'Triumph' by Ronald Bruner Jr

Ronald Bruner Jr's debut solo album 'Triumph' was actually an early release amongst the ever-growing list of World Galaxy/Alpha Pup Records releases which now include the brilliant Josef Leimberg’s ‘Astral Progressions’, Jonah Levine Collective’s ‘Attention Deficit’ and Ryan Porter’s ‘The Optimist’.  Bruner's first introduction to this site was through our article 'The Graduating Class of To Pimp A Butterfly' which featured him as part of the incredible list of musicians who participated in the seminal Kendrick Lamar 2015 album along with artists including Terrace Martin, Josef Leimberg, Kamasi Washington, Adam Turchin, amongst many others...

Bruner's drumming on the much-loved Boi-1da produced 'The Blacker the Berry' is just one in a series of collaborations attributed to his skills, including having worked with undeniable legends including Prince, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan and Q-Tip, along with Terrace Martin, lebel-mate Natasha Agrama and his own brother, bassist Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner.

'Triumph' however sees Bruner take centre-stage as drummer as well as vocalist in a project that genuinely shines as one of the most exciting in recent years.  Guests and musicians on the album come with the high standards of Thundercat, Mac Miller, George Duke, Taylor Graves, Danielle Withers and Kamasi Washington with standout numbers including 'Take The Time', 'Doesn't Matter', 'Sensation' and 'To You/For You'.  The album is a unique fusion of jazz, soul and R&B with songs brought to life through an inimitable energy - it's almost fearless in its all-encompassing approach but a sound that's executed with ease.  Frankly, it’s unmissable!

Immortal Onion [Interview]

The timing of our discovery of Immortal Onion is eerily on point.  In March 2018, we featured a review of New Zealand DJ, producer and musician Surly’s new EP release through Astigmatic Records, ‘Trip To Warsaw’ which featured his take on the Polish jazz recordings that had been a source of such inspiration to himself and his musician father.  Polish band Immortal Onion however are actually doing the reverse: a jazz band who are incorporating a vast array of musical styles into their own sound like electronica, progressive metal and film score-style compositions.  Whichever way you look at it… we’re back in Poland as Surly prophesised and there’s no better place to visit than the debut album from Immortal Onion, ‘Ocelot of Salvation’.

The trio, comprised of Tomir Śpiołek (piano), Ziemowit Klimek (bass) and Wojtek Warmijak (drums), although a relatively young band – formed in 2016 and signed to Requiem Records in 2017 – already have a steadily growing list of accolades: winners of the Jazz Phonographic Debut competition and the City of Gdansk Culture Scholarship, the band can also boast having performed at the Warsaw Summer Jazz Days festival with Kamasi Washington, and having performed live improvised scores to two animated films at the II International Animation Film Festival in Gdansk and at the 17th Silent Film Festival at the award-winning Kino Pod Baranami in Cracow.

Then there’s the debut album to speak of, ‘Ocelot of Salvation’.  While the aforementioned musical influences are easy discussion points when discussing Immortal Onion's sound, the eight-track release certainly wears the band's influences on its sleeve but by no means relies on them: prog metal, electronics, jazz, are all parts of an exquisite musical gumbo that is distinctly Immortal Onion and incomparable to anything else.  It's a project - and a band - that deserve your attention and with so many achievements already under their belt, incredible things surely lay ahead for a band with boundless talent.

Blue-in-Green:RADIO is thrilled to have secured time with the drummer from Immortal Onion, Wojtek Warmijak, to discuss the album and how everything came together.

How did members of the band meet and come together to form Immortal Onion?
Me and Tomir used to play with Ziemowit in different bands.  We were inspired by similar artists and that was enough to start thinking about launching a new project.  At that moment all of us were looking for new musical challenges and this squad seemed like the perfect way to realise them.  After the first rehearsals, it turned out we get along very well, both as musicians and as friends and since then we have been playing together.

Who have been some of the biggest influences in shaping the band's sound?
The music we play is a mixture of different styles of music we enjoy listening to.  That’s why you can find inspirations such as prog metal Animals as Leaders, Periphery or jazz Esbjörn Svensson, Hiromi Uehara.  Our biggest inspiration is probably Tigran Hamasyan.

How does the process of writing and creating new music usually work for the band?
It’s very different.  Sometimes we improvise and the ideas just come up.  Our music is full of odd time signatures and polyrhythmics so if the idea is too complex it’s easier when Ziemowit or Tomir write it down and then I think about the drum parts.  Then we start the process of putting together all the instruments and fragments of the composition.  Then after some long hours with a metronome, we have a new song.

