Brkn Record - The Architecture Of Oppression Part 1 - VINYL LP

The Brkn Record is a new project led and produced by Jake Ferguson, the co-founder and bass player for the UK's foundational deep jazz outfit the Heliocentrics. With fellow Heliocentrics co-founder and legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has been a regular collaborator with globally recognised artists including Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, Melvin Van Peebles, Orlando Julius and many others. The Architecture of Oppression Part 1 represents Ferguson's debut as a bandleader and orchestrator, and manifests as a committed and soulful response to ongoing and systemic anti-black racism, social oppression and state violence both at home in London and across the globe. Combining poetry, testimony and song with rich and cinematic backdrops, Ferguson has produced a sui generis sound that conjures flavours of Arthur Verocai, Ennio Morricone, classic library productions, Madlib-style deep-jazz beat science, and psychedelic soul. With bandmate Malcolm Catto on drums, Ferguson draws on their long years of collaborative experience in the Heliocentrics to build an album of striking texture and depth.

Matthew Locke was born 400 years ago in 1622, and while he is often ranked as one of England's finest composers, he is still unaccountably neglected his music may not be as immediately appealing as his immediate successor, Henry Purcell, nor as wide-ranging as William Byrd, yet his forceful musical personality and luxuriant technique place him in the first echelon of English composers, with his works described by Richard Boothby of Fretwork as having a Inchquixotic, capricious restlessness that is constantly challenging the listener to follow his argument... a thrilling musical rideInch. Accompanying Fretwork on continuo for this recording are David Miller (archlute and theorbo) and Silas Wollston (harpsichord). The cover of the album bares an inscription in the walls by the choir stall of Exeter Cathedral, thought to have been carved by the composer during his time as a member of the choir there. In 2021, Fretwork celebrated it's 35th anniversary. In the past three and a half decades they have explored the core repertory of great English consort music, from Taverner to Purcell, and made classic recordings against which others are judged. Their recent critically-praised releases with Signum include If and Lamento - both with counter-tenor Iestyn Davies - and In Nomine 2 (BBC Music Magazine).

Magnificent new EP & the first in two years from revered Brighton duo Harper Lee. The exquisite title track presented here in two takes contrasts trademark Harper Lee melancholy with an upbeat keyboard-driven tune that recalls the more optimistic moments of lead singer Keris Howard's former band Brighter. Among the three other exclusive tracks 'I Could Be Wrong' is a perfect slice of o-Betweens-by-numbers acoustic pop it's jangling guitars the perfect complement to a c.