Beats + Pieces Vol. 75
Space Ghost & Teddy Bryant, Maria Sommerville, Ayesha, Jess Sah Bi, etc
Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes, it takes completely different forms.
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
Back in 2022, Space Ghost & Teddy Bryant, a producer-DJ and a singer-songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist from Oakland, CA and Conway, South Carolina, recorded one of my favourite records of the year for PPU, the Heaven Sent EP. Over three perfectly formed mid-tempo tracks, the two American artists showed off a deft understanding of how to blend the conventions of UK street soul with the affectations of boogie, g-funk and new jack swing.
Three years on, they’re currently prepping for the June 13th release of their debut duo album, Majestic Fantasies, via Space Ghost’s own Peace World Records label. Right now, you can listen to the title track - an effortless fusion of new jack swing and melodic deep house on Bandcamp. Over the course of ten, well-realised tracks, they pay homage to storied songwriters like Teddy Riley, Jam & Lewis, Carl McIntosh, and DeVante Swing, while adding their own modernist twist to this soul/R&B informed milieu.
Every Monday and Tuesday morning since 2021, the Irish musician Maria Sommervile has shared her love of dream-pop, shoegaze, ambient music, slowcore, Irish folk songs and indie with a discerning global audience via her morning show on NTS. Along the way, she’s carved out a shared psychogeography which feels like a fitting context for her new album for 4AD, Luster.
Her first release since her debut album, 2019’s All My People, Luster exists within a soundworld that unfolds with the logic of the hypnagogic state that accompanies exiting the dreamworld and returning to waking over. Singing delicately over an elegiac blend of wavy guitars, subtle electronics, and post-punk rhythms, Sommervile transforms memories and melancholy into the catharsis that comes in the afterglow of processing heartbreak while finding your way back home.
Written and produced in the wake of a traumatic hit and run injury that forced her to rethink everything and relearn how to be in the world, ‘Blunt Force’ is a fierce avant-garde club track from the brilliant mind of New York producer, DJ and live electronic music performer Ayesha. Somewhere between experimental sound art and industrial techno, ‘Blunt Force’ is a compelling statement of intent and a vivid window into where we might expect Ayesha to go next.
I hope you like noisy electronic music and the seemingly endless possibilities afforded to composers by the miracle of the human voice? Across Kembo, the Portuguese musician and visual artist Jonathan Uliel Saldanha (of HHY & The Macumbas/The Kampala Unit) and Kingdom Ulfame Choir (a seven-piece Uganda-based group of Congolese singers) team up as KINGDOM MOLONGI for a vivid cycle of songs sung in an imagined language concocted from elements of Lingala, Swahili, Kikongo and French over richly cinematic electronics. I can’t imagine you’ll hear anything else like it this year.
Just plugging this one AGAIN. Another one of those rare records that sounds like nothing else on earth. Read Jesse Dorris’ review for Resident Advisor here.
Jess Sah Bi is well-known as half of the legendary duo Jess Sah Bi & Peter One, who brought homegrown Country-Americana to the West African masses with their smash debut Our Garden Needs Its Flowers in the mid-1980s. Back in 2017, I was lucky enough to be able to help the Awesome Tapes From Africa label reissue said album in a gatefold vinyl edition.
In the wake of that reissue, Peter One scored a deal with Verve Records and has been out on the road playing shows with The Gypsy Kings. Jess, however, has been quieter. Last month, that all changed with the ATFA reissue of another archival gem, Jess’s lost 1991 cassette album, Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas (Jesus Christ Does Not Disappoint). Building on the amalgamated country, folk and afro-pop sensibilities of Our Garden Needs Its Flowers, Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas is a reminder of how special Jess is as an artist. This stuff will take you places if you let it.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:
AOA Mix 003: HONEYPOT: DJ Baby Tee and Rhyzine, co-founders of Dublin's premier club night for gay girls and friends, serve up a “rough n' ready, hot n’ lezzy” DJ mix. Read/listen here.
"I'm not trying to build a business out of this": How Elijah found success through sharing art. For The Politics of Dancing, Annabel Ross meets the man behind the Yellow Squares. Read here.
The psychological impact of ocean sound with Elise Guillaume: Artist and film-maker Elise Guillaume's Waves of Resonance explores the potential of listening to deepen connection with the underwater world. For Through Sounds, Anton Spice. Read here.
More everything: On ‘hexed!’, aya processes her dark impulses: The Yorkshire-born producer relinquishes her awe for after-hours partying on her second album —aya talks to Megan Townsend for Mixmag about death metal, returning to Hyperdub and wanting to reach the nivarna between digital and acoustic. Read here.
“Suzanne Vega” is 40: Friday is about music, so playlists and links; today the debut album by Suzanne Vega (also called ‘Suzanne Vega’) is about to turn 40. Happy, happy birthday to a wonderful record. For Sounds Good!, Simon Sweetman.
MUSIC PODCAST RECOMMENDATIONS:
Popcast: The Times's pop music team on music news, new songs and albums, and artists of note.
Rave To The Grave: Wild party stories, life advice & electronic music history.
FIN.