Standard & Grooves is a quarterly podcast series showcasing new releases and inspiration from the past probably related to the genres jazz, soul, fusion, electronic and ambient music.
"The hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body & lets you know: You feel this, you play this." A. COLTRANE
http://www.standardandgrooves.com
This one is for the island. It doesn't matter if this island is real or just in your mind. Named after a dystopian novel by French author Michel Houellebecq this issue sets the stage for great escapism, searching for the island of recovery and relaxation. The escape begins with some Japanese guitar jazz and fusion music, crossed over with some Carribean and German sounds alike. Later, it becomes trippier and more acoustic with guitar sounds by artists like G. B. Beckers and Windham Mill's star Michael Hedges. The closing is almost touching ambient territories with a short piece by Daniel Bacalov and a mind-blowing tune by Ben Gunning and Joseph Shabason from their 2019 album "Muldrew".
Carioca - So Wet (Polydor 1985) Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki & Tatsuro Yamashita - ノアノア (CBS 1978) Atlas - After Brunch With You (Crown 1987) Kalawang - Diana Source (Kalawang) Something Special - Take All Of Me (Monopol Records 1988) Incognito Five - Refresco De Samba (Happy Records 1981) Mavii - Bossa Nova (Not On Label 1984) Matthias Frey - Nopia (RillenWerke 1986) Ashra - Oasis (Virgin 1979) G. B. Beckers - Flugzeit (Music From Memory 2018) Michael Hedges - Point B (Windham Mill Records 1990) Danny Heines - Crescent (Solo Guitar)(Silver Wave Records 1988) Daniel Bacalov - Verso Nord (Soave 2016) Shabason / Gunning - Bois Blanc (Séance Centre 2019)
After we spent weeks below a thick and grey layer of clouds in last winter my wife and I went on a small mountain called "Mont Soleil". And the mountain gave us what he was named after. It was a calm and sunny day and we found relief from depressing winter time walking over untouched fields of snow, listening to the birds' chants. The soundrack of this day was made out of a lot of dubby and jazzy stuff I found on Discogs or Bandcamp during late december, mixing old and new, bringing genres together with the same vibe:
This issue's title is taken from a track by Wolf Muller and Niklas Wandt. At the beginning of 2018 they released an album which was an intuitive and fresh approach to cosmic music out of Germany or, to use the word, "Krautrock". Initially, the word "Kraut" was a term of disrespect for German people during and after World War II, but it soon became a label for artists and bands experimenting with new sounds in the 1960s. Influenced by psychedelic rock, jazz, world and experimental music by the ones like Karlheinz Stockhausen they developed an unique sound that was a radical rupture with the past. Heading to cosmic and otherworldly sounds was probably the best way to solve feelings of being affected by a frightening history and reject it at the same time. The cosmic and "Krautish" approach became highly influential in rock and pop music during all following decades, e.g. post-punk, wave etc., and it is no surprise that also some of today's artists are taking up this vast musical legacy. Listening to a lot of European music in late summer I had the idea of selecting German, Austrian and Swiss records which I think to be "Kraut" or "cosmic" in any sense.
In early 2018 my life felt like a jungle. New job, long-distance relationship, travelling between cities and countries. What helped me to ground myself was the vast output of re-issues and trusted online shops that provided me with a lot of good music. This issue reflects my feelings with an eclectic mixture of African and Caribbean jazz and soul, Japanese fusion, Western European rock and avant-garde music mainly from the 1980s.
Clive Zanda - Ogun (Cree Records 2017) Basa Basa - Love, Love, Love (Vintage Voudou 2018) Nar'chiveol - Fo Nou Pédalé (Décalé 2017) Stimela - Mind Games (Soundway 2018) Wally Badarou - Fisherman (Diskotopia 2017) Koharu Kisaragi, Ryuichi Sakamoto - Neo-Plant (Lag Records 2017) Yasuaki Shimizu - Kakashi (Palto Flats 2017) Workdub - Invasion (Left Ear Records 2017) Race - Split Personality (Black Suit 1982) Stefan Fredin - Gryning (Fri Form 2018) Jimmy Patrick - I've Been Worried (Not On Label 1982) Dominique Bertram - Chinese Paradise (String 1984) Lena D'Água - Jardim Zoológico (Strangelove Music 2017) Elektro-Dschungel - Kebapträume (Edition Dschungel 2017) Dunkelziffer - Trailer (FünfUndVierzig 1985) Elephant Chateau - Dreamings (Halb Tanz Halb Schlaf 1988)
This issue focuses on tropical sounds from all over the world which accompanied me through a cloudy and humid summer in Western Germany. The first half is made out of fusion and disco tunes mainly from the Carribean and South Africa, the second part searches the dubby territories and ends with some J-Pop that gives us the feeling of a summer ending way too early.