Can you talk a little about what went into the making of 'Ocelot of Salvation’?
After we found out that we would get funding from the Polish Music and Dance Institute to record and release our debut album, we started to work intensively on the songs we have already created and composing new ones. The name of the album is kind of an inside joke and a wordplay on lyrics from a traditional Polish Catholic song, so I won’t even try to explain it :D

You have cited 'film music' and 'progressive metal' as musical styles you draw from: what is it about these genres you're able to adopt into your style of jazz?
I think jazz is very cinematic in itself.  It's probably because of its dynamic style and the emotionality of the compositions that make jazz very suggestive and narrative.  We had the opportunity to perform at two film festivals with improvised scores to two animat[ed] movies so I guess it comes pretty naturally for us.  When it comes to progressive metal, we adapt metric modulations and often the arrangements of the songs.  The music we play is as it is because we listen to a wide variety of music and we try to adapt the features we like into our jazzy instrumentarium.  The final effect sounds like a mix of jazz and cinematic music with elements of electronica inspired by prog metal so that is why we describe it this way.

How do you find your music transfers to a live stage?
We notice our songs evolving all the time. Recording music in a studio and playing it live are two very different things and it took us a while to figure it all out.  However, with time we feel more and more comfortable on stage and it's positive effects can be observed in the quality of our performances.

Who would be a dream artist for Immortal Onion to either record or perform with?
We actually haven’t thought about it, but now that you mention it I think it would be awesome to collab with the great Colin Stetson!  His unique way of playing is so powerful and “metal” I think it would work well with our music :D

'Tema de Banderas' / 'Banderas Mambo' by Banderas

Building on the success of previous releases which include the afro-driven funk of 'Liberated Thoughts' by David Hanke alter ego, Dem Juju Poets, and the brilliant album by Swiss afrobeat outfit Professor Wouassa, 'Grow Yes Yes!', Matasuna Records make a nice about-turn with their brand new signing of salsa band, Banderas.

Salsa, famed for having life breathed into it in 1970s New York through Nuyorican bands (New Yorkers of Puerto Rican descent), was always able to boast an eclectic and diverse mix of musical styles incorporating Afro-Cuban percussion, Spanish cancion and at times mixes of Latin jazz, rock and funk as laid down by Ray Barretto, Eddie Palmieri, Hector Lavoe and Fania Records.

So on that note, it may come as something of a surprise that Banderas are actually an 11-piece band from Tokyo, Japan.

Banderas - "the Cuban fueled Japanese power combo" - comprise of Kazuma Koseki (piano), congas by Dategen (former Orquestra de la Luz member), trumpet by Naohito 'Temjin' Yomoda (from Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro) and Izpon who is perhaps best known for his work in Kingdom Afrorocks and collaborations with Tony Allen.

Collectively, the band take excellent leaps in carrying forward the traditions and stylings laid out by the genre’s initial stars and forefathers with killer dancefloor-heavy numbers - 'Tema de Banderas' and 'Banderas Mambo' - that will have you salivating for a full-length album.  For now though, these two singles are available as 7" and digital purchases available from 23rd March 2018.

For more info on Banderas and to get your hands on the singles, please visit Matasuna Records.

'Binary' by WONK x The Love Experiment

With incredible excitement - after purchasing the CD direct online from Japan, waiting three weeks for delivery, paying the additional £13 customs charge - we can now showcase the brilliance of 'Binary': the collaborative project from the New York City-based band, The Love Experiment, and Tokyo's, WONK.

It's been nearly a year since we were fortunate enough to secure time with Charles “Blvk Samurai” Burchell, band leader and drummer for The Love Experiment, and discuss their exquisite debut self-titled album.  The band's innovative approach to music-making, the way they thrive off collobaration and live performances, makes the 'Binary' project the next step in their continued evolution.

As Burchell stated in 2017 regarding The Love Experiment's potential follow-up to their debut, the goals were clear even then: "Funkier, more soulful, more sonically adventurous ... the sound has changed a lot from this current record. We will definitely have a lot more production elements and will try to incorporate the full range of what our band can do sonically."  It's not clear at this time whether 'Binary' was the project being alluded to but the stunning quality of the music on offer here have made his words no less prophetic.

So, enter WONK...

From Tokyo, Japan, WONK are themselves a relatively young band, with their first release having been unveiled in 2016 ('Sphere') but they also boast the distinction of having released their two follow-up records the very next year ('Castor' and 'Pollux') earning them a significant following as a much-respected future soul band in the same vein as their overseas collaborators.

For two bands with uniquely distinctive styles, the songs weave seamlessly together and with interchanging band lineups on each song and The Love Experiment's honey-toned vocalist Kim Mayo sharing lead duties with WONK's Kento Nagatsuka, the whole union over 15 tracks just seems effortless.

In our previous Love Experiment feature, we referred to the band as "exciting representatives for a new generation of progressive soul music".  As relates to 'Binary' - an album with an inspired concept, masterfully executed - we're pleased to now bestow that distinction onto two incredible bands!