review: Following 2014's When The World Was One, Halsall and the Gondwana collective continue their spiritual jazz adventure with another immaculate narrative. Now with much more vocal prowess, singer Josephine Oniyama plays a lead role in the story, adding consistency and personality to the Halsall's swooning, cinematic odysseys. Highlights include the Hathaway-style half spoken/half sung "Badder Weather", the frenetic double bass and brushed drum crescendos of "The Land Of", the (lark) ascending strings and oriental scales of "Cushendun" and the smoky, faraway Coltraneisms of the title track. Modern jazz doesn't get any more authentic than this.

Review: West London's Kessoncoda are the duo of drummer Tom Sunney and keyboardist Filip Sowa. Standing firm between acoustic tradition and electronica, they're founded on a unique blend of melodic, ostinato-laced piano and unwavering drums, fastening a new sond that fuses lilting, lullabying electronica and spiritual jazz. Having long shared a studio setup at the bottom of Sunney's garden, Outerstate was born of curiosity, and a shared tendency towards and taste for the more wondrous ends of jazz, comparable in sound to that of their labelmates GoGo Penguin and Portico Quartet. The mood of the album is captured in the band's comment: "this feeling of being within a group of friends, and you're chatting, and you're physically there but mentally you're not at all / you're somewhere else, a really weird state of being." We'll hazard that this could mean a state of flow; one that is almost impossible to find oneself not in, whether listening to the detuned upswell-ecstasies of 'X Is Closer To A' or the fully textured, metrically moded piano threnodies of 'Greyscale'.

Review: Jasmine Myra's sophomore album Rising is apparently named after her current status in the UK jazz game. She deserves the recognition: the saxophonist, composer and bandleader lays down a beautiful six-piece project here, providing a brilliant dialgue to contrast her first LP Horizons. Myra describes Rising as a "reflection of a period of my life", following on as the logical continuation from Horizons, which was "all about my experience during lockdown, and entailed overcoming my struggles with mental health". Rising, the sonic reply, charts Myra's experience of continuing to bulld her self-confidence. Through its glistening, refractive, yet soft progressions, demarked by detailed bell acoutrements and mutedly ascendant sax progressions from the star herself, the likes of 'Rising', 'Glimmers' and 'From Embers' make for fantastic spirited listens.

Review: Phi-Psonics, a contemplative jazz ensemble from Los Angeles, is helmed by bassist Seth Ford-Young and features the talents of Sylvain Carton on woodwinds, Mitchell Yoshida on electric piano, and Josh Collazo on drums. Their music, rich in soulful depth, weaves together influences from jazz, classical, and Ford-Young's personal journey through spirituality, yoga, and philosophy, creating a soundscape that is both unique and profoundly meditative. Hailing originally from the Washington D.C. area, Ford-Young relocated to California in the early '90s, where he developed a deep affection for the upright bass and the works of jazz legends like Charles Mingus, John and Alice Coltrane, and Duke Ellington, alongside classical composers such as Bach, Chopin, Part, and Satie. His musical journey has been one of continuous exploration, marked by collaborations with artists like Tom Waits and Beats Antique. The recently announced limited 12" 'Morning Sun/Arrival', drawn from sessions that produced Phi-Psonics' second album Octava, showcases the group's introspective and innovative approach to meditative jazz. These tracks offer a space for serene reflection, encapsulating a spiritual journey through warm melodies and intricate instrumental dialogues, embodying Ford-Young's vision of personal evolution and higher vibrational states.

Review: The Danish electronic jazz duo Svaneborg Kardyb - consisting of pianist Nikolaj Svaneborg and percussionist Jonas Kardyb - performed a short session for NPR in May 2022, a few months before the release of their third studio album Over Tage. Four tracks of exquisite jazz melded with Scandinavian folk influences, with artwork from Gondwana Records' Daniel Halsall, are presented to us in beautiful silvery-clear vinyl format. With the highs lopped off and the intonations muted, this is a serene, expectation-buttressing album.

Review: A unique collaboration between Milo Fitzpatrick of Portico Quartet, and Jordan Smart of Mammal Hands, Vega Trails' 'Tremors In The Static' hears these two mega-accomplished musicians bring nine spaced out forays through melodic, solo double bass. Taking their name from the Carl Sagan novel Contact (the Vega system), Influences from Swedish fiddle to Indian Classical are woven into a minimized tapestry of ambient instrumental sounds. Verbed-out folk jazz for your pleasure.

Review: Hot on the heels of his debut EP on Mathew Hallsall's Gondwana Records, saxophonist and flautist Chip Wickham is back with a full length. He is a member of the first Godwana Orchestra and was on Halsall's debut long player Sending My Love, but now really steps out with a sound that is all his own on Cloud 10. It's lush and spiritual, with mellifluous keys draped over gentle drums and heart aching sax solos reaching truly emotional highs. Gorgeous, life-affirming stuff from this modern great.